HealthCare.gov Find Local Help
Providing access to insurance experts when customers need help picking an insurance plan.
USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN • USER INTERFACE DESIGn
The Find Local Help tool on HealthCare.gov connects customers to in-person one-on-one assistance signing up for health insurance on the marketplace. In 2017, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services contracted with Ad Hoc to improve the performance and user experience of the Find Local Help tool.
Of utmost importance to stakeholders was delivering localized and personalized results for the people using Find Local Help. It was important to keep in mind the person’s state of mind when coming to the Find Local Help tool. Somewhere along the way the Healthcare.gov customer has gotten confused, and likely frustrated. Respecting the emotional state of the customer, it was imperative to first deliver localized results as quickly as possible. Having both a input field for the person’s zip code as well as the option to use the browser’s built-in location finder allows customers to choose how localized they want their results to appear.
After doing a user experience audit of the original tool, it was discussed that users could not deep link to the details page of a specific Agent or Broker and Assister. Imagining a scenario in which someone would want to share the details of an assister to family member, caregiver, or friend; I made it known the importance of this micro feature to the development team. They quickly understood the improved user experience, and included it in their technological improvements of the tool. As a user experience designer I believe it is vital to build a collaborative working relationship with engineers. Not only will they be implementing your ideas and designs, but engineers can provide technical insight that can improve the overall user experience.
An important component of Find Local Help is educating the customer around the two different kinds of help which are available to them. The two different kinds of help are Agents or Brokers and Assisters. Agents or Brokers serve as representatives of insurance companies, while Assisters may specialize in helping those with a specific health care need. We went through many options and rounds of revisions to determine the best way to communicate these differences to the people using the Find Local Help Tool. Ultimately we decided to have a link at the top of the page directing people to the HealthCare.gov Learn page about Agents or Brokers and Assisters. Keeping all educational material in one centralized place, thereby preventing the results page from being too cluttered.
Case Study
In the first quarter of 2019, Ad Hoc devoted a good amount of time to revamping the company’s blog by including more specific posts about the improvements Ad Hoc has made with its federal clients. With the initial and ongoing success of Find Local Help, I wrote a post detailing not only the user experience and user interface improvements, but also the technological improvements without which an improved user experience wouldn’t have been possible. I discuss the importance of considering a user’s mental load when coming to use the Find Local Help tool.
