Medicare.gov Plan Compare
Redesigning a federal health care tool for a new generation.
user experience research • USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN • USER INTERFACE DESIGn • brand identity • CONTENT STRATEGY
Plan Compare is the primary tool Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers use to determine which Medicare plan and/or supplements are right for them. Ad Hoc’s Medicare Coverage Tools team was tasked to collaboratively work with stakeholders and subject matter experts from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Web and Emerging Technologies Group to redesign Medicare.gov’s Plan Compare experience with both a contemporary look and a user-centered application.
Until CMS contracted with Ad Hoc to redesign the Medicare.gov Plan Compare tool, the original online plan compare tool hadn’t been updated since t was first launched in the early aughts. There were many opportunities for improvements, especially with regards to the user experience. The homepage of Plan Compare has three calls to action for the three main user types—new beneficiaries who want to know more or are browsing, returning beneficiaries, and beneficiaries needing to determine if they qualify for a special enrollment period.
The ins and outs of Medicare policy are complicated and confusing, so it was imperative the information provided didn’t overwhelm new beneficiaries signing up for Medicare the first time; too much information and it could further complicate an already confusing subject—health insurance. Naturally, a focus of the redesign was to create more support and information so that beneficiaries could make an informed decision around which Medicare plan best works for them. Working closely with the CMS content strategy team, we developed an interactive tool which allowed users to browse their Medicare options, while dynamically being able to see the differences in price and coverage.
In addition to educating customers on their Medicare options, providing customers with personalized plan results in the redesign. On the back end this meant connecting the front end to more sophisticated drug pricing data lookup and pricing. Medicare customers have the option to add the current prescription drugs they are taking—with generic options—as well as their preferred pharmacies so they will be given accurate pricing information for their plan results. Later on the plan results page, When selecting multiple pharmacies, a tool bar appears at the bottom of the screen so users can easily reference which pharmacies have been selected before continuing on to plan results. On the plan results page, the tool bar for multiple selections is used again to visually indicate to the user which plans have been selected, providing consistency within the experience. When comparing up to 3 plans, more detail about the plans is provided than what appears in the list view of plan results. When comparing plans, the person can quickly see that one plan covers 2 of their prescriptions, while the other only covers one.
Research & Design Process
The initial phase of the Medicare.gov Plan Compare redesign and rebuild was heavily focused on research and discovery. First, I interviewed Medicare stakeholders at CMS to get a better understanding of Medicare policy. I gathered primary research material which looked at not only how Medicare beneficiaries determine plans best suited for them, but best practices for the Medicare demographic. After conducting a thorough review of the original plan finder tool, I presented my findings on key features that needed to be paid design attention to, and overall goals of the redesign to the CMS stakeholders and program owner. This presentation also proved valuable for the Ad Hoc engineering team—I modified the presentation to focus on improvements in the both the back and front end. As I have moved forward in my career, I have found it to be incredibly vital for engineers to understand the experience goals and improvements. How quickly databases can be called on and results can be fetched is just as critical to the overall experience as how that data looks when presented to the end user. Once a thorough design review had been conducted, we began to collect and parse out the product requirements. I visually represented these visually using diagrams, flow charts, and experience maps. These artifacts proved to be a tremendous resource for the government stakeholders to be able to visually understand the architecture of the web app.
Lo-fidelity wireframes were a key part of the redesign process. Medicare.gov would eventually get an entire site redesign, so I didn’t want to have stakeholders discuss too deeply the visual look and feel of the Plan Compare app. A complete design system for Healthcare.gov already existed; working with the CMS design manager, I created a Medicare.gov site package of colors and typography treatment. Other teams working on additional Medicare.gov web applications were mandated to use the site package, so the redesign could get a head start with consistency. Many rounds of revisions were required as each feature was fine tuned. Prototypes were produced with InVision which were used for user testing. I observed nearly every user testing session, taking my own notes that I referenced back to when discussing the recommendations made by the third party user testing group.
