Find Medicare
Making Medicare Advantage more simple by working with trusted insurance carriers to match individuals with a plan that offers them the necessary coverage at an affordable price.
Problem
If an individual wants to sign up for Medicare Advantage, they need to print out the appropriate forms and fill them out by hand. This process can be long and confusing as people do not know if they are filling the papers out correctly and signing up for the right things.
Solution
Find Medicare is a simplified digital experience that uses the provided information of an individual to match them with potential insurance plans that they can compare to find the perfect plan that fits their needs and budget.
Process
We started with the thesis that there is a gap within the Medicare Advantage market and that we could produce a product that could serve consumers’ needs while leveraging our digital marketing and website optimization skill sets.
Competitive Analysis
Our team found that multiple lead aggregators compete in the paid search landscape and that these third-party sites were losing consumers' trust. Our competitors were using deceiving calls-to-action on their landing pages to push to outbound calls rather than online plan information. As well as, users could only view plan information after their personal information had been sold. This allowed us a space to come in and not only make the Medicare sign-up process better but more trustworthy.
Demographics & Digital Engagement
50% of our audience considers themselves in “Good Health.”
74% of our traffic currently has Medicare, but this does range by age group.
2x of those new to medicare are more likely to engage further with plans.
2.5x younger age groups are more likely to enroll digitally.
User Interviews
Through Usertesting.com, the team conducted multiple user interviews to determine if there was a gap within the Medicare Advantage space and what was missing in consumers’ everyday experiences.
From testimonials, we found that users were looking for an alternative option to the sites where they had to print out their forms while having a more personalized experience that allows them to compare multiple plan options while summarizing key benefits.
“I want to know that the information I am providing will be used to personalize my experience.”
“The plan information is often confusing. I need something that can summarize the key benefits for me.”
“I need a digital solution for comparing multiple plan options. Right now, I print out the information and do it manually.”
Creating an MVP
With the data we collected during research, we began to digitize the experience of researching and applying for Medicare Advantage plans. Taking inspiration from the printed forms consumers were familiar with, we took those papers and recreated them on screen. Where we made sure to ask for only the necessary information needed to complete sign-ups and compare plans while bettering or eliminating known pain points we had learned from our user interviews. This allowed us to quickly bring an MVP to the market test during the Open Enrollment Period.
on-site testing & Iteration
The Open Enrollment Period is between October 15 – December 7 every year. This is when those eligible for Medicare can join, switch, or drop a plan, and this time was the most important for my team. It was when we got quick data points to see what was happening across the site.
As we monitored, my team noticed that our sign-up workflow had many drop-offs, where consumers never completed the flow. Being able to see this happening in real-time, we quickly pivoted. Believing that the drop-offs were caused by the number of screens in the flow, we decided on a complete redesign. We cut the number of screens from ten to only three and launched the change during the Open Enrollment Period.
Conclusion
Gathering so much data quickly allowed my team to change course regarding our sign-up workflow easily and, in turn, make it a better experience for our users. By the end of the Open Enrollment Period, we were able to increase our completion rate by 12% coming in at 40%, more than doubling industry standard sites at 17%.
As for learning and comparing plans, the amount of information to understand each plan was still overwhelming to consumers. We did try to mitigate this by using expandable categories, in which individuals could toggle open or closed different categories. However, I’m unsure if this is how consumers want to interact with such in-depth information. While 60% of the traffic did interact with the expandable categories, I’m uncertain if that is necessarily a good signal. Instead, it could show that consumers want to continue reading, even though confusing, and that having to expand everything is a hindrance to that. This is something that I am curious about and would like to research further so that I have a better direction on how to make our current experience less overwhelming for consumers by the next Open Enrollment Period.