Searching for a Better Way

Problem

1. At some point or another you’ve likely had to utilize your insurance provider’s online system to find a healthcare provider. Serving as a vital link between a patient and extensive healthcare directories, users rely on provider finders not only to streamline the selection process, but also to ensure that their chosen providers are within their insurance network, safeguarding them from unexpected expenses.
2. It’s actually about the user, not the provider. Interactions with provider finders often occur during circumstances that induce elevated levels of stress. These situations include moving to a new area, changing employer insurance, receiving a recent diagnosis, or expanding one's family, among others. In such instances, users are faced with the challenging task of finding and confirming a provider who meets their specific needs, is covered by their insurance, and has current appointment availability. This combination of heightened stress, and additional responsibility placed on the user, creates an initial experience state that is far from ideal.

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Solution

Utilize AI to help identify the right doctor, just just the right type of practitioner

Often, a patient may experience a standard symptom such as pain or weakness and then pushed off by the doctor, something that women and minority communities happen all too well. By asking the patient to describe their symptoms and pairing what we already know about the patient, we can better target specific doctors that may be a better fit for our particular patient. Our tool would:

1. Analyze keywords from the patient's symptoms
2. Compare against the patient's own medical history
3. Compare with what we know about our healthcare providers and their other patients

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Use information that we already know

We can utilize information provided by the user's employer to cut out repetitive steps that leaves the user asking "shouldn't they already know this?"

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Personalize results for different user contexts

Sorting by distance is great, but a distance of half a mile or 5 miles can mean the same thing to someone who relies on public transportation or is traveling from the suburbs into the city to see a specialist.

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Show thinking, show value

We made a decision to show the user the maximum number of results they could receive from the provider's network, but then to show the number going down as the results narrowed. This lets the user know the value of their insurance provider's network, while also showing that the platform is doing work in real-time to generate personalized results for the user.

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Deliver personalized results

Finally, the platform shows the user their results, highlighting the doctor that is most recommended and why. Of course, users will want to see what other options are out there, so we provide a set of top matches to compare.