Program-Specific Research
Discovery & Service Design Recs
for Non-Traditional Medicare Benefits
As new Medicare benefits were added, our stakeholders in the Office of Communications requested discovery efforts to support a UX strategy.
Many of these benefits are complex or otherwise “non-traditional,” in that they involve bundled claims codes, non-traditional provider settings, a mix of pharmacy and clinician services that straddle Medicare Parts B & D, or all-new medical equipment categories. As such, they had no natural home on existing Medicare.gov tools.
To support beneficiaries and other end stakeholders, I undertook discovery on user needs, policy, and medical and industry factors, and devised service design strategies that linked existing Medicare and .gov tools, created features and search ontologies enhancements, and sought to break down the divide between Medicare.gov and CMS.gov resources where appropriate.
Many of these benefits are complex or otherwise “non-traditional,” in that they involve bundled claims codes, non-traditional provider settings, a mix of pharmacy and clinician services that straddle Medicare Parts B & D, or all-new medical equipment categories. As such, they had no natural home on existing Medicare.gov tools.
To support beneficiaries and other end stakeholders, I undertook discovery on user needs, policy, and medical and industry factors, and devised service design strategies that linked existing Medicare and .gov tools, created features and search ontologies enhancements, and sought to break down the divide between Medicare.gov and CMS.gov resources where appropriate.
To introduce home infusion equipment on the DME supplier site without unsettling the site as a whole, we:
• enhanced the site ontology by including home infusion search terms, and
• introduced a slide out where users can choose the equipment they need
MDPP is Medicare’s version of a CDC-led curriculum for diabetes prevention. Participants commit to a full-year series of classes on nutrition, exercise and accountability.
Our solution took Medicare’s repo of MDPP providers info off a buried page with no searchability and connected it with a location search widget on the MDPP coverage page.
