Meeting consumers where they are with a more seamless digital experience in health care
UnitedHealthcare Chief Consumer Officer Samantha Baker shares how health care is evolving to offer a digital-first experience.
By Samantha Baker, Chief Consumer Officer for UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual
Consumer expectations around digital experiences are higher than ever. Whether shopping for groceries or planning their next trip, consumers are looking for ease, convenience and simplicity. They also want a connected and tailored digital experience, especially for something as personal as health care.
That’s why my team is focused on our consumer experience from end to end to help ensure it’s as simple and easy as possible for our members to navigate their health benefits and care when they need it.
Delivering a digital-first health care experience
Every day, we come to work looking for ways to remove the burden from our members and help make it easier for them to navigate their health journey. We know health care is incredibly complex and that many employees struggle to understand the plan and benefits their employer offers, asking questions like:
- Which provider or specialist should I see?
- What programs are available to me?
- How much is my provider visit, treatment, procedure or prescription going to cost?
Since we’ve continued to see a shift in web traffic to smartphones over desktop devices, we’ve put a lot of effort in making our UnitedHealthcare® app a better experience. When employees come to the UnitedHealthcare app or myuhc.com®, we want them to feel like it’s a front door where they’re able to enter and more seamlessly find the answers they’re seeking.
That includes accessing their health plan benefits — for instance, finding and accessing personalized provider recommendations geared to their stage of life and individual health journey. They’ll also be able to find behavioral health resources, including self-guided, virtual or in-person support. For those with embedded pharmacy coverage, personalized dashboards are also helping make it easier for them to understand and manage their prescriptions. This includes showing employees what medications are covered and enabling them to order and track their prescriptions directly through our website or app.
Our efforts to simplify the digital experience also extend to everything from the language in our Explanation of Benefits (EOB) to a more streamlined claims process. For instance, now employees can track the status of their claims, and they can pay for multiple claims at once in the method they prefer.
Yet, the digital experience we want to provide goes beyond ease and simplicity. Our goal is for members to stay engaged in their health and well-being, which may lead to better health outcomes and lower costs. That’s why rewards programs that incent employees for achieving certain daily goals or completing one-time activities can be such an important aspect of the connected digital experience offered via the UnitedHealthcare app or myuhc.com.
The easier we make it for members to engage with their benefits, the more likely they may be to proactively take care of their health.
High-touch support is also part of the puzzle, for everything from questions stemming from benefits confusion to complex condition management. Our Advocacy solutions provide the 1-on-1 human support that some members really want and value. That sort of highly personalized support will continue to play a role in our consumer experience even with all the advances we are making digitally.
