NaviNet Open: Next-Generation Multi-Payer Provider Portal
The Project Story
NaviNet’s Legacy Portal (Before the Massive Productized Redesign)
This is what the custom, legacy (pre-NaviNet Open) portal screens looked like before we completely redesigned and modernized the user interface. The navigation was less than optimal, the forms were much more cluttered, and there was simply too much distracting text. There was hardly any prioritization of the information provided on details screens. This means that critical pieces of information, such as patient identity, status, and total charges were given no visual emphasis over lesser, secondary details. All data was presented in small font, and none of it was ordered or grouped in a way where it could be easily scanned and consumed. Moreover, the general look and feel, as well as the interactions, were quite dated. The UI desperately needed a refresh in order for NaviNet to truly be perceived by users as a modern, user-friendly web application.
New Home Page, Primary Navigation, and Plan Central Landing Pages
The primary navigation in NaviNet Open has been consolidated into a new, global ‘Workflows’ menu that was inspired by Amazon and other popular websites. It contains fly-out mega sub-menus. Now, all applications are in easy reach from any given screen. The Home Page has been refreshed with a much more vibrant and crisp look. The content is cleanly laid out and easy to read, while help and support resources are presented right in the sidebar. Plan Central is still built to be a personalized landing page that each health plan can easily brand and swap out content in. However, it now contains a consistent structure, with standardized sections. This way, our users will have a consistent user experience across the entire NaviNet Open portal, regardless of what plan they are working with
Eligibility and Benefits Redesigned from the Ground Up
The Eligibility & Benefits Details screen has been completely rebuilt from the ground up, based on a tremendous amount of upfront contextual field research, as well as countless usability tests. The patient’s name, eligibility status, primary care provider, insurance product, deductible, and out-of-pocket max are strongly emphasized on the screen, as these are the pieces of information we found to be most important to users. Co-pays, co-insurance, and other critical information for various benefit types (i.e. specialties) can be viewed by simply using the menu on the left-hand side. If users don’t know whether a particular provider is preferred, in-network, or out-of-network, they can quickly type the doctor’s name or NPI into the ‘Determine Network’ field and the appropriate column of benefits information will be highlighted. Coordination of Benefits are much easier to determine, as each insurance plan that the patient is covered by now has its own dedicated tab. Finally, clinical documents that the health plan provides, such as care alerts or patient history, are available with a single click.
New Patient Clinical Documents App
The brand new Patient Clinical Documents application offers clinical documents from all health plans connected to NaviNet within a single dashboard view. These documents include care alerts for patients in high risk populations, program enrollment, and longitudinal medical records. The facets on the left allow users to filter down these documents by keyword, date created, payer, or document category. Each document can be viewed inline, downloaded, printed, forwarded via direct secure message, or immediately responded to.
New Referrals App
Our first productized Referrals application is optimized for rapid data entry and high volume submissions. It is built with accessibility and power users in mind. With NaviNet Open applications, the mouse is optional, and users can simply use the keyboard to quickly fill in the forms. Powered by plentiful metadata, the helpful type-ahead widgets allow users to easily find the correct diagnosis codes, CPT codes, and providers that they need to input. Once again, the Referral Details screen is cleanly laid out, with all the most important information visually prioritized. It is made up of common widgets that are used across all new NaviNet apps, such as a patient sidebar (with insurance eligibility) and a summary status bar at the top. User reactions to the colored status bar, in particular, have been tremendously positive. Provider office staff no longer have to search all over the screen to determine whether the referral is active and when it expires.
New Claims App
Claim data can be overwhelming if it is not organized in a well thought out manner. Our goal was to make this application as simple as possible, while still providing quick access to all the information that users need in order to reconcile their books. Our Claims application enables users to look up any claim and, at a glance, immediately determine what the health plan paid. Individual service lines are cleanly presented with all of the pertinent details included, such as allowed amount and patent responsibility. Users are only one click away from eligibility and benefits information for the patient, as well as the EOB/remittance that the claim payment was bundled in.
Validating the New Portal Navigation Design
In NaviNet Open, I proposed some major changes to the navigation. Some folks in the organization were skeptical of these changes. They were particularly concerned that our existing high utilizers would be upset because they’ve spent many years getting used to the old legacy system’s navigation. In order to alleviate these fears and prove that our new NaviNet Open navigation system was indeed a better choice, we conducted a large scale validation study that included both moderated and unmoderated usability tests. This allowed us to present a potent combination of qualitative and quantitative results to the executive board and unanimously convince them that our proposed design was the right direction to go in.
Large-Scale Unmoderated Usability Testing Study
Leveraging a web tool called Loop11, we were able to put our prototype in front of hundreds of users at once in order to see how well they performed while using our proposed navigation scheme for NaviNet Open. This provided us with statistically significant, quantitative data that we could use to justify our design choices. The average success rate across all tasks was 79%, which is extremely high, considering the large pool of participants. Moreover, many of the individual tasks had a success rate score in the 80s and even high 90s. Loop11 showed us the click path that users took to get a given page, as well as the URLs they ended up on when failing or abandoning a task. This was extremely helpful information and it allowed us to tweak the navigation system to make it even better.
User Satisfaction Survey and Individual Task Metrics
After participants completed the usability testing tasks, we also provided them with a user satisfaction survey, in order to determine how they inherently felt about the new NaviNet Open user interface. Over 82% said it was as good or better than the legacy NaviNet Portal, and 80% said it was as good or better than other healthcare systems that they regularly use. Furthermore, these high scores were consistent across both frequent and occasional users of NaviNet, which was a very good sign. This confirmed that the new UI was not only easy for beginners to grasp, but long-time users also felt that the changes were an improvement. In our executive stakeholder presentation, we elected to reveal the breakdown of results for each individual task. This allowed folks to view and compare where users were most successful, as well as where they struggled the most. This level of transparency was appreciated by all and it further increased their confidence in our design recommendations.
Positive Feedback from Users
The site is exceptionally easy to navigate. I am able to get much more information with fewer clicks! I also like the expanded plan information in Eligibility and Benefits.
Any site improvements that decrease time spent searching for data, provide accurate and timely information and improve productivity have my vote. You guys are on the right track!
The new QualCare Eligibility & Benefits is much cleaner and easier to use to find the benefit details.
I see a huge improvement… Glad it’s finally happening. Long time coming!
The workflow is extremely user-friendly. I’m very happy with the new site – great job!
NaviNet is just a very user-friendly site to look up Eligibility/Benefits etc. on. It is easy to navigate even for first time users.
So much easier to navigate, and not as redundant. I like the bigger font and the colors. They call out what you need to see.
The green active bar is awesome! It was super easy to distinguish. I was expecting it to be harder to find the status, so I was checking all over the web page for some small print stating “authorized.” After all, that is how it used to be in the old version of NaviNet. But then I blinked, and it was so much more obvious, right in front of me! Love the layout. What I needed was the first thing on the page. Great!
Love the color coded Claim Status Inquiry – It will make it much easier to quickly identify the status of a claim.
Screens look more streamlined… I would love to have this new look applied to all of the plans in here.
I like the layout! Everything is very clear and easy to read, and I appreciate how things are color coded.
Very easy navigation! I can get the information I need quickly.
