Two Archetypes
Main Personas
Primary Medical Patient Payer and Secondary Patient Portal User
Interview participants had a variety of methods for paying and tracking their medical bill. Some users exclusively use their patient portals and have no physical statements while other users will not pay a bill without a physical statement and their insurance explanation of benefits. It is important to note that each participant needed proof of payment or some sort of paper-trail due to the confusing nature of medical bill reconciliation (similar amounts billed or multiple bills coming from a single date of service). This study incorporated a primary and secondary user. Primary users generally took care of their family’s or just their own medical bills. Secondary users are helpers- they are children, friends, social workers, etc. helping the actual patient with their medical bills due to needing additional help understanding, paying and checking to see if they have paid their medical bills.
Busy But Organized Archetype
Meet Martha & Leo
36, Business Manager
24 months, baby
Martha is taking a much needed break from being a business manager for her maternity leave. Her new baby Leo is only a couple months old and needs a lot of her time and attention. So she is trying to keep life as simple as possible.
She does have medical bills and personal healing to keep track of since she just gave birth; she relies on her patient portal to not only give her alerts for postnatal and well child visits, but also make the understanding, tracking, and paying a bill easy.
Since she often gets email notifications for bills and then forgets about them, so she has kept her paper statements coming as a visual cue. She is concerned about making sure to pay all her bills right when she gets them.
Sometimes she gets confused on what to pay since she has so many similar copay and coinsurance amounts. She often wonders if she is paying the bill twice and uses the bill pay on her phone, calendar, and credit card statement to reconcile bills. This is a lot of extra work to keep track of everything though.
“I scan to make sure that the bills look correct and just get them paid. I just don’t have the time to sit and compare, so I hope they’re right. ”
“ I scan to make sure that the bills look correct and just get them paid. I just don’t have the time to sit and compare, so I hope they’re right. ”
Personality
- Busy
- Multitasker
- Professional
- Sleepy
- Kind
- Proactive
- Homebodies
- Trusting
Motivations
- Paying bills in a timely manner.
- Make sure not to forget to pay bills.
- Spend as little time as possible on anything but caring for and enjoying time with newborn while on maternity leave.
Goals & Needs
- Trying to make sure that all the things that she has to take care of get completed.
- Needs to have everything summed up and easy to understand for billing.
- Needs a visual cue to remember to make a payment.
- Needs some kind of confirmation on which dates of service have been paid.
Frustrations & Fears
- Can only spend a limited amount of time confirming if the balance is paid.
- She has a lot to keep track of so not knowing if a bill has been paid is quite annoying.
- She does not have time to sit and wait to talk to billing to confirm if balance owing is correct i.e. paid already or new/similar.
- Going to collections to have balance reported as delinquent on her credit.
Frequently Used Tools & Applications
- Calendar application
- Medical Patient Portal
- Insurance benefits portal
- Credit card statements
- HSA card statements
- Personal Email
Empathy Map
Friendly Helper Archetype
Andrea and Auntie Jean
42, Andrea, niece lending a hand
78, Auntie Jean, retired
Andrea is determined to help her Auntie Jean figure out her billing issues. Auntie Jean can still live by herself and has a small amount of income coming in, but sometimes has difficulty understanding if both of her insurances have paid the bill and if she has this responsibility to pay. The statements and explanation of benefits (EoBs) jargon and billing statements are not easy to follow.
The mess of reconciling bills is anxiety-provoking for both women. Auntie Jean wants to make sure that the nurses and doctors that helped her last time she fell get paid. Auntie Jean usually writes checks to pay bills and is pretty sure she has taken care of all the payments but has a stack of older statements from the facilities, physicians, and labs, plus another stack of insurance EoBs.
Andrea sees that there are patient portals for some of these bills and decides to take a look to see if some of those billing portals can help add some clarity to these piles of bills, explanations of benefits, and Auntie’s bank statements.
“I am helping my auntie to figure out what she owes- she can’t seem to figure out what she’s paid.”
“I am helping my auntie to figure out what she owes- she can’t seem to figure out what she’s paid.”
Andrea’s Personality
- Focused
- Determined
- Kind
- Organized
- Hopeful
Auntie Jean’s Personality
- Thoughtful
- Concerned
- Responsible
- Courteous
Motivations
- Assure that doctors and nurses that helped Auntie Jean get paid.
- Confirm that these statements have been paid to file them away.
- Assuage some of the anxiety that Auntie Jean is feeling about if she has an unpaid bill.
- Check that insurance has been billed and that she only pays the balances she actually owes.
Goals & Needs
- Check through previous patient payments to confirm that dates of services were paid by insurance.
- Needs to confirm that she has paid the portion that she owes to the medical groups and doctors that helped her.
Frustrations & Fears
- Concerned that she has not paid the staff that helped her.
- Worried that she will pay a bill before she should and insurance won’t pay.
- Anxious since she has not been able to check if all patient balances are paid.
- Worried about going to collections.
Frequently Used Tools & Applications
- Patient Portal – Insurance
- Patient Portal – Medical
- Banking statements
Empathy Map
Contact Kathryn