6/13/2020
Medicare UX Challenge.gov National Winner – Claudia Cassidy
Claudia Cassidy
User Experience Engineer and Mobile Apps Developer
Medicare UX Challenge.gov National Winner
Mockups
(https://claudiacassidy.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/mips-mobileprinter-ccassidy.pdf)
Business Problem
Create a mobile solution to reach 1.2M eligible clinicians. The Affordable Care Act includes new
regulations which will dramatically change the way Medicare payments are made to medical
professionals. The law is complex and has many new changes that medical professionals are
required to do. There are new variables and calculations which determine the amount clinicians
are paid.
Feedback from users was that they wanted more real-time information so they could successfully
report to Medicare. The goal is to design innovative ways of improving communication to educate
physicians, support staff, health organization leadership, data vendors, and other impacted parties.
Having key information and access to the right support at the right time reduces burden and
provides increased satisfaction for the MIPS clinicians and their supporting entities.
Approach
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6/13/2020
Medicare UX Challenge.gov National Winner – Claudia Cassidy
When designing the app, I imagined the users currently wading through a thick three ring binder
filled with pages of orientation information. My vision was to adapt that binder into an app in
which the information would be populated in real time by a web service, the content would
include media elements, too, such as videos, and the contents would be personalized for the user.
Being an app, the “pages” in the binder would be rich media content such as videos, html pages,
slides, and more which could be saved and shared.
The Process
1 – Solve the problem of educating users about the law.
I decided that the best way to handle educating users via the mobile app was to let the app be a
conduit of information. Using my programming experience I knew that there could be a web
service hosted on a backend server which would contain all of the data. The app would be
programmed to call the web service and use the data in that web service to populate a table of
contents, sub categories, and links to videos, powerpoint slides, webinars, web pages, and other
educational resources and materials.
This solves the problem of keeping the information in the app current as some aspects of the law,
such as deadlines, can change frequently. More importantly, it gives control of the content to the
subject ma er experts at the Department of Health & Human Services.
2 – Solve the problem of showing only the information that is relevant to the specific users, for
example, a cardiologist.
Having the content hosted on a web server also offers the advantage of being able to create custom
data sets for different users. I called them “programs” in the app. A physician could view a
“Physician’s program” or an “Office Manager’s program” and each would contain information
relevant to that role. The mobile app is structured to read the web service data and use that data
to populate a table of contents, menu categories and links to content on the web.
The mobile app would also let the user save items to favorites and share items on social media.
3 – Solve the problem of showing users how they are measured for quality vs. quantity of patient
care.
As a developer, I knew that I could download the spreadsheet which contained all of the
regulations, export it to cvs and then import it into a local database. I developed a MIPS calculator
which would allow the user to see various scenarios and the number of points that would be
generated. That way, a user could select various combinations of options and see which produces
the highest score. The higher the score, the higher the payment. A user could learn by doing
instead of only by concept.
4 – Solve the problem of keeping users informed about news, deadlines and changes to the law
The mobile app could receive push notifications in order to notify users about important events
and display the message on whatever screen they are currently on. When tapped, the notifications
would open the app.
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6/13/2020
Medicare UX Challenge.gov National Winner – Claudia Cassidy
The mobile app would also contain a widget component, so that users could see a reminder about
a webinar, a news headline, or a countdown timer to a deadline.
Result
My designs won the UX portion of the challenge.
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Medicare UX Challenge.gov National Winner – Claudia Cassidy
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