Written by Asher Kaplan-Daily on Mar 18, 2015
Why User Experience Needs to Come to Healthcare Payments
We are pleased to introduce Salucro’s Product Manager, Asher Kaplan-Dailey. Asher recently joined Salucro with nearly a decade of experience in technology and will oversee all platform and product development. He has worked in mobile throughout his career at IQzone, a mobile advertising technology company.
The user experience has been almost lost in healthcare. Simplicity is probably the most important thing. Like popular consumer brands, healthcare companies must also develop a product that’s simple, and easy to use that logically flows from one step to the next. You can have a beautiful interface, but if it doesn’t flow in a logical way, then it’s worthless.
If you always put your customer first then you’re going to build a best-in-class user experience.
If you have the general mindset that you always put your customer’s or end user’s needs first, then you’re going to be on the right track. By putting the end user’s needs first it means that you are designing your overall solution and product based on what they need, not based on what they think you need or based on what the executives at your company want.
A positive user experience means more healthcare revenue.
Having a quality UI (User Interface) really can improve the overall revenue because it’s going to mean that more patients are actually going to finish that payment once they’ve started. If they had a pleasant experience in your payment solution it also means they’re more likely to return to pay the next time.
UX (User Experience) should be derived from people’s problems. The aim is to find an enjoyable solution to that problem.
For healthcare payments, the better user experience you have, the more likely the end patient is going to complete the payment. You see a lot of cases with software in general, if it’s not something that’s simple to use, then people will just drop it very easily.
Mobile has arrived in Healthcare.
Payments are the next step when it comes to healthcare and mobile. Mobile is emerging as the most prevalent technology across pretty much every industry. It makes sense that mobile is going to be very relevant when it comes to healthcare as well. A large majority of consumers nowadays have a smart phone, especially here in the United States.
With the ability and functionality that comes with the smart phone, the user has higher expectations. It’s a trend that’s going to be coming much quicker than expected for a lot of people.
Convenience is key with mobile. Having a well-designed mobile payment system will have dramatic results as far as increasing patient satisfaction as well as convenience. The more convenient you make a payment process, the more likely that a patient is actually going to make that payment.
It’s an exciting time to be in here.
Technology is becoming a major player in really all aspects of the healthcare industry. When you look at all the different smartphone apps that are coming out, Apple just released their whole HealthKit app solution, that’s all geared towards the industry in really bringing healthcare delivery to people’s fingertips from wearables to different smartphone apps.
This empowers the patients. It empowers the healthcare providers. Technology is bringing solutions for everyone.
I joined Salucro because the platform is different.
Outside of Salucro’s solution, the present payment systems in healthcare are old and fragmented. Salucro’s platform is unique because it really fills a void in the industry that I’ve seen. After joining the company I was part of several product demonstrations to potential customers early on, and it was very rewarding to hear the excitement and enjoyment in their voices when they see the capabilities and the functionality that our platform can provide.
They are saying “where have you guys been? We’ve been looking for something like this.” A lot of healthcare providers just don’t realize it’s out there. They don’t realize that a healthcare payment platform like this can be so easy and so fluid. That’s what really makes me passionate about the platform.
Payment options are more important to patients than ever before.
In the healthcare industry there has always been an issue with the amount of payment options and confusing statements. Salucro’s platform really does a lot to streamline that to provide as many payment options as possible, including PayPal, PayPal Credit and recurring payment plans that are needed in the industry with increasing patient responsibility.
This goes back to user experience; always try to make your platform easy to use for the end user, in this case, the patient.
Healthcare is evolving; you need software that evolves too.
Something that’s cool about Salucro’s platform is the company’s general willingness to really serve the customer – the willingness to adapt and evolve. We’re always trying to improve. We’re always trying to find the next ‘emerging’ thing that we can integrate. The company is quite progressive.
And building it in a way that leaves it open for customization is very crucial because different providers and different customers are always going to have different expectations and different needs. Building a platform in a framework that is somewhat open so that it is easily customizable is very important.
Today’s healthcare providers are in the position to lower any barriers to their patients making payments. At Salucro we will fill that gap by making the process more convenient and less confusing.