Increasing revenue and pace of R&D thorugh design-ops

Simplee

Contributor

Marc Levinson

I joined Simplee to build out product design, an underdeveloped part of the organization. At the time, design support was coming from the marketing team, so I led the effort to establish a dedicated product design function embedded within product, working closely alongside three PMs and more than two dozen engineers. Simplee was one of the most widely adopted medical billing platforms in the US, processing over $10 billion annually and serving four of the top ten healthcare systems. During my tenure, I overhauled the core billing experience, played a key role in launching/expanding the pre-service, estimate tool, led research and development for Simplee's point-of-service product meant for check-in at clinics and hospitals. As I formalized team processes and hired two additional designers, I progressively took on the product management responsibilities, eventually I formally joined the exceptional product team to lead consumer-facing initiatives.

I joined Simplee to build out product design, an underdeveloped part of the organization. At the time, design support was coming from the marketing team, so I led the effort to establish a dedicated product design function embedded within product, working closely alongside three PMs and more than two dozen engineers. Simplee was one of the most widely adopted medical billing platforms in the US, processing over $10 billion annually and serving four of the top ten healthcare systems. During my tenure, I overhauled the core billing experience, played a key role in launching/expanding the pre-service, estimate tool, led research and development for Simplee's point-of-service product meant for check-in at clinics and hospitals. As I formalized team processes and hired two additional designers, I progressively took on the product management responsibilities, eventually I formally joined the exceptional product team to lead consumer-facing initiatives.

Highlights

Presented payment options based on Machine Learning

Surfaced propensity-to-pay modeling and segmentation logic to patients

Increased medical payments

Increased patient engagement and improved key collection KPIs

Standardized and modernized entire platform

Designed and shipped ADA-accessible, responsive UI for patient billing flows

Helped test and launch new products

Co-led launch for pre-service pricing and point-of-service billing tools

Platform acquired by Flywire (NASDAQ: FLYW) soon after my departure

Highlights

Presented payment options based on Machine Learning

Surfaced propensity-to-pay modeling and segmentation logic to patients

Increased medical payments

Increased patient engagement and improved key collection KPIs

Standardized and modernized entire platform

Designed and shipped ADA-accessible, responsive UI for patient billing flows

Helped test and launch new products

Co-led launch for pre-service pricing and point-of-service billing tools

Platform acquired by Flywire (NASDAQ: FLYW) soon after my departure

Hospital bills are a huge problem… obviously

3 Million

American adults owe over $10,000 in medical debt. Almost 1% of the population.

3 Million

American adults owe over $10,000 in medical debt. Almost 1% of the population.

3 Million

American adults owe over $10,000 in medical debt. Almost 1% of the population.

47%

of people with debt are unaware of the interest free options offered by hospitals.

47%

of people with debt are unaware of the interest free options offered by hospitals.

47%

of people with debt are unaware of the interest free options offered by hospitals.

58%

of debt currently in collections is medical debt.

58%

of debt currently in collections is medical debt.

58%

of debt currently in collections is medical debt.

$0.12

Is the amount hospitals recover for every dollar they send to collections.

$0.12

Is the amount hospitals recover for every dollar they send to collections.

$0.12

Is the amount hospitals recover for every dollar they send to collections.

We redesigned the patient billing experience to be transparent, accessible, and actionable. This resulted in improved visibility and increased payment rates. By giving patients the ability to understand their charges, explore payment plans, and self-service across devices, we helped keep hospitals from sending bills to collections for pennies on the dollar.

Standardization, accessibility and scalability through design

By the time I joined, Simplee had secured a substantial first-mover advantage and was already leveraging its data to differentiate on the business side. However, the consumer experience still had a long way to go. The UI was a patchwork of overlapping patterns, legacy components, inconsistent visual treatments and, from time to time, even broken experiences with dead ends.

This fragmentation created unnecessary overhead across product, design and engineering. In this case it also caused friction for patients. When billions of dollars worth of transactions move through a system, anything that slows or prevents users from completing their task can quickly add up to millions in lost revenue. One of my first priorities was to stop the compounding UX/Front-end debt while bringing consistency, accessibility, and structure to the platform.

To address this, I audited the existing platform and outlined common patterns and components that we could apply across the board. We knew we wanted to account for ADA compliance and introduce a mobile experience so considerations were made to ensure that the app was responsive and allowed for additional accessibility needs.

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