Why we need to make navigating health care as simple as buying a new TV

When a friend’s family was confronted with a rare cancer diagnosis for their son last year, the first care navigation step they took was on Facebook. It’s not surprising. When consumers search for information about buying a flatscreen TV or booking a trip to Italy, their inclination is to go online – and stay there. The internet enables them to make confident choices using easy and trusted tools to gather and analyze information. Search engines are intuitive and quickly take people to the information that satisfies their needs and interests, even if the results aren’t always high quality, highly accurate, or personalized to their needs.

But when faced with far more serious choices – parsing the spectrum of issues from health to wellbeing; finding the right physician or therapist; knowing which ones are in-network and taking patients; understanding the cost and efficacy of different therapeutic options – individuals are largely operating in the dark, frustrated by complicated systems that don’t enable them to easily understand their options. People need an easy button. What can be done to make the navigation experience as accessible as consumer shopping? And what should employers ask when deciding what navigation tools will best serve their members’ needs?

Though the United States spends more money per capita on health care than any other industrialized country, more than 70% of adults believe the system is failing to meet their needs. Health care reform typically focuses on cost as a barrier to care; however, figuring out how to build an easy button would do more than any other single remedy to improve access to care. Lowering the cost of care is worthless if people can’t figure out where to get the information they need to receive it.

Building an easy button starts with understanding human motivation. When people compare Kia and Ford electric vehicles, or what restaurant has the best seafood, they stick with the process because they can visualize something amazing at the end – a shiny new car or a delicious dinner. When searching to address a health or wellbeing issue, what could be more amazing than visualizing what that success looks like? It could be life-altering.

The reality is, we have a disease care system, not a true health care system, and as a result, our health navigation tools aren’t designed to motivate or inspire – and there’s a broad assumption that people don’t know enough to expect and want choices and a better experience. Employers whose plans offer narrow networks limit choice and presume their members will simply accept that, so true navigation rarely enters the conversation. Members may rely on word-of-mouth recommendations for a care provider, which has some value, but it can’t produce the volume of information that should inform decisions. Their insurers do have some visibility into outcomes and cost, but they’re not digitally minded in the way that Amazon or Netflix are, to provide a satisfying consumer experience.

The experience isn’t personalized, and options aren’t served up. If someone can’t readily get an answer, or even find a path for one, they’ll give up and say, “Hey, John, who did you use for your colonoscopy?” That happened recently at a conference I attended in Dallas, and I learned that the cost for recommended providers in the area ranged from $500 to $28,000. My fellow attendees – who were in the industry – were astounded. It’s the kind of siloed information that web navigation would expose instantly.

Employers’ benefits choices directly determine employees’ options, so it’s critical that they address this shift in market complexity and consumer expectations and needs. What should HR leaders be looking for in health navigation platforms with capabilities similar to the ask: “I want a 77-inch flat panel with 120-hertz refresh rate with five HDMI ports because I game and I have multiple connected devices that I want to plug in”?

Related: Most benefits communication and education efforts fall short, employees say

These features are a good place to start:

• A digital platform with human support. The digital experience is the front end of the “Pepsi challenge” comparison shopping that enables people to cull from others’ experiences and gather relevant information. Often, there’s a disconnect between the resulting care provider and the health care plan that needs to be navigated and advocated by an experienced person. Smart, easy-button technology is essential to improve the navigation experience – and members will always need human expertise and support in certain situations.
• A platform that will grow with you. For now, you may just need navigation for your members, but as they become more engaged in their health and wellbeing, they’ll seek out additional features and support – for services like coaching, habit trackers, chronic disease management – on the platform that they’ll expect should fold into that experience.
• A platform that addresses your members’ needs. One thing employers know about their member populations’ health and wellbeing is their cost centers. Cancer care is the number one cost center. It’s fair to expect that will continue, and you’ll want to provide access to a platform that offers members a cancer care experience with a continuum of services from diagnosis to treatment to aftercare – as well as more holistic support, like mental health care and caregiving. Remember what I said earlier about visualizing something awesome at the end? Discovering a continuous path for care with the structure for a successful outcome will support people’s desire for engagement.

Employers are struggling to bring it all together, stuck wading through the muck of point solutions with little to no integration. A recent survey of 2,000 employees at large U.S. companies, conducted by independent research firm Ipsos, determined that when navigating the health care system 58% use between two and five websites, portals, or apps to access their organization’s benefits. But transformation is happening. There are platforms that bring discreet capabilities – diagnosis, second opinions, centers of excellence, insurance coverage, care management, etc. – together to provide a cohesive experience that provides guidance and gets closer to the easy button.

My friends who started their cancer care search on Facebook got lucky; a resource group helped them find an oncologist who had experience with their son’s rare form of cancer, and two years later he is in remission. But what if they hadn’t been able to find that oncologist? Or if the answers they received led them to the wrong care? And why did they feel they had to turn to social media to crowdsource an answer? We can do better. It’s essential that we build a health care easy button so that the right information is accessible for everyone.

Jeff Jacques, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Personify Health