Zocdoc Intake
Zocdoc Intake
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Zocdoc Intake
role + responsibilities
Product Design, User Research, Product strategy, Roadmap prioritization
TEAM
Product Manager, Product Marketer, UX Copywriter, Engineering Manager, Engineers (x7), QA
timeline
October — December 2020 (MVP)
January 2021 — Present (Post-MVP)
Background
Zocdoc is a healthcare marketplace that helps connect patients with qualified providers across a range of specialities. Our patient-first approach has created a more accessible and personalized healthcare experience for millions of patients across the United States.
OPPORTUNITY
With the healthcare industry becoming more reliant than ever on virtual tools due to COVID-19, we started to think about how Zocdoc could own other areas of the healthcare journey. In April 2020, we launched our telehealth platform so that our practices could continue to facilitate patient visits. As practices continued to conduct video visits, we frequently heard their desire for other digital features to help patients be better prepared for their appointments. Though Zocdoc has historically been a booking platform, leadership wanted us to explore how we could enter the pre-appointment space, thus my team was created.
Challenge
How can we create a product to enable practices to collect information from patients prior to appointments?
BUSINESS goal
Enable Zocdoc to own more of the appointment journey
User Goal
Enhance practices’ pre-appointment workflows
Defining the opportunity area
In October 2020, I ran a cross-functional workshop with product, design, engineering, product marketing, and sales leadership across both our provider and patient teams. During this session, we validated the existing appointment journey for both video visit and in-person appointments across patient and practice-centric roles. In doing so, I identified gaps, pain points, and open questions to help inform subsequent rounds of research.
Once we aligned on the existing appointment journey, we reviewed a proposed high-level journey I created, which combined screenshots of key product screens and CRM and identified potential areas where pre-appointment information could be surfaced. This allowed us to map out opportunity areas and note product considerations and constraints in a more concrete way.
Generative research
Following the workshop, I conducted 1:1 interviews with 7 practice users (comprised of providers and office managers) to better understand practices’ existing pre-appointment workflows in order to inform our product solution.
What I found
Following these sessions, I was able to create a revised flow portraying practices’ existing workflows and documenting common decision points, information captured, existing gaps / pain points, and ideas for what we could enhance on Zocdoc or build from scratch.
LoFi design explorations
Based on the generative research, I designed some LoFi explorations of the product.
HUB EXPLORATIONS
Option #1: Separate tables per task
Option #2: Single table for all tasks
Detailed View Explorations
Option #1: Modals
Option #2: Righthand Flyout
Evaluative research
I tested a version of my LoFi explorations in order to gauge practice users’ reactions.
Post-Research Outcomes
a set of Design principles
1. Create trust through transparency. Both patients and providers should understand where information is coming from and why it is required.
2. Maintain flexibility. Our solutions should foster flexible and non-prescriptive workflows for practices.
3. Infuse a sense of human-touch. We should enable practice-patient communication where most warranted, rather than seeking to eliminate it.
4. Be consistent and standard. Both patients and providers should feel our solutions are familiar.
5. Design for all. Our solution should be accessible and relevant for all of a practice's patients to reduce the amount of systems they use; it should support video-visit and in-person appointments and Zocdoc and non-Zocdoc patients.
a prioritized roadmap grounded in User stories
MVP Product
Due to a push from leadership to release an MVP version of the product by the end of Q4 2020, the scope of what engineering could feasibly build was greatly reduced.
Practice Experience
Patient Experience - Desktop + Mobile
Current Product
Since the launch of the MVP product, I’ve worked in a constant research-release cycle to inform product changes across both the practice and patient experience.
practice experience - summary of changes
Practice Experience - Viewing Patient Details
Practice Experience - SETTING INTAKE PREFERENCES
Practice Experience - sending an intake request
Patient Experience - summary of changes
Full Patient Experience
Performance
We recently brought the product out of beta and allowed all Zocdoc practices to opt-in. Since then we have seen…
Impact
Less phone calls and less time “chasing” patients
Increased appointment realization, as patients are more likely to show-up for their appointment once their intake information is received
Improved patient flow, as patients don’t need to spend as much time in the waiting room completing these tasks
““Since we started using Intake, each of our front desk staff saves ~1 hour per day.””
““[Intake] makes it possible for us to have one front office person instead of three.””
What’s next?
Given the success of the product, integrating Intake into the Zocdoc marketplace is now the company’s primary focus for 2022, as Intake has helped establish Zocdoc as a player in the pre-appointment space.
My current design work-streams include:
Saving + Pre-filling Information: Allowing Zocdoc patients’ information to pre-populate into the Intake experience and for any additionally submitted information to be saved back to their Zocdoc account in order to boost completion rates and enhance the patient experience
Zocdoc Patient Conversion: Creating pivot points within Intake that allow non-Zocdoc patients to become Zocdoc patients
Additional Insurance Task Collection: Enabling practices to explicitly collect medical, vision, dental, and secondary insurance from patients
Self-Guided Onboarding: Designing a fully self-service onboarding flow that allows practices to opt into Intake without a sales representative
Bulk Sending Feature: Enabling practices to send Intake requests to multiple patients at once
Takeaways
Research is foundational to creating impactful solutions
Product decisions should be documented and shared out early and often, as they have a downstream impact on all stakeholders involved
Establishing a succinct process, especially for a project involving a net-new product is critical for successful collaboration
KPIs should not just outline target metrics, but should consider more qualitative, user-centric wins
