Interviewer: Megan Miller
Interviewee: Felix Tong, SF Recreation & Parks Date: 10/12/16 Why? Wanted to discuss potential partnership with local parks. Felix works for SF Recs & Parks. I conducted this interview in person. What hypothesis? Regional parks would be interested in increasing the use of park programs through a partnership with our team. I intended this to be an exploration interview. What I wanted to learn? What kind of programs do the parks offer? What are the parks pain points in terms of "usership"? What did I learn? SF parks need money and they've been actively trying to find ways to receive funding. What if insurance companies help fund "wellness programs" for the city? For example, park days or X amount of classes that led to "wellness points" under our product. The parks already have a robust attendance system to track participation, so technological integration would appear straightforward. Also, current membership for official park activities is mainly with children and elderly, so they have been trying to reach the middle customer segment. This idea would help increase the adult demand. Lastly, this could help increase demand in currently unused parks. Surprises? Felix was very responsive to the idea and thought it would be a good partnership. He exclaimed, "Seriously, you guys can pitch this right now and get a meeting with the GM!" Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? I enjoyed the diverging nature of this conversation. It allowed us to discuss things a little off topic, but then helped generate new and exciting ideas for our team.
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Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Andrew, working professional - nonprofit Date of Interview - 10/11/2016 Interviewer - Christine Jiang Why/how we interviewed this person? Most of the other interviewees on my list are working professionals in large corporations. As such, I wanted to get another perspective from someone in the non-profit sector to see if their experience with medical insurance is similar or different (Phone Interview) What hypothesis did we test? Non-profits will tend to mirror private insurance plans and not have as many incentive plans. We really wanted to learn about this: We wanted to better understand the various medical insurance options through different types of companies and also gain a different perspective on what another potential customer thinks about a platform for collecting medical information in exchange for discounts or better rates. We learned from this interview: Andrew actually has one of the better insurance policies from my interviewees. He is 100% covered by his non-profit company. They offer many options and he chooses the one with the lowest deductible and lowest out of pocket cost because it is 100% covered. There's a low copay for doctor visits and a free annual check up is provided. The company does not currently have an incentive program since everything is already paid for. We were surprised by: We were surprised that the medical insurance coverage was so high for a non-profit company. Assumptions shouldn't be made on this front so it was good to get that insight from Andrew. Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing Andrew noted that if he were paying more out of pocket for insurance, and especially if he had a family, he would be more attentive to programs that would help lower costs. However, he would still want something that is relatively flexible and provides him with options. For example, Andrew stated "Something more rigid wouldn't work. If the incentive plan required me to go to the gym 10 days out of the month, I would be less likely to fulfill that requirement. However, if I had options to be in a sports league, bike or run, and go to the gym, I would be more likely to meet the requirements for extra incentives." Andrew also noted that getting flu shots or completing activities where you can show up once and get the task completed would be achievable. Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Vinnie, working professional Date of Interview - 10/10/2016 Interviewer - Christine Jiang Why/how we interviewed this person? ? Vinnie is a married woman where both partners work for large companies. She was someone who could provide an interesting perspective on 2 different medical insurance plans and provide insight into how their family makes choices on medical insurance. (Phone Interview) What hypothesis did we test? Medical insurance customers will be willing to participate in incentive programs that provide them with rewards and benefits towards their medical insurance costs. We really wanted to learn about this: We wanted to understand if having an incentive (coupons or points issued by insurance provider) will enable users to share some general information, that can be used for reducing costs at insurance providers, or will they remain skeptical. We learned from this interview: Vinnie and her family only use medical insurance for check ups and emergencies. Both her and her husband's companies offer medical insurance benefits and they evaluate the options based on coverage and ease. Their preference is to pay more if it means they get more coverage. They don't worry about the minor incentives. We were surprised by: There are different types of activities that employees can participate in to get incentives/rewards; health assessments, flu shots, etc. are some examples. Vinnie noted that "If there's a needle involved, $50 isn't going to motivate me." She doesn't typically get flu shots or participate in other incentive programs if the value does not exceed the convenience of getting the task completed. Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing Vinnie did note that she's bad at record keeping and can't keep track of what immunizations she's received, especially if they're ones that you get as a kid. She noted that it would be great to track all of these, especially for traveling. Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Bernice Redbrick Support Specialist. Date of Interview - 10/11/2016 Interviewer - Abhijeeth Linganagari Why/how we interviewed this person? We interviewed Bernice to get more insight into Redbricks incentive plan offerings. (Phone Interview) What hypothesis did we test? There aren’t successful wellness incentive services available for regular individuals outside of their employer provided programs. We really wanted to learn about this: The web portal allows other COBRA participants also to login. Would like to identify what kind of wellness incentive programs are run and for which individuals. We learned from this interview: Redbrick Health is a wellness service company that is recruited by different companies & insurances to provide incentive based wellness services for their employees to help them improve their health and track their health better. Anyone not part of the employer provided programs cannot create a login and access the redbrick programs even if without any available incentives. We were surprised by: It was surprising that even with a lot of individual customer feedback asking to expand the program to those with their own insurances, Redbrick hasn’t expanded their scope of offerings. Are there too many variable costs associated with servicing this new segment of consumer ? Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing Its interesting that you cannot transfer your programs/rewards earned when you switch employers/companies. Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Karthik Jayasurya Data Scientist, Theranos. Date of Interview - 10/06/2016 Interviewer - Abhijeeth Linganagari Why/how we interviewed this person? Karthik fits our customer profile of someone working with health data and sensitive to customer feelings of privacy with respect to their health records. As someone working in a medical device startup (Theranos) that aims at revolutionizing how medical information is collected from patients, he provides us with an interesting view point. (Phone Interview) What hypothesis did we test? Will users be fine with sharing general medical information (regular physical exam results) with other parties (insurance providers), if there are incentives ? We really wanted to learn about this: We wanted to understand how their company processed and shared medical test results and if having an incentive (coupons or points issued by insurance provider) will enable users to share some general information. We learned from this interview: Karthik’s company, Theranos had also started a service where patients could store all their test results and access via a web portal. He feels the greatest pain was going around the HIPAA regulations etc; although the reception was mostly positive amongst users. Personally Karthik is fine with sharing medical information (vitals and physical results) with insurance providers as long as the individuals identities are not revealed and there is some sort of a monetary incentive for the user. We were surprised by: It was surprising to see the level of interest in the potential of the problem we are trying to solve. Karthik felt the product could do a lot more in terms of providing guidance to users with respect to their health, medications and insurance options. “With access to the users medical records, there are endless possibilities. From giving guidance on health habits, early prognosis on possible medical conditions (precautionary), track health over a period of time and understand your body better.” Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Vaishnavi Gurudanti TAC Engineer, Riverbed. Date of Interview - 10/10/2016 Interviewer - Abhijeeth Linganagari Why/how we interviewed this person? Vaishnavi fits our customer profile of someone with a growing family and who has considered moving to a different health care provider/insurance for a while but resisted due to concerns with not being able to port all her health records/data. (Phone Interview) What hypothesis did we test? Having a consistent status of health records is an important decision while considering switching health care providers ? Given incentives are users ok with sharing medical records/results ? We really wanted to learn about this: If the decision to continue with her current health care provider is based on having all her family's health records consistent in one place. We learned from this interview: Vaishnavi brought out an interesting scenario she faced recently, where she wasn’t able to transfer her infant son’s scan results from Oakland children's hospital to her pediatrician at PAMF via online/phone/mail. She needed to be in person at the hospital to sign the HIPAA forms to access the scans and pay fees to get a CD copy that she could then share with her pediatrician. We need to understand such scenarios better and try to make them more convenient for our users. We were surprised by: Vaishnavi mentioned that though she has thought about switching health care providers closer to her home she has always decided against to continue having a consolidated view of health records. “I had recently thought about switching health care providers but decided against it due to my long history of medical records with my current health provider. It definitely factored into my decision to continue.” Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: Oct 11, 2016 Conducted By: Samantha Interviewee: John, 41 year old father of 2, independently practices as an attorney with wife. They have a Providence family health plan they found 8 years ago through a broker. Why/how we interviewed this person: On the phone-Another self-employed individual to gain perspectives on the possible niche for our product idea. What hypothesis did we test? Less incentives for health and wellness outside of a corporate environment. We really wanted to learn about this: What his present health goals are and how does he break them down into smaller, obtainable parts. We learned from the interview: He really loves the “gaming” component of a current app he uses for exercise. He is trying to keep his weight down, and uses “seven.” He has seven exercises a day, and is reminded in the a.m. to complete the exercises. If he does it consistently for 3 months, new exercises will unlock. He cannot miss more than 3 days, or the counting starts over. There are also trophies you can earn along the way, which helps him stay motivated. We were surprised by: Providence offered health and wellness classes at the hospital. He remembered seeing fliers about it, but there is no structured program to keep track of his goals in his opinion. Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing I really thought it was interesting how motivated the point system keeps him. There is no financial reward, and 3 months is a long time to do the same exercises every day. Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: Oct 11, 2016 Conducted By: Samantha Interviewee: Emily-38 year old Photographer married with 2 children, insured by Kaiser. Why/how we interviewed this person: Face to face-I wanted to see if there were any wellness incentives associated with her insurance plan since she does not work for a corporation What hypothesis did we test? There are less options available for Health and Wellness incentives when self-employed We really wanted to learn about this: Would she use health and wellness incentives if available? We learned from the interview: She didn’t know if any incentive plans were offered through Kaiser. She is generally a very healthy person and has one child with severe allergies. She does not take his medical records with her when they travel, and depends on having a conversation with the medical provider if there is an emergency or need for healthcare outside of her system. She currently would like to be better about eating more and feels an app reminding her about her nutritional intake would be helpful. We were surprised by: I was surprised she does not have a summary of her son’s medical issues given the severity of his allergies. Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing There seems to be a consistent interest in quick reminders, or nudges, given on the phone to do something fairly simple in a busy day to help with health and wellness goals. Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Wei, Business Development - SVB Date of Interview - 10/09/2016 Interviewer - Christine Jiang Why/how we interviewed this person? ? Wei is a potential customer of our product and is currently a user of medical insurance through a company plan that also provides incentives to employees for getting health screenings and/or participating in activities that improve health. (In Person Interview) What hypothesis did we test? Users will take advantage of incentives towards their medical insurance if provided the opportunity. We really wanted to learn about this: We wanted to understand what motivates individuals to monitor their health and stay on top of health screenings and physical/mental fitness activities. We learned from this interview: Wei's work has an incentive program to do healthy activities and health checkups. The company provided their employees with Fitbits to track their physical fitness activity and even created a game out of it. There were 2 aspects of this program (1) Rewarding those who participated and (2) Friendly competition by providing a leader board for the fitness activities. The programs were sponsored by the company and most employees do participate. They also set up a conference room for flu shots, which also provided participants with incentives. We were surprised by: Even if the company didn't make screenings as convenient as having it in a conference room at work, Wei would still participate in activities that would provide incentives. For example, if the company didn't provide flu shots at the office, he would still be willing to take time out to go to Walgreens to get a flu shot and then report it back to the company for his medical insurance incentives. Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing Wei has never been on a non-company sponsored medical insurance plan. Even when he was a kid, he was on his parents' medical insurance plan, which was through their work. This provides additional reason to explore the population and demographics of those who use private insurance. Many working professionals that we interact with on a daily basis are insured through their work. Who specifically would be the target audience for our new idea? Team Name - Medical Gatekeeper
Interviewee - Chad, Sr. Product Manager, NetApp. Date of Interview - 10/02/2016 Interviewer - Abhijeeth Linganagari Why/how we interviewed this person? ? Chad fits our customer profile of someone with a growing family and whose family has been local to one region (bay area). As someone who has shifted among various insurance options over years (HMO to PPO to Health Savings plan), he provides us with interesting view point. (In Person Interview) What hypothesis did we test? Will users be fine with sharing general medical information (regular physical exam results) with other parties (insurance providers), if there are incentives ? We really wanted to learn about this: We wanted to understand if having an incentive (coupons or points issued by insurance provider) will enable users to share some general information, that can be used for reducing costs at insurance providers, or will they remain skeptical. We learned from this interview: Chad and his family being relatively healthy, he is fine with sharing his medical record information with insurance providers for further incentives. But it was interesting that he brought up security & privacy concerns about aggregating all his health data and sharing it with other parties. He felt uneasy about the possibilities for discrimination if life insurance companies and employers were to get hold of this information. We were surprised by: Each year when the physical results come, Chad monitors the records for his family (wife and kids) and makes sure there are no concerns. It was surprising to note that outside of it, even with a growing family he doesn't find a great need to have access to his medical records. “My family and I are conscious about our health and try to make choices that support it. But as long as our test results are healthy we don’t have a need for continuous access to past health records.” Other interesting outcomes; what did you learn about interviewing When asked if in future they switched providers and needed to access their old records for a medical condition in the family, Chad replied that “if they can’t get their records, then the providers will perform all the required tests/procedures again and get the most current data.” “My insurance covers the costs and they pay for it, so not a big deal if they have to perform the tests all over again.” |
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