Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: Oct 6, 2016 Conducted By: Samantha Interviewee: Omar 52 y/o in Sales, currently trying to lose weight to meet goal of 12% body fat after gaining weight while suffering from an ankle injury. Why/how we interviewed this person: I wanted the perspective from a person trying to improve their health, and we talked over the phone. What hypothesis did we test? Do incentives from work/insurance motivate you to improve your health? We really wanted to learn about this: Whether he was motivated by internal or external means. Does he get points/cash reward for decreasing his BMI or lowering his blood pressure? We learned from the interview: Omar has used Kaiser Permanente for 12 years and has not changed providers or had to obtain his personal medical records. He uses the MD primarily for preventative health (physicals) and emergency situations. Kaiser tries to incentivize patients by offering no copay for initial visits. He doesn’t think he has any financial reward for decreasing his weight through his work or insurance company. He feels having nudges from an application to reach his health goals would be very helpful to maintain motivation and break the process into achievable goals. He felt MDs are there to diagnose the problems but it is up to the patient to do the work and fix the problem. We were surprised by: His main concern about being a gatekeeper of his medical information was security. “What if someone wants to do you in and hacks your account to see what you are allergic to?” I thought this was pretty extreme/funny. Other interesting outcomes No, I was hoping to gain more insight into how certain businesses incentivize their employees to maintain or reach health goals.
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Interviewer: Megan Miller
Interviewee: Waiting for a call back... 1-866-386-3404 Date: 10/12/16 Why? What hypothesis? What I wanted to learn? What did I learn? Surprises? Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Interviewer: Megan Miller
Interviewee: Janine from OptumCare Date: 9/22/16 Why? Optum is the provider for Wells Fargo's wellness incentive plan and OptumCare is their offering to individuals. What hypothesis? According to their website, it appears like their only market is for customers who are already part of a united health care plan such as Medicare. Did they offer their services to anyone else? What I wanted to learn? What kind of services/benefits foes OptumCare provide? Who is eligible? Any plans to extend coverage? What did I learn? OptumCare is a program that is included in qualifying united health care plans such as Medicare and AARP. Janine detailed all the services OptumCare provides: primary and specialty care, annual wellness screenings, health screenings, up to date vaccinations, and mainly a focus on preventative care for seniors. These services are included in health insurance, so this is a B:B company. We are focusing on forming a company that also provides B:C products. Surprises? They have started dealing with individual markets outside of Medicare, for example AZ and UT. I would like to learn more about the idea behind moving into this new segment. Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Janine referred me to her colleague Angie who deals with the individual markets (AZ and UT for now) that are not part of the united health care plans (AARP, medicare). Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: 10/5/16 Who? Kelsey , over dinner By; Susanna Why? Works as an actuary for medical insurance companies. What hypothesis? Insurance companies want more info about their patients What I wanted to learn? Wanted to learn more about how insurance companies benefit from medical record history What did I learn? Affordable care Act requires insurance companies to submit information annually about their patient pool risk score and 1 company’s risk score is significantly higher, then the other insurance companies will pay that 1 company. Surprises? Insurance companies are continuously tracking patient history to calculate risk scores for non-group or small group patients. They cannot give premium discounts to individuals, just to the group as a whole. So maybe it would actually make more sense to target companies (group insurance) to get them lower costs as a whole. Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? She pointed out that the average healthy person isn’t going to feel it’s necessary to go through the process of compiling health data and maintaining a record on some kind of software or app. The people that would do this are people who are very ill and new parents, both groups typically have a book or file containing all their pertinent info. Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: 10/5/16 Who? Jill By: Susanna Why? Co-founder of a start-up What hypothesis? Being on Obama-care What I wanted to learn? People at small companies would be unlikely to use or benefit from incentive plan What did I learn? Hypothesis correct; a small start-up is lean on cash and does not incentivize healthcare Surprises? There are medical products specifically aimed at startup founders Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Start-ups and other small companies often do not think very far in advance; a long-term payout is unlikely to be attractive to them. Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: 10/1/16 Who? Brad, at lunch By: susanna Why? Target demographic, just switched jobs to a different company What hypothesis? Switching jobs prompts someone to consider their medical options and history; decisions about his choices would be fresh in her mind What I wanted to learn? When he changed jobs and evaluated healthcare options, what factored into that decision? Did her new or old job have any incentives/perks? Would she be interested in those? What did I learn? Healthcare was low on his list of priorities when deciding to take the new job. His new company does have an incentive plan and he thinks he will participate Surprises? None Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Sometimes interviewees will not want to talk about the topic at hand because they find a tangent more interesting (in this case, talking about which other jobs he could have taken). I need to take initiative to stay on task and get more info. Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: 10/2/16 Who: Jonas, on a walk By: susanna Why? Working in US on a Visa from Norway What hypothesis? Foreigner from socialist country would see the value in a central medical record system What I wanted to learn? What insight could I glean from someone who transitioned from 100% government-run health care to US-P.P.O care What did I learn? He found the US system to be a bit overwhelming, analyzing all the care options available, but once he managed to figure it all out he was able to evaluate the best option for him, cost-wise. He said choosing a doctor on PPO was difficult, because he had no way of knowing which one was good, but if there were any doctors that could seamlessly incorporate his medical history from Norway, he would definitely have given those priority. Surprises? He said he would feel comfortable giving insurance companies his medical record info if it meant a lower premium. Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? I learned to do some background research first; there were comparisons he was making that I couldn’t follow because I didn’t know enough about socialist-organized healthcare. Team Name: Medgate
Date of Interview: 10/4/16 Who: Liz, at lunch By: Susanna Why? Non-HMO employee who has moved for work several times, including international relocations What hypothesis? A millenial who has had to switch providers frequently would see value in a central medical record What I wanted to learn? What would she look for in a product that helped her track her medical record? What did I learn? Liz was not interested that products already existed because she “already did all the work of compiling her medical info”. She thought because she had already done it once, the benefit of a product or system wouldn’t really apply to her. Despite me asking about if her family history or surgery history would be difficult to track and might be nice to have saved centrally, she seemed to think it would be too difficult to start doing anything now. She said the only way something could be useful is if the doctor did all the work to upload it and maintain files on a cloud. Surprises? She felt uncomfortable with the idea of having her medical record info on a thumb drive or hard drive, but would prefer it to be in the cloud Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Younger generation values ease of use and trusts cloud security to a large degree. Interviewer: Megan Miller
Interviewee: Jeff Pello Date: 9/22/16 Why? I know Jeff has struggled with the cost of health insurance and I wanted to hear his thoughts on our idea - reducing the costs to indv. by supplying data to the insurance companies. Interview was conducted in person. What hypothesis? I anticipated that Jeff would be interested in any discount he could get. What I wanted to learn? Is he interested? Would he mind providing his data to insurance companies? How much of a discount would he want/expect? What did I learn? Jeff is a young and healthy individual, yet he pays over $300 a month in individual health insurance. I explained incentives that group plans offer to their employees and questioned if he would be interested in receiving something similar. Of course he would! He didn't have any problems with supplying his data to insurance companies because he assuming they'd know it all eventually. As for discount size - he asked for half off but said he'd be happy with a 25% discount. Surprises? No, but I assume this would be a similar response to other individuals in his position. Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Jeff owns his own business, hence he does not have employer-based health insurance. Would our product compliment wellness incentives already offered or only allow people to use it that get their insurance off the health exchange? Interviewer: Megan Miller
Interviewee: Group interview with classmates (Bill, Jack and Axel) Date: 9/21/16 Why? I was seeking advice from classmates on how to proceed with our idea. The interview was conducted in-person. What hypothesis? I did not have any expectations on what information I would gain. The interview was purposely free-form in order to explore opinions and new ideas. What I wanted to learn? Because the group is in our target customer segment, I wanted to know their pain points. We found many competitors that provide a similar service to our original idea, but what else can we provide? What are we missing? What did I learn? We started to explore different ideas, building off the original HMW I explained to the group. After discussions about different competitors, Bill mentioned how he thinks kids need to spend more time outside and exercising. With that idea in mind we began discussing different incentives used to help kids (and people in general) maintain a healthy lifestyle "...like Pokemon GO!" Surprises? I didn't think much of the conversation at the time, but it helped me re-focus our idea and start developing a new HMW with the team. Other interesting outcomes? Learn anything about interviewing? Without our formal interview guide, I was able to think outside the box with my peers. |
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