Project Overview
ahCT Mobile is a visionary initiative that pioneers the application of digital technologies to Health Insurance Exchanges to provide consumer focused services. ahCT Mobile provides the digital services for Access Health CT and is also a SaaS platform that can rapidly provide similar capabilities and services to other organizations.
With “mobile enroll”, ahCT Mobile provides the ability for customers to apply for Qualified Health Plans (QHP) faster than ever before using their mobile devices. This new service breaks new ground in mobile data entry by providing a design that significantly reduces the application time as compared to the Web.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Peter Nichol, Director/Head IT, Access Health CT
Jason Madrak, Chief Marketing Officer, Access Health CT
Rina Singh, Executive Project Manager, Amtex Systems Inc.
Access Health CT is one of the leading State Based Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX) nationally, providing a highly successful implementation since State Based Health Insurance Exchanges went live on October 01, 2013. Since then Access Health CT has gone on to help close to 300,000 Connecticut residents find coverage through one of its market channels and reduced the uninsured rate in the State of Connecticut by more than half.
Access Health CT formed a dedicated cross-functional team for the initiative and hired Amtex Systems as a vendor with experience in digital software product development utilizing mobile and Cloud technologies to realize the vision of this initiative. The cross-functional team at ahCT includes representatives from Business, Operations, Policy, Marketing and Information Technology to form a core team that has worked with Amtex Systems to design a product that applies digital technologies to have a transformational impact across the industry.
Project Brief
With ahCT Mobile, Access Health CT is a visionary leader pioneering the application of digital technologies to Health Insurance Exchanges. ahCT Mobile has utilized these technologies to transform and evolve Health Insurance Exchanges to the next level by digitizing the business model to significantly enhance the consumer experience while streamlining the process for enrolling in benefits and buying health insurance.
In preparation for the 2015 Open Enrollment, ahCT Mobile has released what will perhaps be its most transformational feature – “mobile enroll”, providing the ability for customers to submit an application and enroll in health insurance using the ahCT Mobile app. “Mobile enroll” is designed to optimize data entry and utilize mobile platform features to provide a streamlined, “slick” user experience. “Mobile enroll” has a dramatic effect reducing the average Qualified Health Plan (QHP) application time to about 10 minutes from 20+ minutes on the Web platform.
“Mobile enroll”, not just provides a unique facility for Access Health CT customers, but also sets a new precedent for designing mobile data entry apps that utilize features of the mobile platform to provide a more streamlined process and quicker, more efficient information capture as compared to equivalent web applications.
ahCT Mobile implements a highly intuitive design making it easier for customers to enter their information and a well-designed digital API that provides an efficient interaction model with the backend systems to achieve these results.
Project Need
Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX) are stimulating growth in the retail segment of the market, prompting a surge of individual insurance buyers forcing greater attention on the needs of members as opposed to employers. The Patient Protection and affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the launch of Public State Based Health Insurance Exchanges on October 01, 2013 accelerated this trend.
While millions of individuals have bought health insurance and availed benefits that help paying for coverage, the industry is facing several challenges in implementing these Marketplaces. While Access Health CT and a few additional States had successful implementations, the Federal Exchange (www.healthcare.gov) and several States faced numerous challenges. The Health Insurance Exchanges are highly complex systems that carry significant implementation risk and are very expensive to build.
The long term success of HIX and this industry transformation requires reducing the risk and expense of implementing these systems and evolving past the current challenges to look at how to provide a consumer focused experience. As individuals are evermore empowered to choose their own alternatives, insurance carriers and both Public and Private Exchanges need to develop business models, capabilities and offerings that rival sophisticated product companies like Apple and Proctor & Gamble.
“Mobile enroll” takes an important step in this direction by making it quicker and easier than ever for customers to apply for health insurance, and streamlines the consumer experience providing a complete end to end flow including mobile verifications that is not possible with a Web channel.
User Experience
ahCT Mobile is all about improving the consumer experience. It is well understood that health insurance business processes are complex, and the industry at large is facing several challenges in implementing and adapting to the newly established Health Insurance Exchanges. While the State Based Exchanges are stabilizing, they are providing the base minimum services required for a consumer focused experience.
The ahCT Mobile platform not only enhances government services but is exceeding private sector counterparts in improving the consumer experience in obtaining health coverage. Access Health CT has now released the first facility of its kind by providing customers to apply for Qualified Health Plans (QHP), end to end, entirely on their mobile devices. Utilizing the features of mobile devices, this provides a unique customer experience in which they can complete an entire application, enroll in a plan and also submit verifications, all from the same device in a streamlined process flow.
“Mobile enroll” dramatically improves the user experience. It is designed for optimized information capture, providing users with a highly intuitive interface and using smart design to reduce data entry. It also categorizes and organizes information for easy consumption by consumers, and all these factors combine to provide a significantly improved user experience in applying for QHP as compared to the Web channel, or calling the call center.
We feel that “mobile enroll” can prove to be a ground-breaking application in terms of optimizing the user experience related to information capture on a mobile device.
Project Marketing
Our marketing strategy targets both customers and enterprises as we have developed a SaaS platform. On the consumer side, the ahCT Mobile app uses all aspects of our Digital API to provide features related to the consumer experience and to the interaction of Access Health CT representatives with customers at our brick and mortar stores and outreach events.
The ahCT Mobile app is published on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, and our customer portal, www.accesshealthct.com provides links to our mobile application splash page and the App Store and Play Store links.
Access Health CT representatives use the ahCT Mobile App in working with customers at our stores and outreach events.
On the enterprise side, we have created materials describing the ahCT Mobile platform and API and also implemented case studies for other enterprises. In one such case study, we used our platform for providing a “production ready” mobile app for an enterprise within three weeks which is previously unprecedented in the area of Health Insurance Exchanges.
Project Privacy
Access health CT has implemented state of the art security and privacy for all application systems including our website, API and mobile application.
Our systems have passed through rigorous reviews and validations by the Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) to meet CMS and IRS guidelines and standards for security.
All communication for the ahCT Mobile platform and Digital API is SSL secured. User account creation uses CAPTCHA. User actions can request anonymous browsing data or authenticated user information. Anonymous browsing requests are for data such as public information on health plans which is freely available to all users.
Any user specific information requires authenticated access. All API calls accessing or storing user specific information require the user to authenticate with his/her account information.
Our security infrastructure uses a state of the art Security Identity and Access Management Solution. All web and API requests go through this infrastructure.
Additionally, we perform security and vulnerability testing of our infrastructure on a regular basis.
Best New Service
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