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CognizantiAn annual journal produced by CognizantVOLUME 10 ISSUE 1 2017Health InsuranceConsumer-CentricTransformationat Anthem:Digital andThen Some

Health InsuranceConsumer-CentricTransformationat Anthem: Digitaland Then SomeBy Meg RushThe digital journey requiresmore than the latesttechnology to deliver greatexperiences; equally importantare timely and targetedconsumer research, tightbusiness and IT alignment,and a passion for delivering agreat consumer experience.It’s only been recently that individualconsumers have become the focus of the U.S.health insurance industry. It’s not surprising,then, that our industry historically ranksfairly low on consumer experience ratings.Health insurers across the board have poornet promoter scores (NPS), generally worsethan most other industries. In recent years,with the focus on improving member interactions, the industry has recognized it mustdeliver better consumer experiences.Individual consumers control increasingamounts of healthcare dollars and have manychoices about how to spend that money.Moreover, large employers that purchasehealth insurance for their employees haveelevated their expectations. The ability todeliver great experiences will determinesuccess as our industry continues to evolve.At Anthem, consumer centricity is a keypillar of our business strategy and a focalpoint of our digital journey. Our focus onconsumers, supported by our digital transformation efforts, is enabling us to deliver accessto high-quality, affordable healthcare. Fromend to end and on every channel, we anchorour digital strategies to deliver exceptionalconsumer experiences. This ensures thework we’re doing within digital aligns withmember needs and our business strategy.We’ve learned many valuable lessons duringthe last two years of our “extreme makeover.”One overarching lesson: It takes a lot morethan technology to deliver a rich, engaging,elegant experience. Consumer research,business and IT alignment, Agile development processes, scalable foundationalCognizanti 2

Best-in-class consumer companies have raised thebar by delivering simple, engaging and personalizedexperiences.platforms and a passionate team – all of theseare required elements for providing exceptional, frictionless experiences.We’re aggressively tackling this challenge– and recognize that delivering exceptionalexperiences across all stops on the consumerjourney is a marathon, not a sprint.Start With the ConsumerConsumer expectations are rapidly increasingwhen it comes to their experiences withservice providers, including health insurers.That’s because best-in-class consumercompanies have raised the bar by deliveringsimple, engaging and personalized experiences.on the context. To ground our teams onconsumer needs, we conducted a series ofconsumer studies – NPS driver analysis,cross-channel voice-of-the-consumersynthesis, and deep research on our touchpoints – to determine their importance andbetter understand how we performed in theseareas. We analyzed our end-to-end journeysand identified the critical moments that disproportionately add value to the experience.Consumers told us their basic needs:OOOOIt’s critical to understand the different typesof experiences consumers need, dependingConfidence that they are covered andwill be taken care of in the event of ahealth issue.Clarity of coverage, free of industryjargon, to avoid negative surprises whenthey need to use their benefits.Our Consumer Experience CredoWith design focused on user experience, we create with consumers in mind.A relationship is formed, and it grows, which bonds consumers with theproduct. We put the consumer in focus, and we do it with passion.BE SIMPLERemove distractions andavoid complexity. Gooddesign is achieved notwhen there is nothingmore to add, but whenthere is nothing left totake away.Source: AnthemFigure 13BE EASYKeep an open mind, explore allthe options, but pursue thepath of least resistance forthe user, not the team.Guidance should be subtle andas needed, in easy tounderstand functions andlanguage.BE HUMANDo your research, knowyour audience, and haveempathy for theirrespective needs.Ultimately, we’re all human,as well as consumers —draw from our sharedexperiences.

OOConvenience when interacting withtheir health plans through their channelof choice, as well as personalized, effortlessservice whenever they have a question oran issue arises.Grounded with this understanding, weassessed our ability to deliver this type ofexperience, supported by our digital capabilities. Through an exhaustive evaluation ofour existing digital capabilities, we learnedwe needed to overhaul our foundationaltechnology platforms to enable the flexibilityand performance required to deliver on the“personalized and effortless” interactions ourconsumers demand.We started with consumer expectations, thenworked backwards to reimagine our digitalexperiences. And rather than just comparingAnthem with other health plans to developa strategy, we also looked outside the industryat best-in-class consumer companies to studyexamples of exceptional digital design. Ourdigital product and user experience designteams quickly realized the bar is fairly low ifthey only look at healthcare solutions.We immersed ourselves in the experiencesoffered by brands like Netflix, Amazon,Zillow, TripAdvisor, Starbucks and Uber,which all offer clean layouts with amplewhite space, a defined visual hierarchy,intuitive navigation and interfaces with clearcalls to action. They often feature guidedexperiences and warm personalized messagingthat reflects the brand personality. Learningfrom these exceptional examples, we focusedour efforts on simplicity and ease as the newnorm for all of our experiences.Digital Transformation:More than Meets the EyeUsing our understanding of consumerneeds and exemplars from leading consumer-focused companies, we identifiedthe modern, flexible and scalable digitaltechnology platforms required to deliver onour ambition. Focusing on consumer needshelped business and IT teams operate as one– aligned on vision, goals and objectives.To support our efforts, we transitioned ourdigital organizations from a traditionalwaterfall development approach to a modernAgile software development approach. Thatwas a very heavy lift. Anthem is an extremelyvirtual company, so not only were we makingthe transition to Agile practices but we alsohad to figure out the tools to enable collaboration among virtualized work groups, teams andthe larger organization. The digital businessand the IT organization led the way into Agileas part of the digital transformation process,and now the entire company has ralliedaround Agile to transform the enterprise.It has become very obvious that digital ismuch more than a new technology, or a newapp. It requires an enterprise-wide approach tosupport the organization and truly enable thebusiness strategy. We’re changing our culture,processes and technology – essentially howwe work. We’re not only changing what wedeliver to our consumers but how we deliver it.In short, digital transformation is a massiveundertaking, with many critical activities inprogress on parallel tracks that need to becarefully orchestrated to deliver on consumerexpectations and our ambition to be aleading consumer-focused organization.We’re changing our culture, processes andtechnology – essentially how we work. We’renot only changing what we deliver to ourconsumers but how we deliver it.Cognizanti 4

Delivering ResultsSurpassing ExpectationsIn 2015, we focused on the foundationalelements: planning, prioritization, teambuilding and implementation of theenterprise technology stack, which includeda portal platform, digital analytics and anenterprise content management system.None of this is particularly glamorous work,but it is all crucial – and hard.The results from our digital transformationteams were even better than expected. Inaddition to the portals and cost transparencysolutions, we rolled out a visual design updateto the mobile app. Within all these complexreleases, we logged an extremely manageableset of defects, all rapidly addressed by ournew operating model. This was made possibleby new ways of delivering quality solutionsand new strategies.In 2016, we leveraged the foundationaltechnology to deliver new, modern experiences to consumers, following our usercentered design principles aligned withAnthem’s brand promise. We did a lot oftesting directly with consumers, such asusability, navigation testing and feedback.We completely overhauled our publicAnthem.com site, which serves as our frontdoor for consumers, brokers, employers andproviders. Our second launch included afully redesigned secure member portal for 1.2million members. And lastly, we deliveredan integrated cost and quality transparencysolution to one million members.Response from our internal stakeholdersand consumers has been rewarding. In thefirst five months following the release of ourredesigned website, our public consumerportal recorded 11.3 million unique visitors,generating 65.1 million page views. Of those,85% of the traffic came from desktop users,and 15% came from mobile devices.During that same timeframe, we alsodeployed the first release of a secure memberportal for an initial population of 1.2million members. In the first five monthsof production, we recorded 870,000 uniquevisitors, generating 14.3 million page views.Of those, 88% of the traffic came fromdesktop users, and the remaining 12% frommobile phones and tablets.5One small example is our customer caremodel. To provide white-glove servicefollowing major releases, we formed a“hypercare” team that would be on highalert for troubleshooting after each releaseto direct any issues to the right team forresolution. In one case, we wound updisbanding the team in two weeks – therejust wasn’t a need for it.The results are in, and we’re pleased with ourprogress. During any major redesign, thoseaffected the most are existing (returning)users. They tend to temporarily depress satisfaction scores as they get used to the new siteand the new user experience. This is referredto as the “relaunch effect.”What is encouraging is the comparison ofscores from our first-time visitors with thoseof returning visitors who said they comemonthly.Members who are experiencing the websitefor the first time are giving us much higherscores (see Figure 2, next page). This willcontinue to raise overall scores as the“relaunch effect” abates, and the scores ofboth are blended together in future months.Our work continues, and our teams continueto get even better. They are self-directed, andbecause they work on products, not projects,they can focus on the needs of the consumeras their overall goal and create end-to-endsolutions instead of features or enhancements. Most of these teams remain intact andcontinually get smarter about how they worktogether.