The federal health insurance exchange site, HealthCare.gov, hasn't had the smoothest rollout.
Since its Oct. 1 launch, the site has experienced numerous technical issues, such as people not being able to create accounts, frustrating consumers and drawing criticism from the healthcare reform law's opponents. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has stated there's no ignoring the fact that the site's launch was "flawed and unacceptable."
HHS has reported federal officials have made "substantial progress" since October in repairing the site, which can now support more than 50,000 users at a time. Despite their efforts, HealthCare.gov still isn't all that easy to use, according to a Customer Effort Score analysis performed by the business and technology consulting firm West Monroe Partners. Millions of currently uninsured Americans are expected to gain health insurance by enrolling through HealthCare.gov. However, if consumers have difficulty making use of the exchange site, those enrollment numbers and the success of the healthcare reform law's new marketplaces will be threatened, according to a West Monroe Partners blog post.
Earlier this month, West Monroe Partners completed a Customer Effort Score assessment — a metric meant to predict customer loyalty and intention to keep doing business with a company based on the level of effort a user must exert to complete tasks — of the repaired website. According to the analysis, the site overall scored a 2.6 out of 5 (with 1 being the lowest possible effort and 5 being the highest), indicating an overall moderate level of customer effort.
"A lot of the functionality is considerably better," says Dave Nash,
HealthCare.gov customer effort: What works
Performing some tasks on the site is fairly easy, according to the analysis. The lowest effort tasks include changing account settings and contact information, as well as setting up communication preferences. It's also simple to shop anonymously without having to enter personal information, and the process of applying for insurance through the site is intuitive and user-friendly.
"The enrollment process itself is very easy," says West Monroe Partners Manager Carolyn Sarb. "It's very intuitive."
Other low-effort tasks include viewing all of the plans each insurance provider offers, using the live chat feature and using global navigation, the site map and search functionality.
Low-effort features show promise in terms of leading to high enrollment numbers and more people gaining coverage. HHS reported that in December alone more than 975,000 people enrolled in health plans through HealthCare.gov, up from just 26,794 during the first month of open enrollment, suggesting federal repair efforts that made the site more user-friendly encouraged enrollment.
What doesn't work
However, there are still some site functionalities that could discourage or stand in the way of people seeking insurance coverage through the federal exchange. A number of tasks prove difficult and high-effort for consumers, according to West Monroe's Customer Effort Score analysis. For instance, users are unable to actually apply, sign up for or purchase insurance through a selected health plan until their applications are processed. And there's no indication of how long the processing will take.
As part of the effort analysis, Ms. Sarb completed an enrollment application on Dec. 1. As of Dec. 16, she still hadn't heard anything concerning a timeframe for processing her application, even after asking through the site's live chat feature how long processing would take.
"The staff member I was chatting with was unable to give me any information around the timeline for application processing," she says. "I was told they don't have any averages to provide me."
Overall, Mr. Nash says the site could benefit from many "little fixes," such as providing more information about application processing time and giving more information directly on HealthCare.gov instead of linking users to external sites.
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