Broken UX and the Medicare Experience
December 30, 2011 Category: ux 2 Comments 
Death by Red Tape
These days it’s common to hear about Medicare fraud in the news and our current healthcare system in general spiraling out of control. More costs, less care, and an ever increasing web of red tape and complexity to navigate through to get reimbursed for even for the most routine medical service.
Reverse Fraud
What you don’t hear about is the people who suffer as a result of the fraud. For example, a paralyzed individual being denied a Medicare claim to cover the cost of her wheelchair. Or an ambulance company charging a disabled patient $1800 dollars for transport to an appointment at a local hospital.
When it comes to user experience, we as designers place a large amount of focus on making cool apps, helping large financial institutions improve their online applications to make more money, and working on projects that give us exposure to the market in hopes of getting the attention of other expensive clients to in turn generate more revenue.
When I think about where I want to be in five years, I’m increasingly finding it more appealing to take on projects with deeper meaning, whether it be helping small businesses establish an online presence, or working to improve the experience of the broken healthcare system for our aging population. The best part about being a UX practitioner is there is never a shortage of problems to solve.
in July 2007 endorsing private healthcare as a means to improve an ailing healthcare system. Dr. Brian Day , who acted as President of the CMA in 2007/2008, is the owner of the largest private healthcare hospital in Canada and a proponent of mixed public and private healthcare in Canada.
Why we continue to see huge cost problems with healthcare is because the system is governed by for-profit insurance companies whose shareholders are only interested in profits. No one is actually interested in healthcare. Eventually we will have to migrate to a non-profit healthcare system just from an economic competitiveness standpoint. The global marketplace will see to that.