Sleek, Streamlined, & Actionable
We created a modern, highly usable tool. In doing so, we removed redundant questions and reduced the required meetings. Our internal colleagues lent support by gathering former benefit selections to prepopulate fields.
Audit forms, remove redundancy, and pre-populate entries
Respect Clients' Time
Create a modern aesthetic and simple, guided workflows
Experience First
Show clients what they need, remove jargon and triggers
Necessary Info
CVS myPBM
How might we simplify the new client onboarding experience while offering enough visibility?
A Complicated & Clunky Experience
myPBM was a suite of incohesive, internal applications supporting CVS’s Pharmacy Benefits Management client onboarding. The process was inefficient, with redundant questions and unnecessary meetings. Unlike competitors, CVS did not offer clients a digital tool to track onboarding or services. We aimed to develop a solution that allowed clients to self-serve and gain greater visibility, while ensuring information was presented appropriately. Previously, excessive details sometimes raised concerns for clients.
Lead Designer / myPBM SME
For six months prior to kickoff, I led a team of designers to standardize the legacy myPBM applications. This role provided in-depth knowledge of various app domains and users' mental models. As a result, I was assigned to lead the new myPBM project.
Systems Thinking for a Service Blueprint
A difficult but essential challenge, I led tens of hours of technical discovery sessions on roles and processes, and managed team-wide research efforts to map out the entire myPBM ecosystem. This artifact directly informed our product strategy and acted as a source of truth for the entire business division.
Co-Facilitated Leadership Offsite
My manager and I met with executive stakeholders for three days to align on goals, features, and deadlines. I owned input on the state of myPBM UX and design system resources. The image below summarizes our output, the functionalities included in our MVP.
Implemented a Research Practice
Onboarding Checklist Simplifies Tasks
Clients needed help completing their action items, so I designed a simple guided task flow to streamline tasks. My manager originally created this concept, but I added enhancements to improve usability, including a more intuitive design pattern, UX copywriting, and a more aesthetic style. Our consultant partner created the puzzle illustrations. The illustration below is my unique recreation.
Plan Approval Manages Documentation
myPBM provides value by enabling clients to digitally approve or reject plan documents, saving time and reducing email risk. For this feature, I collaborated with my CVS teammate, who worked on the internal myPBM application where this functionality originated. I applied my knowledge of data visualization component best practices to select a pie chart against differing opinions.
Reporting Makes Meetings Better
Once the client's service went live, they needed metrics on claims, support calls, and outcomes. myPBM added value by showing clients how CVS performed as their service provider. This feature streamlined monthly client meetings by providing all critical information at a glance.
96% Client Satisfaction Rate
I designed a post-onboarding client survey to initiate a feedback loop. Our work yielded great results, and the general client consensus was positive.
See the survey video below.
50% Improvement in Onboarding Time
Cool Concept but TMI
Our consultant partners created a guided workflow similar to the onboarding checklist, but in the form of a vertical scroll pattern. I argued that it contained too much internal CVS information irrelevant to the client, and that the small number of client tasks would result in an unbalanced scrolling experience. Stakeholder agreed and we moved forward with the onboarding checklist.
More Case Studies
Once the client's service goes live, they need metrics about claims, support calls, and their outcomes. myPBM provides value by showing clients how CVS is performing as their service provider.
Once clients were fully onboarded, we administered a survey inquiring about their onboarding experiences. The results were great. Click the video below to see the survey.
CVS SQM
CVS SQM
A Complicated &
Clunky Experience
Next Case Study
On the surface, the client journey seemed simple: approve a few documents and await the go-live date. However, completing each document required multiple meetings and redundant questions, which increased client frustration. Eventually, the business audited all the forms to remove redundancies and make the client journey more pleasant, thankfully.
Respect Clients' Time
Audit forms, remove redundancy, and pre-populate entries
We created a modern, simple, usable tool, while the business removed redundancies, and the account team gathered previous benefit selections to prepopulate fields.
Something Sleek, Streamlined, & Actionable
Create a modern aesthetic and simple, guided task flows
Experience First
Show clients what they need, remove jargon and triggers
Necessary Info
Each Step was a Cluster...
Up until this point, all design efforts on the myPBM side of the business were product-led. I gained stakeholder buy-in for direct user access and research hours to drive better outcomes. By utilizing my expertise in user research methodologies and managing operations, I created team-wide research and stakeholder protocols for CVS myPBM designers and our consultant partners. Also, I owned stakeholder delivery to ensure deadlines and gain buy-in.
The team was torn on language and information architecture. For example, I advocated for client-facing language, such as calling "Drug Coverage" just that, rather than the internal term "Clinical Plans". Regarding the information architecture, I recommended placing "Company Info" in the top navigation rather than under the profile icon.
Mental Models & UX Laws
PBM Industry Fallout
In the summer of 2024, not long after shipping the new myPBM app, the Federal Trade Commission released a report warning all PBMs of a major lawsuit filed two months later. After the report, my team's budget was cut by 80%, most of my team was let go, and my contract wasn't renewed. The FTC views PBMs as unethical entities that manipulate drug costs for profit. I won't agree or disagree with that, but I will say CVS added genuine value by navigating the complex pharmacy benefits landscape for its clients.
Delivered Big Yet Still Impacted
My performance assessment from leadership was that I did everything right. I helped lead others to deliver a high-visibility product under intense pressure and tight deadlines. I transformed business processes and simplified a complex client-facing process in a critical $190B segment of a Fortune 4 company. I aligned executive stakeholders by leading meetings to gain buy-in for our designs and the value they would deliver, which would otherwise have been missed. However, I underestimated the industry's volatility.
Our work would optimize speed, ease, and efficiency during onboarding which led to a 50% improvement in client onboarding cycles.
Since completing company information was a key onboarding step and involved substantial data entry, it aligned better with other primary actions in the top navigation (Law of Proximity). Some team members preferred placing it under the profile button as most applications store profile information there (Jakob’s Law). However, I had to make a necessary distinction that this was company, not user, profile information.
Since we were moving so quickly, we had to reach consensus on a stakeholder call, where I used UX Laws to make my case and secure buy-in for my user-centric and detail-oriented recommendations.