Virtual Health Assessments (VHAs) are health screenings Oscar Health insurance offers members. Members get a free care appointment when they participate (plus a $25 gift card). Oscar gets a more complete understanding of the member’s health conditions. Member outreach happens via outbound calling, email campaigns, and from notifications in the Oscar app.

95% of members who complete the VHA report a positive experience. There’s just one big problem - only 13% of members targeted for a VHA complete one.

Goal: Understand barriers that prevent members from signing up for and completing a Virtual Health Assessment

Methods:

• In-depth interviews with members who have completed a VHA and those who were targeted but chose not to complete. Sessions also included task-based testing to observe members interacting with the VHA scheduling process.

• Analyzing population-level statistics from existing member data

• Listening to outbound call recordings from previous attempts to get members to schedule

• Reviewing training materials and scripts for employees conducting outreach

• Shadowing health assessment appointments

Sample: 18 members split evenly by those who had completed and those who had not. Representation by language and clinical complexity.

Following the study, I partnered with Design to lead an Idea Gen workshop and stayed close to this project for implementing recommendations and experimentation.

After conducting interviews, task-based testing, and a thorough review of tertiary materials, we had three big barriers to address:

• Most members who were targeted but chose not to complete the VHA either didn’t understand what Oscar was offering or didn’t see the value in it. There was a lot we could do to clarify who was conducting the VHA, what Oscar used the data for, and how the appointment would work.

• There was no in-app booking experience forcing those who were interested to log into web to schedule a VHA - creating unnecessary friction and drop off.

• Confirmation and reminder messaging was limited to email only, and didn’t offer members a chance to reschedule their appointment without having to call Oscar.

Following Ideation and experimentation, we successfully…

• Overhauled the digital and non-digital outreach campaigns setting clearer expectations of the VHA

• Created an in-app scheduling flow

• Introduced SMS-based reminders that reinforced key value props and clarifying messages

• Enabled digital rescheduling and cancellation

These combined changes resulted in a 70% increase in overall conversion, increasing digital scheduling volume from 15% to 50%. And thanks to that increased digital volume, we were able to reduce the amount of call center staff needed to support outreach which generated an immediate $450K in savings.

UX research often requires looking beyond the immediate problem to fully understand the experience. While a specific issue might spark investigation (in this case low completion rate), the surrounding problem space often reveals hidden barriers, contextual factors, and subtle nuances that shape how people engage with a product or service.