Designing for Impact:
Enhancing Member Tools in Pharmacy Management
What is it: Collaborating with the Prescription Benefit Management team, I focused on enhancing several key pages aimed at assisting members with pharmacy-related tasks. These tasks included pricing medications, switching to alternative options, checking coverage information for specific drugs, and achieving other health oriented goals based on the time of year.
Timeline: June 5 2023 - May 2025
Key PBM Pages & My Contributions
I was responsible for enhancing the user experience across multiple pages while collaborating closely with the product, content, developer and research teams:
Drug pricing tool
I enhanced the Drug Pricing Tool page to help members make informed decisions about medication costs. Collaborating with cross-functional teams, I gathered qualitative and quantitative data to drive design improvements grounded in user needs. By adhering to human-centered design principles, I streamlined the interface for better accessibility and clarity, empowering members to compare prices and explore alternative options effectively.
Formulary Activation
On the Formulary Activation Page, I enhanced how members were informed about medication changes due to plan updates. Previously, it only indicated coverage status, but I personalized the design to address specific coverage issues related to prescribed medications. By adding clear next steps and alternative drug options—both covered and more affordable—I empowered members to proactively manage their healthcare ahead of the upcoming plan year’s effective date.
Leveraging and Enhancing a Design System for Greater Reusability
During my work on PBM projects, I honed my skills in Figma to develop new components for the Nucleus design system. I collaborated with the PBM team to create a customizable drug search experience, enabling members to easily find and select their medications for pricing. This search feature was designed for reusability, allowing it to be integrated across various site locations. Additionally, I engaged in discovery work to iterate on the medication list page, enhancing its reusability for members to save and manage their current medications.
Potential Savings
I contributed to designing the Potential Savings Page to help members compare their current medications with alternatives and explore savings from switching to mail order. A key challenge was clearly communicating the cost benefits of a 3-month supply versus a 1-month supply. We enhanced the content to highlight the time-saving advantages of mail order. The page also included a checkout experience, allowing members to view savings by comparing 30-day retail costs to 90-day mail order prices and initiate prescription transfers to CenterWell Pharmacy.
Onboarding: Medication list
I collaborated with the Humana web team on discovery work to enhance the onboarding experience, specifically focusing on pharmacy tasks. Drawing from PBM research and on-site workshops, we developed features that enable members to add medications, explore alternative drug options, assess potential savings, check drug coverage status, and understand next steps for required requests or non-covered drugs, among others - all in one experience, Medication list. Our strategy to merge tasks from other pages was informed by research and member feedback, with the added benefit of creating a reusable medication list experience that includes customization options for various pages.
Design strategy
I facilitated collaboration between CenterWell Pharmacy and Humana. The page was owned by CenterWell but incorporated Humana's design elements on their site. Key challenges included aligning stakeholder goals and ensuring our efforts met both teams' priorities. Toward the end of my time on PBM, I joined high-level discussions to coordinate our "north star," deadlines, and project priorities. As I continue learning design strategy at the business level, I am eager to grow in this area.
Revamping the Drug Pricing tool
Enabling Members to Compare Costs Across Multiple Pharmacies with Enhanced Features
The pharmacy pricing tool helps members compare medication prices across pharmacies and understand their coverage and cost-saving options. Our team was tasked with redesigning this tool to improve clarity, usability, and trust—especially for users managing chronic conditions or complex prescription needs.
The Problem
Despite offering valuable cost information, the original experience was difficult to navigate. Users felt uncertain about what was covered under their plan, struggled to make confident choices, and lacked clear next steps after viewing their options.
The goal was to design a streamlined, accessible, and informative multi-pharmacy comparison experience that empowers users to make confident, cost-effective decisions. The new experience needed to clearly communicate complex plan details and pharmacy-specific rules, provide further pharmacy information, and support a wide range of drug availability scenarios—all while aligning with accessibility standards and improving UI and member satisfaction.
The Goal
Who our members are
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Susan
The Stable Automater
Traits:
Recently retired but consulting on the side
Cost is not a concern
Likes to travel
No current health conditions or prescription drugs
Goals:
Have comprehensive coverage & predictable costs
Enroll in a plan that provides peace of mind & requires minimal future consideration
Have provider coverage no matter where she travels
Pain Points:
Lacks the time to research her options
Concerned about personal information & privacy
Behaviors:
Asks for help from experts
Prints information to review on paper
Lives in Florida during the winter
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Howard
Completely overwhelmed
Traits:
Retired due to health condition
Has a vision impairment
Fixed income
Qualifies for Medicaid
Takes multiple prescription drugs
Goals:
Understand Medicare basics & plan options
Find an affordable plan that fits his monthly budget
Get the best coverage for prescription drugs
Receive help from local, unbiased Medicare resources
Pain Points:
Stressed by using technology
Financially strained
Distrustful of health insurance companies
Confused by Medicare terminology and plan structures
Doesn’t know where to start when choosing a plan
Behaviors:
Thinks primarily in terms of monthly costs
Relies on family and friends for guidance
-
Donna
The Self-Sufficient Shopper
Traits:
Retired but volunteering
Tech savvy
Self-empowered
Goals:
Keep all current providers
Pay less out of pocket
Feel reassured in plan choice
Pain Points:
Current plan's costs are no longer competitive
Time-consuming to compare and understand plan options
Despite her knowledge, she still encounters confusing information
Behaviors:
Conducts upfront research using multiple resources
Reviews all insurer options thoroughly
Uses spreadsheets, notes, and calculates on her own
Trusts her own judgment more than advice from agents
Synthesizing the data
After reviewing usability test results, user interviews, and stakeholder input, several patterns emerged. Users struggled to understand what was covered under their plan, felt overwhelmed comparing pharmacies, and lacked confidence in what to do next. Additionally, stakeholders flagged inconsistencies in how savings and eligibility data were presented across the experience. These insights helped us prioritize clarity, trust, and guidance as the core design goals moving forward.
Key Pain Points
Ideation Through “How Might We” Statements
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Members just want to fill a prescription (using their benefits)
How might we..make it easy for members to get their drugs?
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Members lack guidance to make informed, cost-effective drug and pharmacy choices.
How might we...help them make informed decisions about where to fill prescriptions, and how to save money
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Members are unaware of coverage changes affecting medication costs.
How might we…Help members anticipate coverage changes to new and current medications.
Testing iterations
T1
The first concept emphasized pharmacy-level details and accessibility through collapsible cards, allowing users to expand for in-depth pricing and plan alignment.
T2
The second concept leaned into a simplified cost summary layout with stronger call-to-actions for alternative savings and mail order.
T3
The third concept introduced a morore centralized, modal-focused interaction, helping users focus on one decision at a time.
Each design variation explored a unique approach to improving clarity, comparison, and guidance within the drug pricing experience. Together, these iterations balanced user needs for transparency, actionability, and navigation efficiency, offering diverse paths to optimize the tool’s usability.
T4
The fourth concept used a grid-based layout and tested how visual density could support quick side-by-side cost comparisons.
Conditions
Tested 4 variations, each with different information hierarchy, interactions and UI
Collaborated with UX research team
Utilized UserZoom
All users were medicaid members and over 50 yrs
User 1 : 22 medications, 14 reoccurring
User 2 : 3 medications
User 3 : 2 medications
User 4: 1 medication
User Interview Questions
Which pharmacy has the lowest cost? Do they understand the price tags meaning?
Do they understand what the page is doing? What would they do first?
Is it easy to compare? Do costs make sense?
What’s the first couple things they notice?
Do they understand coverage and it’s impact to cost?
Do they understand the “price/cost breakdown”?
Identify the most cost-effective drug to treat your condition.
Did they notice the page defaulted to generic and what are their thoughts on that? Coverage banner...what do they expect to see there?
Multipharmacy Feature Enhancements
Design Solutions
Old Design
Old pharmacy card design
New and improved Design
New pharmacy card design
Phased Roll out plan
To align with engineering timelines and reduce implementation risk, we adopted a phased development strategy. By structuring the work into digestible stages, we were able to introduce foundational updates early while allowing space for iteration and refinement. The initial phase prioritized UI restructuring and clearer information hierarchy. As the design system matured, we layered in scalable components and personalized guidance, ultimately leading to a fully integrated, production-ready experience. This collaborative approach helped us balance user impact with development efficiency, ensuring each release delivered measurable value.
Challenges
Challenges around the multipharmacy project included changing priorities from business, rotation of UX leads, backend limitations and management, stakeholder management, scope expectations, budgeting, working for CWP but reaching out to Humana Design teams to maintain consistent UI.
STILL IN PROGRESS
Working with the Humana design team- design systems - contributions
STILL IN PROGRESS
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Add your pricing strategy. Be sure to include important details like value, length of service, and why it’s unique.
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Add your pricing strategy. Be sure to include important details like value, length of service, and why it’s unique.
N/a
Add your pricing strategy. Be sure to include important details like value, length of service, and why it’s unique.
STILL IN PROGRESS
examples of additional pages managed - images - impactful feature updates
FORMULARY ACTIVATION
STILL IN PROGRESS
POTENTIAL SAVINGS PAGE
STILL IN PROGRESS
ONBOARDING MEDICATION WORK