Has this ever happened to you?

[dreamshark]

A website that you have been using for years to conduct the routine business of your life announces a Massively! Improved!  New! Interface!

You sigh resignedly and continue logging in, anticipating at least an hour of anguish as you try to unsnarl the mess. 

And the new interface actually IS massively improved! Not only that, they have not forgotten your old login, forcing you to start all over creating a new account! You login and pay your bill, and that is that. You don't even have to locate a piece of paper somewhere to find out how much you owe - it's RIGHT THERE ON THE WEBSITE. There is even a link to a list of all the bills you have already paid this year and what they were for, in case you hadn't been keeping track on another piece of paper. The heavens open up and angels sing!

That just happened to me. I think it is the first time EVER. Considering all the complaining I have done over the years about terrible "improvements" to software and websites, it seemed only fair to give credit where credit is due. The website, incidentally, is Health Partners. 

Comments

[pameladean]

Wait, did they just do another upgrade, or are you talking about the merging of Park Nicollet's MyChart with the HealthPartners website, which incidentally rearranged a bunch of stuff and streamlined some things?

I didn't have any trouble paying my bill under the new configuration, but all of my prescriptions vanished from their usual haunts and got tucked into a very obscure corner. I had to call Technical Services, and got a very nice person who had very clearly delivered the exact same instructions to about a hundred people already.

P.

[dreamshark]

In my universe, the Health Partners website merged with Park Nicollet about 3 years ago, creating a terrible mess. Suddenly I had two different logins that redirected to overlapping parts of the old websites. One of the pieces was called My Chart, but I could never figure out when I needed that and when I needed something else.

Occasionally I had to figure out what my out of pocket medical expenses had been for tax purposes, and I inevitably had to call them for help. It was usually on the website SOMEWHERE, but it moved around from year to year and was impossible to find. I mostly stopped logging in at all unless I had to pay a bill, which could not be done at all without a paper bill in hand.

I was so pleased to discover that HP was now able to keep track of my billing for me that I didn't try looking for my prescriptions. I suppose it's possible that in finally fixing the billing procedure they broke other things.

[minnehaha]

I have only logged into the Park Nicollet website once, so I don't know if it was improved or not.

K.

[pameladean]

We really are in different universes. I have always gotten an email notification that my premium was due, and then I'd log in and pay it. No paper required.

I'd had about ten or twelve years using MyChart via HCMC or I might not have been able to navigate it either. Also different providers use it differently. HCMC had you do all of your prescription stuff on MyChart, whereas with HealthPartners until this newest change, if you wanted to refill an existing prescription you just used MyChart, but if you needed to get a renewal from your doctor, you had to use the HealthPartners website. It's definitely an improvement to have everything on one website.

P.

[dreamshark]

My premium has always been paid automatically from my checking account; I'm talking about co-pays and such. I guess even the old website was able to handle an amount that was exactly the same month after month. But they just threw up their virtual hands in confusion at the idea of figuring out how much an office co-pay might have cost and insisted that you manually enter the amount you thought you owed.

And that business of "you login to HCMC to refill your prescription but have to login to HP to get the doctor to renew it" is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. What nonsense. Anyway, it seems to be better now.

[quadong]

Not the exact thing with the bill paying, but I have noticed that there seems to be an increase in "improved" versions of software actually being improved. Not always, by any means.

Sorta relatedly, I ordered glasses at the U last week. The lady there said that for the first time they were using an all computerized process, so they didn't have to monkey with paper forms. I asked, with some apprehension, whether that was really an improvement. I was expecting some sort of mixed review, but actually she said that it was way better, much easier to pull up previous orders (which she did for me so I could just get the same glasses again with my new prescription), less of a hassle, etc., with no caveats.

[jbru]

As a person that builds web sites, I confirm that this is an unusual and highly appreciated occurrence. Glad someone is getting it right! (I wonder if there are awards for this sort of thing they could be nominated for?)

[dreamshark]

Well, I'm not sure I'd go THAT far. They definitely improved the bill-paying experience for me. But according to the only other testimony on this page, other things got more difficult without any obvious improvement (for her) in bill paying.

But compared to, say, Westfield Insurance, this was a clear win. I still can't login to the insurance site after about 20 minutes on the phone with first line customer care and a series of condescending emails from tech support insisting that if I had just used the CODE (that they never sent me), or the LINK that they were sending me now (that just led me into the same circular disaster path) everything would be fine...