Self-service rate editing

Summary

• A self-service workflow for homecare agency owners that eliminates multiple spreadsheets, prescribed timing on rate changes, and all manual touch points with our engineering and finance teams.

• The workflow empowers owners, bringing visibility, flexibility, and clarity to pricing.

• In its initial release, 42 owners used the tool and gave overwhelmingly positive feedback. This update saves about 8 weeks of the Honor team’s time each year.

• Sole designer working with a PM and 4 engineers.

The current rate change process is incredibly manual and leads to a high probability for error, creating a poor experience for all parties.

• The finance team is building BRTs, auditing submissions, and pulling additional one-off information for owners.

• Owners submit typos and errors and overlook critical steps, requiring several back-and-forth reviews with the Honor team.

• A client rate edit gets passed between at least 4 people and is manually entered into 3 different spreadsheets before it is saved into the system.

• Inaccurate rate communications are often sent to clients from Honor.
  

“I’ve been through 10 [rate change] cycles and 100% of the time there are errors…it’s shocking that a tech company can’t get this right.” — Agency owner

The current process leaves owners feeling less control over their business. With Honor, owners can only adjust twice a year, in tandem with service rate changes. They feel pressured to make changes to keep their business afloat. Owners are already feeling uneasy about other aspects of the platform and may decide to leave Honor all together if this does not change.

Success metrics

• Offline workflows should go to zero (no more spreadsheets)

• Errors in each pricing cycle (client-facing and owner-facing) should go to zero

• Honor team time (finance, eng, and support teams) spent per cycle on rate changes & comms should be close to zero
  
  

Business goals

• Grow the franchise network

• Drive Care Platform conversions

• Improve Care Platform economics

Solution

We see a future where owners are spending more time in the community, talking to current and potential clients and doing more of what brought them to this business in the first place. In the future, the system suggests when it might be time to raise rates based on a client’s care situation, the overall book of business, and the current market conditions, and Honor’s financial infrastructure is flexible enough to not be tied to semi-annual service rate changes.

Owners can edit rates using a guided flow within their existing owner portal.

• Owners are no longer tied to the twice a year BRT process. They can edit rates for an individual client or several throughout the year and without having to interface with the Honor team.

• The guided flow matches the owner’s mental model in deciding which clients are ready for a rate change, and it acts as a sandbox for owners to view in real-time how certain changes affect business projections overall as well as on an individual level.

• Error prevention is built into the tool and doesn’t require the Honor team to audit.

• Client rate communications are shifted back to owners in this flow and ensures accuracy and a return to a more personal touch between owners and their clients.

Owners have more day-to-day visibility into client pricing in the Owner Portal.

In a new client tab, owners now can view the financial details of a client in depth to determine if and when they might raise rates for an individual or to answer a client’s billing questions.

Previously, owners could see a list of clients and their individual revenues in the portal, but charge rates, service rates, and edit history per client were not readily available outside of the BRT.

Results and next steps

MVP implementation began in May 2023 and was still in progress when I left the company. I worked with our engineers to adapt the designs to current technical constraints, set the foundation for future iterations, and prioritize building key aspects of the flow to get feedback from the full group of owners.

Out of 50 agencies with planned rate changes, 42 agencies used the tool in this MVP release. Only 11 reached out to our finance team for support, mostly to “make sure I’m doing this right the first time”, and this is a major improvement compared to previous cycles that were 100% handheld by the finance team. Only 1 agency had any issue that required engineering involvement.

Owners gave overwhelmingly positive feedback about the tool, with the main talking point being “it’s easy to use”.

“I submitted my changes today. It appears that it worked smoothly! Thanks for the resources that were simple to understand and use!”

There was minor usability feedback, generally around feature enhancements we’d already considered and traded off due to scope but were planned for future phases.