BCBS Federal Employee Program, MyBlue Member Portal
Personalizing the Drug Cost Tool for FEP members
An authenticated Drug Cost Tool for the MyBlue member portal that shows members personalized cost estimates based on their own plan and coverage.
Role
Lead UX Designer (sole UX practitioner)
Team
Business analyst
Business owner
Front-end and back-end developers
External research team
FEP Pharmacy team
Timeline
12 weeks
Tools
Axure, Miro, Jira, Microsoft Suite
Platform
Web (MyBlue Member Portal)
Overview
Project at a glance
TL;DR
Client background
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan, also known as the Federal Employee Program (FEP), provides health insurance coverage to current and retired federal employees. For about two years, I was part of a specialized MERGE team embedded within the FEP Design Center to enhance the MyBlue member portal and FEP mobile app.
Goal
Design and launch an authenticated MVP within one SAFe Agile Product Increment (a 12-week planning cycle) that used existing member and coverage data to provide personalized drug-cost estimates based on plan benefits, deductible status, and out-of-pocket spending.
Discovery
Discovery and prioritization
I began with a comparative analysis of prescription-cost tools, many of which used the standard CVS Caremark experience. Because FEP’s existing tool was custom-built, we had access to member and plan data that could support a more personalized experience.
I paired this analysis with legacy usage data to identify where members encountered unnecessary decisions and repetitive inputs. I then created a blue-sky vision for the authenticated experience and facilitated prioritization with business stakeholders, narrowing the concept to a minimum viable product that delivered the greatest member value within the Product Increment.
01
Entering account details
Friction
Signed-in members had to reenter details already tied to their accounts, such as employee type and plan.
Opportunity
Use authenticated member data to fill in these details automatically.
Result
Removed repetitive questions from the search flow.
02
Finding your plan’s price
Friction
Members sorted through pricing for every FEP plan to find their own costs.
Opportunity
Show only the member’s plan, based on current coverage, deductible, and out-of-pocket status.
Result
Members saw their own plan and costs without selecting it from a list.
03
Choosing a pharmacy
Friction
Members selected a pharmacy on a separate page every time they searched.
Opportunity
Let members save a preferred pharmacy.
Result
Removed the separate pharmacy selection page.
Design
Four design considerations
The discovery findings showed that members were making decisions the system could make for them. To address this, I focused the design on four considerations that kept the experience familiar while letting authenticated data do more of the work.
01
Preserve familiarity
Because members were already familiar with the public tool, we retained its core terminology and interaction patterns rather than introducing a completely new visual model.
02
Remove decisions the system could make
Authentication allowed the experience to automatically determine employee type, benefit plan, and relevant pricing. This eliminated repetitive questions and prevented members from sorting through plans that did not apply to them.
03
Personalize the results
Members could save a preferred pharmacy and view costs based on their current plan, deductible, and out-of-pocket status, bringing the most relevant information to the foreground.
04
Design for accessibility
I checked color contrast and text sizes throughout the designs, and worked with the developers and business analysts to write requirements that targeted WCAG AA.
Before and after
Testing
Usability testing with a prototype
I created an interactive Axure prototype with two variations of the landing page and results structure. In partnership with our external research team, I defined the research objectives, helped draft the testing guide, and observed six moderated 60-minute interviews.
The study evaluated whether members understood the personalized experience, could reach relevant pricing efficiently, and still wanted access to prices for other FEP plans.
By the numbers
6 of 6
participants completed the core pricing tasks in both variations
Key findings
01
Personalization increased relevance
Participants preferred seeing information for their own plan instead of filtering through generic plan options. This validated automatic plan selection as the default experience.
02
Preferred pharmacy reduced effort
Participants understood the saved-pharmacy feature and reached their relevant pricing with fewer decisions and less repeated input.
03
Members also wanted to compare plans
Participants wanted their own plan shown first, and they also wanted an easy way to filter and compare pricing across FEP plans.
Variation A
Benefits at a glance and the saved pharmacy on the landing page. Participants preferred this variation.
Results for the member’s own plan, with options to filter and compare pricing across FEP plans.
Variation B
A leaner landing page centered on search and the saved pharmacy. This became the basis for the launched MVP.
Personalized results for the member’s own plan. All six participants completed the core pricing tasks in both variations.
Decision
Balancing research with delivery
What participants preferred
Participants preferred the variation that showed benefits at a glance on the landing page alongside the saved pharmacy, and let them filter and compare plans and pricing in the results.
What we shipped
FEP chose to launch the leaner MVP within the Product Increment. Because all six participants completed the core pricing tasks in both variations, the core experience was validated either way.
We documented benefits at a glance and plan comparison as future enhancements, so the preferred features had a clear path forward after launch.
Delivery
Iteration and delivery
Refining and handing off
Following the research readout, I refined the selected layout and addressed edge cases identified during testing.
To support implementation, I partnered with the business analyst to translate the experience into technical user stories and detailed Jira annotations. During development, I led design-validation reviews to confirm that pricing states, interactions, and transitions aligned with the approved experience.
Adapting to a mid-build change
During implementation, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) introduced separate Postal and Federal employee classifications. Because the experience relied on modular authenticated-data rules rather than hard-coded user selections, the team was able to incorporate the new classification without restructuring the core experience.
Outcomes
Outcomes and reflection
Outcomes
Launched the authenticated MVP within the committed 12-week Product Increment.
Replaced repetitive inputs and the separate pharmacy page with results based on each member’s own plan and coverage.
All six research participants completed the core pricing tasks.
Incorporated a mid-build OPM classification change without restructuring the core experience.
Established a scalable foundation for plan comparison, benefit summaries, and expanded drug information.
Presenting to stakeholders
To close out the initiative, the lead of the Consumer Tools team invited me to co-present the new Drug Cost Tool at the FEP National Conference in Dallas, Texas. We led a 50-minute session and Q&A for about 40 FEP local plan representatives, demonstrating how the authenticated tool handles the OPM Postal and Federal split while giving members personalized cost estimates.
The authenticated version of the tool was well received at the conference.
Future enhancements
Expanded drug information
Add supporting information such as interactions, side effects, and brand-versus-generic guidance where appropriate.
Reflection
Personalization is most effective when it removes decisions rather than simply adding member data to an existing interface. Preserving familiar patterns while allowing authenticated information to do more of the work helped us improve relevance without disrupting a tool members already trusted.
