Medical Bill Rights

Helping people exercise their new rights to avoid surprise medical bills.

About

Challenge

Unexpected medical bills are a source of stress, frustration, and confusion. For people in the U.S., the No Surprises Act gives new rights to prevent and resolve these surprise bills.

The Digital Service at CMS (DSAC) was asked to create web content to help people understand and act on their new rights. The team took a human-centered approach to make sure the content and tools were accessible to the people who needed them most.

Solution

We worked closely with the Office of the Administrator (OA), the Office of Communications (OC), and the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at CMS to create cms.gov/medical-bill-rights and cms.gov/derechos-facturas-medicas. 

To do this, the team conducted 17 rounds of research–adding up to more than 90 hours of interviews with patients, caregivers, patient advocates, and help desk staff. This research led to the development of a plain language explanation of rights, guides to help users navigate billing issues, and an interactive tool to empower people through a step-by-step plan to address their specific situation. It also allowed the team to improve an existing complaints form to improve readability and layout.

To create effective Spanish-language content, we hired a native Spanish-speaking content designer to design the content, not simply translate the English version. This helped ensure content is culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate.

The Medical Bill Rights content is also inclusive and accessible because we:

• Provide all information in both English and Spanish
• Used best practices in plain language and clear design
• Built the site to be responsive to different devices, including mobile phones and tablets
• Offer multiple clear pathways for people to learn about their rights
• Meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards