Healthcare has spent the last decade building front doors.
There are digital front doors for health systems, telehealth platforms for urgent needs, benefit portals for covered services, online price transparency tools, pharmacy apps, manufacturer savings programs, navigation companies, and condition-specific care models. Each one promises to help people find a way into our highly complex healthcare system.
That progress matters. More entry points can make care easier to discover, compare, and initiate. But for many consumers, the hardest part of healthcare is navigating their way to what comes next.
HEALTHCARE BREAKS DOWN IN THE HANDOFFS
A consumer may start with a telehealth visit, then need a prescription, then realize the medication is not covered or costs more than expected. Another may find a lower price online, then struggle to understand whether it is covered there by their insurance or at their preferred pharmacy. Someone else may be told to get a lab, scan, or follow-up visit, only to face yet another search for availability, pricing, and payment options.
The problem is that too many of these steps end in uncertainty.
That is where healthcare loses people. And the worst part is it usually occurs at a critical point in their treatment journey: when they’re deciding whether to seek care in the handoffs between diagnosis, cost, coverage, fulfillment, and follow-through. In those moments, intent becomes action or turns into delay.
ACCESS MUST INCLUDE FOLLOW-THROUGH
The healthcare industry has put significant energy into helping people start their care journey. The next challenge is putting equal effort into helping them continue.
In most consumer industries, a good experience is defined by whether the experience holds together after the first click. Travel platforms like Expedia or Google Flights do not just show that flights exist; they help consumers compare routes, understand prices, book, check in, and manage changes. And the same is true for retail apps: They show inventory and connect this seamlessly with payment, delivery, and returns.
EVERY DEAD END HAS A COST
Although healthcare is more complex and personal than these examples, that complexity makes follow-through more important.
When the experience breaks down, the consequences are serious. People delay appointments because they do not know what they will owe. Many abandon prescriptions when the price at the pharmacy counter is higher than expected. Some start treatment without a clear understanding of whether they can afford to continue, while others spend hours trying to connect pieces of the system that were never designed around the consumer experience.
These dead ends rarely happen in isolation. A coverage issue becomes a pricing issue. A pricing issue becomes a fulfillment issue. A fulfillment issue becomes an adherence issue. Sometimes the cost is financial. Other times it’s clinical. Almost always, it erodes trust in the system.
DESIGN FOR THE MOMENTS PEOPLE GET STUCK
Healthcare has given people more places to start. Now it’s time to make the path easier to navigate.
That requires designing around the moments when consumers are most likely to get stuck. When a prescription is written, people should be able to see relevant cost options before they reach the pharmacy counter. When a service is recommended, people should have a clearer understanding of what insurance may cover, the self-pay options, and what the next step will cost. When a treatment requires ongoing use, the experience should be built around continuity, not just initiation.
No single company can own every part of the journey. But every organization that touches that journey has a responsibility to reduce friction at the handoff. Providers, pharmacies, manufacturers, employers, payers, and technology platforms all shape whether someone can start and stay on therapy. But consumers should not be the only connective tissue among them. A better system would bring pricing, access, fulfillment, and support closer together so that fewer people are left to troubleshoot healthcare in real time.
FUTURE SUCCESS MODELS ARE ALREADY HERE
This is part of how we think about GoodRx Companion, our monthly subscription that brings together free and low-cost generic medications, affordable online care visits, and savings on routine services such as dental, vision, labs, and imaging. Companion is not meant to replace insurance. It is designed around the everyday healthcare needs that can become unnecessarily fragmented, giving consumers a more predictable place to manage routine costs and care.
The broader lesson is that healthcare experiences should be judged by accessibility in the enrollment process, and also by how well they help people move forward.
A digital tool that surfaces a price but does not help someone use it is only part of the answer. Same goes for a care model that starts with a visit but leaves cost and fulfillment unresolved or incomplete; or a benefit that technically exists but is too hard to understand or access.
Medical innovation will only make this more urgent. Breakthrough therapies can change lives, but their impact depends on whether people can access them, afford them, and stay on treatment. The same is true for routine care. Healthcare value is created when people can complete the path to care.
That is the design challenge for healthcare now: fewer disconnected experiences, fewer unclear next steps, and fewer moments when consumers have to stop and decode the system before they can keep going.
Healthcare has opened more doors than ever. Now it has to make sure those doors actually lead somewhere.
Wendy Barnes is president and CEO of GoodRx.