Automating a highly manual insurance verification workflow
Overview
Insurance verification in dental billing is a high-frequency, detail-heavy workflow that directly impacts patient billing accuracy and appointment readiness. Before every appointment, teams must verify insurance coverage, estimate patient responsibility, and manually input data across fragmented systems and carrier portals.
Our goal was to dramatically reduce manual work and improve speed, accuracy, and usability by introducing automation, smarter workflows, and a system designed for high-volume enterprise users managing multiple dental offices.
The Problem
Insurance verification teams were facing a deeply inefficient workflow:
- Repetitive manual entry into long IV forms
- Switching between insurance portals, spreadsheets, and internal tools
- High cognitive load when managing multiple clinics and DSOs
- Lack of visibility into status, urgency, and due dates
- No scalable system for high-volume verification workloads
This process didn’t just slow teams down—it created inconsistency and operational risk across offices.
Goals
We focused the redesign around three core outcomes:
- Automate insurance data entry wherever possible
- Reduce time and friction in IV request creation and completion
- Support power users managing multiple offices and high request volume
1. Automating Insurance Data (Zuub Integration)
A major unlock in this system was integrating with Zuub, which connects directly to insurance carrier portals and retrieves plan data via API.
This allowed us to pre-fill IV forms automatically, reducing a large portion of manual data entry.
Key UX Challenge
The integration required initial setup per office, but users:
- Had no technical background
- Needed immediate clarity on connection status
- Needed confidence that setup was successful without training or support
Solution
We designed a simple 2-step connection flow:
- Enter Zuub-generated credentials
- Confirm connection status
We also introduced persistent system feedback states:
- Connected
- Disconnected
- Action required
This made a complex integration feel lightweight and self-explanatory.
2. Faster IV Requests with a Structured 4-Step Flow
We redesigned IV request creation into a guided workflow optimized for speed without sacrificing accuracy.
Flow:
- Select clinic (with favorites, recent, and search)
- Choose verification type
- Enter patient + insurance details
- Review and confirm submission
Because users often manage multiple offices, we intentionally added a final confirmation step to prevent misrouting requests.
3. Power-User Table Experience (Saved Views + Scale Handling)
Many users operate across DSOs with hundreds of clinics and high daily request volumes.
To support this complexity, we introduced:
Saved Views
Users can:
- Save custom filtered views
- Label and reuse them
- Switch between single or multiple office scopes
- Monitor due dates and urgency
This transformed the table from a static list into a personalized control center for workload management.
Process & Iteration
This project was built in structured design + development sprints, with tight feedback loops:
- Zuub integration + connection experience
- IV request table + saved views system
- IV form redesign + automation experience layer
Each phase followed the same approach:
- Low-fidelity exploration
- User validation and feedback
- Iteration and refinement
- High-fidelity design delivery aligned with development
This iterative approach allowed us to continuously refine complexity without overwhelming users.
Key Learnings
Through repeated testing and iteration, we learned:
- Users rely heavily on contextual plan information during verification
- Navigation speed inside long forms is just as important as automation
- Saved views are essential for DSOs managing large-scale operations
- Automation only succeeds when paired with strong visibility, control, and trust
Outcome
The final experience significantly reduced friction in a previously manual, error-prone workflow by:
- Automating insurance data retrieval and form completion
- Reducing time spent on IV request creation
- Improving clarity across multi-office operations
- Supporting both individual offices and large DSOs at scale
The result is a system that feels less like a form-based workflow and more like a guided, intelligent verification engine for high-volume billing teams.
Process & Iteration
This project was built in structured design + development sprints, with tight feedback loops:
- Zuub integration + connection experience
- IV request table + saved views system
- IV form redesign + automation experience layer
Each phase followed the same approach:
- Low-fidelity exploration
- User validation and feedback
- Iteration and refinement
- High-fidelity design delivery aligned with development
This iterative approach allowed us to continuously refine complexity without overwhelming users.
Key Learnings
Through repeated testing and iteration, we learned:
- Users rely heavily on contextual plan information during verification
- Navigation speed inside long forms is just as important as automation
- Saved views are essential for DSOs managing large-scale operations
- Automation only succeeds when paired with strong visibility, control, and trust
Outcome
The final experience significantly reduced friction in a previously manual, error-prone workflow by:
- Automating insurance data retrieval and form completion
- Reducing time spent on IV request creation
- Improving clarity across multi-office operations
- Supporting both individual offices and large DSOs at scale
The result is a system that feels less like a form-based workflow and more like a guided, intelligent verification engine for high-volume billing teams.