What's the current state of patient bills?

We set out to study how patients manage their medical bills. Given the broad scope of the healthcare space, we focused on the complex payment systems healthcare practices use for billing and receiving payments from patients. Post-treatment, we found that providers typically bill patients in three ways:

• Mail a paper bill

  Providers mail physical bills to patients following visits. While this method satisfies state legal requirements, it burdens patients with manual tasks: writing checks, purchasing stamps, addressing envelopes, and ensuring timely mail delivery.

  
  

• Payment portals
  Some providers offer digital payment options through desktop-focused portals. However, these systems typically require patients to reference a PIN previously sent by mail, creating an additional barrier to payment.

  
  

• Call the office or pay in person
  If the other two methods fail, patients must call the office and pay their bill over the phone, providing their payment card information and often being placed on hold. This method is very time-consuming for all parties.

  
  

• Phone/In-Person Payments

  When other methods fail, patients must call or visit the office to process payments. This approach often involves long hold times and manual card information collection, consuming significant time for both patients and staff.

So why aren't patients paying their healthcare bills?

After analyzing the patient payment journey, clear patterns emerged around billing friction. We identified four key barriers affecting both patients and providers, creating a foundation for our solution strategy.

While providers need to collect payments for their services, current billing methods create significant operational burden. Staff spend considerable time managing bills, processing payments, and reconciling accounts—time that could be spent on patient care. This administrative overhead not only drains practice resources but also degrades the healthcare experience for everyone involved, creating a lose-lose situation for both providers and patients.

Create a frictionless payment experience

The Peachy Solution: Eliminating Payment Friction

Our team developed a strategy to address these four critical pain points by creating a payment experience that aligns with modern user expectations. Our target demographic—Millennials and Gen Z users—demand digital-first, secure, and seamless interactions. Current payment options fail to deliver on both security and convenience, undermining confidence for both patients and providers.

Here's how we tackled each barrier:

First take

Early wireframes

Our discovery research led to a radically simplified payment flow: reducing a complex, multi-step process to just three taps on a mobile device. This streamlined experience stripped away traditional payment friction while maintaining security and functionality.

How did we do this? 
We eliminated every non-essential step in the payment process, including the traditional requirement for account creation. While a Peachy account offers clear benefits, we recognized that one-time specialist visits didn't justify the signup friction. Instead, we shifted our focus to onboarding providers with recurring patient relationships, creating natural incentives for patients to eventually create accounts to manage multiple provider relationships.

Iteration

Refining the core patient experience

Through fourteen combined discovery and usability sessions, we tested our initial wireframes. The research validated our core hypothesis: patients prioritize a seamless, familiar payment experience that guides them efficiently to completion. However, testing also revealed several key areas needing refinement:

Updated Design

We refined three key aspects of the experience based on user feedback:

• Navigation Streamlining Enhanced in-app movement patterns to create more intuitive pathways through the payment process.

• Bill Transparency Expanded bill detail visibility, ensuring patients have complete access to charge information before payment.

• Contextual Clarity Rewrote interface copy to better explain features and guide users through each step of the process.