As the number of teams building applications for VA.gov grows, so does the risk for potential problems, including duplicated efforts, user experience inconsistencies across applications, and gaps in security.
In the past, Veterans wanting to access benefits and services from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had to navigate multiple sites with different designs and separate logins. They described the process as confusing and felt overwhelmed by the unnecessary need to understand the VA's organizational structure to get things done.
To ensure millions of Americans have secure and reliable access to manage their healthcare enrollment, Ad Hoc supports the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in maintaining the site's backend technical needs and the frontend user experience.
Search.gov was designed to be a reliable, quality tool to help government web teams. However, research showed the site had navigation and other difficulties, so we set out to improve specific pain points while also making it more attractive to new users.
When the COVID-19 vaccine became available, the VA needed an online option to help as many Veterans as possible schedule their vaccine appointments. We chose to use existing infrastructure to shorten the time needed to build the tool, which provided Veterans with an efficient, user-friendly experience.
Ad Hoc worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to rethink how CMS could replace the decade-old Medicare Plan Finder tool with one that better serves Medicare beneficiaries and those who help them.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Veterans Affairs needed to respond quickly and effectively to best serve Veterans and their families. Ad Hoc, in support of prime contractor Oddball, helped the VA build a COVID-19 digital response dashboard that included call center feedback and website usage to help measure the trajectory and success of the VA's COVID-19 digital services.
When using the Find Local Help tool to connect with experts who could help with health insurance enrollment, users ran into difficulties with the site. Ad Hoc partnered with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to uncover the issues and build a simpler, more efficient process.
To meet the needs of those using Search.gov and increase its presence in the market, Ad Hoc, along with prime contractor Fearless and the Search.gov team, incorporated product management processes and focused strategies to guide our work and improve the site that provides search results for more than 2,200 government websites.
When people shop for health insurance plans on HealthCare.gov, more than a quarter of API traffic is from people trying to determine if a plan covers their doctors and medication. This coverage data changes constantly, so to meet the demand, Ad Hoc helped the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) develop a website to validate coverage data. And we were able to build it in less than a month.
To support the growing number of teams working on the Veteran-facing Services Platform (VSP), Ad Hoc's Platform Analytics team created a standardized, scalable data warehouse and visualization tools that would meet the various teams' needs and provide meaningful data for them to use when designing their products.
When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau held a one-week Innovation Tech Sprint, Ad Hoc responded with prototypes, content recommendations, and a long-term plan CFPB could use to create an effective developer experience that expanded access and use of home mortgage data.
