RevCap attorney
The appeals side of revenue capture
Challenge
Part two of the RevCap web app development project: Help attorneys track and collaborate on their appeals to client exceptions more efficiently, so they can get back to billable work faster.
User research
Our team used interviews as well as in-person observation to get a better understanding of how attorneys were appealing client exceptions. Like the accounting team, they were also managing this process entirely via email, which left a few gaps for reports to slip through.
Since exception reports have deadlines, accounting has to email them to attorneys as soon as possible once they arrive; attorneys shared that seeing email notifications about a client unhappy with the bill was demoralizing, particularly when the notification interrupted their workflow. This unpredictability also made it difficult to keep track of appeals due, since attorneys and their assistants can't stop to update a task list each time a new message arrives. Some of them made a habit of emailing the Revenue Capture team to request a weekly 'open items' list.
Drafting appeals was also complex, as many invoices involve the work of more than one attorney and will need each participant's responses prior to appeal submission. People often forgot to reply, forgot attachments, or even responded in a new thread, leaving the recipient guessing as to what appeal that message was referencing.
Another trend we observed was that clients tend to raise exception to the same types of tasks over and over, so attorneys spend a lot of time creating similar appeals. But they don't get to see the client's response to those appeals, so they never know whether or not their chosen strategy is worthwhile. Taking time away from billable work to complete repetitive, non-billable tasks that may or may not net income was an extreme source of frustration for this group.
Over repeated rounds of research a few common attorney pain points emerged:
Organization - Instead of piece meal notifications, attorneys preferred an open items list.
Collaboration - They needed a way to assign and track teammates' responses on group appeals.
Outcomes - Attorneys needed visibility into the clients' appeal determinations, in order to optimize their use of time.
User flows
Based on their feedback during interviews and observation, we designed the attorney flows in RevCap with more dashboard customizations.
One big win was outfitting the home screen with a row of tiles to help users quickly address urgent tasks as well as low-hanging fruit.
Tile row:
Due this week
Returned reports
Collaborations
Drafts
Designing for collaborative experiences
A pain point expressed by a lot of users was collaborating appeals with teammates via email. Apart from colleagues forgetting or losing track of messages and attachments, it can be difficult to tell who should really be responsible for a particular report.
When multiple attorneys work on the same matter it's opened under a single name-- the billing attorney-- and may be primarily handled by another person known as the handling attorney. Other contributors are simply termed 'timekeepers;' however, we learned that often times the attorney responsible for getting everyone's appeals submitted on time on that matter may not be the billing or handling attorney.
To keep things clear in RevCap, we designated the responsible party "report owner" and displayed the billing attorney, report owner, and other timekeepers on the Invoice Details card for easy reference at any stage in the appeals lifecycle. Since not all timekeepers owe appeals, in RevCap another timekeeper who does owe appeals on a report is called a "collaborator."
We also gave report owners the ability to track and review their teammates' appeals through tabbed table view, and a feature called the Manage Access table enables them to add or remove collaborators. They can even reassign the report altogether if needed.
Alleviating pain points
Organizing open items
No more intermittent email notifications chipping away at users' morale throughout the workweek. RevCap's dashboard organizes all open reports for each attorney into a single, self-serve location and even offers shortcuts to high-priority tasks and quick wins through the tile bar.
Collaboration
With the Manage Access feature and tabbed appeal response table view, report owners can now manage collaborative appeals much more efficiently.
Outcomes
One of the greatest frustrations we heard during user interviews was being left in the dark about what happens to their appeals after submission. Did the client approve payment, or hold firm on their dispute? Should the user employ the same strategy again later, or adjust it for better results? The accounting team was already entering outcomes as part of their process, so we added an Appeal Outcomes page to the attorney dash to make the last connection and establish visibility.
User feedback
"This takes the panic out of the process, and make no mistake -- panic is what attorneys feel when we see client exceptions. So thank you! This helps."