Unified Patient Portal
Patients had little visibility into their own genetic test status, faced opaque billing, and waited days for results. I led research for Natera’s first patient-facing portal — empowering 181K patients to track tests, view results, manage billing, and schedule sample draws.
Before the Unified Patient Portal, Natera’s genetic testing journey was almost entirely physician-mediated. Patients had little visibility into their own test status, faced opaque billing, and often waited days to hear results.
Why this project existed
- Regulatory trigger — The 21st Century Cures Act mandated instant patient access to results
- Business need — Reduce call-center load and enable self-service while safeguarding comprehension and emotional well-being
- User experience research question — How might we give patients transparent, empowering access without overwhelming them with medical jargon or anxiety?
Discovery: I conducted stakeholder interviews with 15 Natera SMEs (product, lab ops, genetic counseling, etc.) to capture technical constraints and patient pain points. Workshops and empathy mapping surfaced emotional states and workflow gaps.
Key insights → Design principles
- Patients ≠ Providers — Use plain language and show emotional sensitivity; avoid medical jargon
- Test is Core Object — Prioritize test status and next required action above all else
- Separation of Concerns — Keep billing information distinct from medical results to reduce anxiety
- Do Not Burden — Minimize cognitive load by showing only essential status indicators
These principles anchored every design and content decision throughout the project.
Defined Lexi, a digitally engaged pregnant patient, as the primary persona and mapped her end-to-end genetic-testing journey to expose key moments across ordering, sampling, results delivery, and billing.
Double Diamond Process: Divergent discovery → convergent synthesis → iterative prototyping. Figma prototypes of a progressive “test card” UI evolved across three major iterations to prioritize results over billing and highlight clear calls-to-action.
Critical scenarios designed for
- Scheduling a sample draw (clinic or at-home)
- Viewing results with optional educational videos and genetic-counselor follow-up
Method: Remote think-aloud sessions with 6 patients. Tasks included scheduling a sample draw and viewing results.
Findings
- Flexibility — Patients valued choice of appointment times and at-home draws
- Education — Pre-results videos eased anxiety and improved comprehension
- Access — Persistent availability of results and resources built trust
- Pain points — Unclear requirement to select three time slots; ambiguous confirmation messages
Recommendations included clarifying scheduling instructions and reinforcing confirmation feedback.
Adoption & engagement
- 181K patients created accounts (171K Women’s Health, 10K Organ Health)
- 100% of Women’s Health patients returned to view results
- 90%+ of Organ Health patients returned to view results
- 13% of Organ Health and 0.5% of Women’s Health patients used in-portal scheduling
- High return visits, strong satisfaction with educational resources, and reduced call-center burden
Publication: This work culminated in a peer-reviewed paper presented at the Design Research Society 2024 Conference: Navarro-Sainz, A., Huda, S., & Bectarte, R. Unified Patient Portal: Engaging Patients Throughout the Genetic Testing Journey. Proceedings of DRS 2024.
The Unified Patient Portal demonstrated that patient empowerment is achievable without overwhelming users, provided design principles stay patient-centric.
Next iterations
- Expand to oncology patients
- Address low scheduling adoption with improved guidance
- Continue longitudinal analytics to refine engagement strategies