We sat down with Dr.Bill’s chief product officer, Randah McKinnie, to hear about her experience as a product manager in tech, what’s exciting her about Dr.Bill’s offering, and how the team is making medical billing easier for Canadian physicians.
1. Can you tell us a little bit more about Dr.Bill?
Canadian physicians, in order to be paid for their work, have to submit claims to their provincial health ministries, much like we submit claims to health insurance companies.
Imagine working all day, and then spending each evening documenting your work in order to ensure you get a paycheque!
Dr.Bill was launched in 2014 in order to solve this exact problem, which I think most Canadians don’t even know exists. Particularly during this very stressful and taxing time for the medical community, this is a problem that creates real stress and unnecessary burdens for our medical heroes.
While we at Dr.Bill can’t change this system, we can and do work tirelessly to make the billing experience easier for Canadian physicians.
Through web and mobile experiences, in addition to a knowledgeable and highly effective services team, we help doctors spend less time on billing and earn more money by optimizing their claims.
2. What excites you most about Dr.Bill? Dr.Bill’s product offering?
So many physicians work long hours and are being stretched to the max during this pandemic, and they’re highly dedicated to healthy patient outcomes. The idea of helping physicians in order to give back to them in a valuable way is meaningful to me, and motivates me to deliver technology solutions that make a difference.
The opportunity to make medical billing easier and more effective for Canadian doctors is also compelling. Most administrative tasks in the medical field are either highly manual or occur through clunky, difficult applications that were not built to be easy or delightful to use.
For example, it isn’t unusual for some claims to be rejected or refused, but many doctors still rely on paper reports and handwritten notes delivered to their administrator to resolve these issues. Dr.Bill makes the turnaround time practically instantaneous, with transparent digital details that doctors can either resolve themselves, or have them resolved by Dr.Bill.
We can introduce doctors to true user-first software experiences that are designed by people who understand the user problem, not just the administrative need.
3. As someone with a vast array of product management experience in tech, what do you think will translate most to your mission at Dr.Bill?
Through the years as a product manager at Adobe and Intuit, I have consistently been drawn to truly understand the pains our users feel, and the gains a great solution can provide. At times I’ve had to fight for the user in creative ways, because it isn’t always easy to see the path between delivering what the users want to delivering the results a company needs.
What my experience has taught me is that when Product Management does its job really well, there is always room to add new capabilities to the solution to give users what they ask for. When we identify what is possible for us to deliver, and align that with areas the user might not even know there are areas for improvement, there is almost always alignment between what a company wants to produce and what is best for the user base. I’ve learned to always keep searching for solutions that have this synergy, and to push to make sure we deliver them in order to grow product lines and gain happy customers.
Here at Dr.Bill, we have a number of opportunities on the horizon that fall into strategic alignment in this way, and we are already working on bringing them forward.
4. Any advice for the product managers out there?
My advice to you is to fall in love with the customer problem, not your solution. By staying focused on the problem to be solved, you will deliver a solution that alleviates pain and/or delivers gain. If the focus switches to the solution too soon, the end result will often miss the mark, which is expensive on a number of fronts.
For those Product Managers looking for growth and bigger opportunities, I recommend that you understand your product and your user as deeply as possible. This is going to help you identify insights faster, and will give you the background you need to advocate for what should come next on the roadmap, and ideally put you in a great position to be the one to run with any new initiatives you define.
Finally, wherever possible, gravitate toward the problems that interest you. Most of the time, being a Product Manager is not a simple or clearly defined job; the ambiguity and broad responsibilities of the PM role can be taxing. I recommend that you seek out work that fulfills a mission that is meaningful to you. That way, on the days when it all feels like a lot, you are fueled by this mission, and your enthusiasm will power the greater team and will be evident in the solutions you deliver.
5. What’s on the horizon for Dr.Bill?
Dr.Bill is growing rapidly. We aspire to be the number one choice for medical billing in Canada. Our team will continue to build great relationships with our customers and make sure their billing experience and results are optimized. We will keep listening to and researching where the challenges are, and continually innovate to ensure doctors spend less time in their days submitting claims, and more time doing what matters.
If you’re a physician who needs help with medical billing, or a creative and curious person interested in helping to develop innovative solutions, please check out the Dr.Bill website.
