Oscar: turning members' real-world health data into patient engagement
Company: Oscar
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Oscar, the US health insurer. Oscar has a feature built on real-world data: health information gathered during everyday care rather than in clinical studies, such as insurance claims, pharmacy fills, medical records, lab results and readings from wearables or home devices. How would you improve this feature, with the specific goal of getting patients more engaged?
```hint Decide what engagement should change
Before listing features, decide which health action a patient should take because they saw their own data. For an insurer, engagement that never changes a health decision is a weak goal.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Does the feature currently show patients their own data, or does it mainly feed internal analytics that patients never see?
- Which sources can the feature draw on (claims, pharmacy, labs, connected devices), and what consent covers each one?
- Should engagement be judged by use of the feature, or by health actions such as completing a screening or refilling a medication on time?
- Is the target every member, or a group such as members managing a chronic condition?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A definition of patient engagement tied to health actions, with the reason it matters to an insurer
- A justified choice of patient segment and pain points specific to real-world data: scattered sources, unclear meaning, claims delays and privacy worries
- Solutions that turn data into understandable insight and a one-step next action, prioritized by impact, effort and risk
- A north-star metric with guardrails for privacy, alert fatigue and clinical safety
- The trust and regulatory limits on an insurer using personal health data
### Follow-up Questions
- Many patients fear their insurer will use this data against them. How does the product earn their trust?
- Claims data can arrive weeks after a visit. How do you avoid prompting a patient about care they already received?
- How would you show the feature improved health or lowered cost, rather than only raising usage?
Overview: A product improvement question for an Oscar product manager: how to make a feature built on real-world health data, such as claims, pharmacy fills and device readings, drive more patient engagement. It tests user segmentation, healthcare pain points, prioritization, metric design and judgment about privacy.