Infographic: The Anatomy of Health Insurance
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This infographic was submitted to us by MPHProgramsList.com
This makes a good tool to help people understand crucial terms related to health care. Interpreting insurance plans can be incredibly daunting and stressful, leaving people wondering how much they will have to pay for any given charge, from doctor’s visits to medication to surgery.
I can tell that during ideation, text was intended to be kept to a minimum. It’s important to remember, though, that any amount of text on an infographic appears much more heavy-handed than if one is prepared to be reading an article. For instance, the description of HMOs is just two sentences long, but it’s four entire lines of text. When I read infographics, four lines of text often get skimmed. I’m looking for a few words or sentence fragments that convey the idea without getting verbose. That description could be reworded:
“Most restrictive managed plan. Members choose primary physician in network; responsible for all out-of-network costs.”
Sure, it’s not as formal, but it gets the message across fast. Infographics should let the imagery do the talking.
I’d love to see a visual comparison of the HMO vs. PPO, In Network vs. Out of Network costs–perhaps just the total cost at the end. Those numbers translated to a chart would be a quick way to show what costs you the most and least, and by how much. It isn’t until the final two sections that we get any data viz at all.
As an infographic I’d give this a C, because it could be lighter on text and heavier on visuals. However, it does contain plenty of relevant explanatory data and I think serves its purpose quite well, so as a tool I’d give it an A.
