Case Study · Galileo · 2022–2023

Virtual Medical Care

Galileo provides longitudinal primary care to millions of patients nationwide, including complex and underserved populations. I led design for the care ecosystem and growth model, opening rapid patient access while giving clinicians the context to deliver informed care.

Disciplines: Product Design · Design Strategy · Service Design · User Research
Categories: Healthcare · Telehealth · Growth · 0→1

Patient browsing the Galileo app with care-team doctor cards for internal and family medicine

Galileo app screen introducing the team approach, with the doctors on a case and a message from a care-team physician

Stethoscope resting on patient files beside a laptop

30%

Patient growth via onboarding flows

10–15%

Lower healthcare costs (SMB)

<8 hrs

To treatment plan, half of cases

80%

Encounters shifted from ER / urgent care

Context

Galileo was evolving beyond its direct-to-consumer roots to serve small-to-large employers and health insurers (B2B and B2B2C). That shift meant widening the care-access and delivery pipeline for a far broader patient population. The pressure was real: the company was signing contracts it couldn't yet fulfill, so the solution had to ship fast.

My role

I led design for Galileo's care-access and growth model, owning the onboarding architecture that let the company serve employer and payer programs without rebuilding the experience consumers already knew.

The challenge

How might we deliver timely, high-quality virtual care without adding friction, while verifying each patient's coverage or collecting self-pay details, so clinical needs are met immediately and revenue integrity holds for every encounter?

Approach

I validated the direction with competitive analysis, then mapped alternative onboarding flows for employer-sponsored, payer-sponsored, and direct-to-consumer patients. Where we landed was a single converging funnel:

Sponsor selection up front (insurance, employer, or none), so coverage is validated before anyone invests time.
Direct-to-consumer as the universal fallback: any skip, failure, or ineligible sponsor routes to self-pay instead of ejecting the user.
One shared data model: every registrant normalizes to the same shape by preliminary demographics, simplifying clinical and analytics workflows downstream.
A single security checkpoint (phone verification) covering both regulatory identity proofing and engagement (SMS reminders, MFA).
Minimal friction: no branch adds more than two fields beyond the base flow.

Galileo onboarding flow: sponsor selection (insurance, employer, or direct-to-consumer) converging through shared preliminary demographics and a single phone-verification checkpoint, with any skip or failure falling back to self-pay — Every sponsor path converges on one data model, with direct-to-consumer as the universal fallback.

Wireframe flow map of the Galileo onboarding funnel: dozens of mobile screens connected by flow lines, branching by sponsor type before converging on shared demographics and verification — The funnel at screen level: every sponsor branch, skip, and fallback wired end to end. Tap to expand.

Galileo registration screen asking who sponsors your membership, with employer and health-insurer options and a skip-for-now path to pay direct — The sponsor selector ships at both touchpoints: inside registration and again after account creation, so coverage is captured early for billing and users can switch paths later without friction.

Galileo activate-your-membership screen after account creation, offering an organization, a health plan, or pay-direct yearly and monthly plans — The sponsor selector ships at both touchpoints: inside registration and again after account creation, so coverage is captured early for billing and users can switch paths later without friction.

Wired flow map of high-fidelity Galileo membership onboarding screens: activate membership, access-code entry, verification progress, and success and error end states — Membership onboarding at high fidelity: activation, code entry, and verification wired through success and error states. Tap to expand.

End-to-end Galileo journey diagram: the registration funnel feeding the care loop of consult, intake, PHR review, payor resolution, and card capture, ending in service coding, charging, and receipt — The complete journey: the converging funnel feeds one care loop, from consult and intake through service coding and billing. Tap to expand.

Grid of Galileo pre-case screens: home entry points, membership activation, access-code entry, identity verification, and success and error states before case submission — Pre-case submission at screen level: every membership and verification state a patient can hit before a case reaches intake. Tap to expand.

Grid of Galileo post-intake screens across the sponsor paths: membership activation, insurance card capture, identity details, verification progress, and confirmation states — Post-intake at screen level: activation, card capture, and verification states for each sponsor path. Tap to expand.

Outcome

Routing every ineligible path to self-pay kept the consumer happy-path intact while giving employer and payer programs full parity, so Galileo could sign B2B contracts without fragmenting the experience. By the end of FY2023 the model had grown the patient base 30% and cut small-business healthcare costs 10 to 15%, with asynchronous care resolving 87% of cases at a 93% first-time accurate diagnosis rate. It cut support burden and became the foundation for a modular care platform serving enterprise, consumer, and partner programs.