Medicare Payment Advisory Commission partners with Materiell for WordPress development, managed hosting and support.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is an independent congressional agency established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-33) to advise the U.S. Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program. In addition to advising the Congress on payments to private health plans participating in Medicare and providers in Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service program, MedPAC provides information on access to care, quality of care, and other issues affecting Medicare.
Read: Materiell and the MedPAC.gov site win Best in Class Award 2022 from Interactive Media Council, Inc.
Services
- Enterprise Managed WordPress Hosting
- WordPress Maintenance and Support
- Advanced Content Migration
- Accessibility Consultation and Improvements
- Custom WordPress Design and Development
- Advanced Search and Filtering Development
Needs
MedPAC required a redesigned website that met the needs of their many audiences as well as an effective backend that improved internal user workflows. The visitor experience on the site, particularly as it related to search functionality, was also not ideal for their primary audiences. The two biggest requirements in the site’s redesign were to improve how visitors searched so they could more easily find the information they desired and to update the dated design.
MedPAC previously used an outdated content management system (CMS) that caused particular challenges for their staff. It was clunky and in need of major updates. Few staff knew how to upload or edit content and updates sometimes impacted site performance that disrupted the visitor experience. In addition, the MedPAC team wanted the new site to follow current accessibility guidelines and have improved security features in line with government standards.
Solution
Materiell developed the new MedPAC site with WordPress to maximize the more user-friendly WordPress CMS. The flexibility and customization offered within WordPress allowed the site to include the advanced features MedPAC desired without sacrificing the ease of use for staff to update and manage the site. This resulted in improved workflows for MedPAC staff and better performance and security.
Search functionality was vastly improved by using ElasticSearch on the site and organizing the categories and filters to complement how the MedPAC staff understood visitors to search information on the site. Now visitors are able to easily search and perform multiple downloads without impacting the site’s overall performance. Materiell also developed the backend workflows to enable the staff minimal effort in uploading and categorizing content.
The new site also offers a modern design that follows WCAG 2.1 AA standards while staying true to the MedPAC brand guidelines. In fact, MedPAC liked the design so much that they used it in their print versions of reports and PDFs as well.
Additionally, to improve the security and reliability of the site, Materiell hosts and manages the MedPAC site on the Google Cloud with similar security features that government agencies use. This includes optimizing performance and providing continuous uptime monitoring, plugin updates, daily backups and disaster recovery. It also includes ongoing support and development resources as needed. Regular check-ins with the Materiell and MedPAC team assure continued success as the needs of the organization evolve.
