In celebration of Availity’s 25th anniversary, we’re highlighting associates whose impact and dedication have helped shape who we are today. Through this special Associate Spotlight series, we’re honoring the people behind our story—past, present, and future.
In this Q&A, we’re proud to spotlight Zia M., who shares reflections on her journey, the moments that mattered most, and what continues to inspire her as part of Availity.
When did you join Availity, what was your first role, and what stands out most from your early days?
I joined Availity in April of 2021 as an Availity Client Services (ACS) representative. Thinking back, it was a lot of information we had to learn during training. Learning about healthcare in general, our place in it; learning all of the different transactions and tools involved in order to be able to guide provider users through it and troubleshoot issues. I think it provided an excellent foundation for my work as a User Experience designer; to have a broad understanding of Essentials, but it’s a LOT. Props to all of our ACS reps who are on the phones every day. You are the front lines, and I really appreciate all that you do.
What’s kept you here the longest?
The challenge. There’s so much opportunity for user experience improvement in the healthcare space. I’m constantly learning and tackling new problems with different teams, gaining new perspectives from working with different leaders across the company. My work is never finished.
How has your role evolved since you started?
When I worked in ACS, my job was to help the individual on the other side of the phone. Whatever specific issue they were having, I needed to help them figure it out and resolve it. Now, as a UX Designer, I still spend time understanding individual users’ needs, but I also look at the big picture and make sure we’re solving for the 80%, not just one person.
Looking back on your time at Availity, what accomplishment or contribution are you most proud of?
Looking back, I’m most proud of Digital Correspondence. At go-live, I had designed all of Digital Correspondence, and it was very well received. I had the opportunity to demo it at Connects, and payers and providers could not wait to get their hands on it. Then, when it came time for the first ease-of-use and usefulness survey from our users (UX Lite), Digital Correspondence earned the second-highest score of all of our products. I am so proud of this contribution because it’s the largest body of work of mine to ever go into production, and it is helping both payers and providers communicate more rapidly, ensuring decisions don’t get lost in the mail or delayed by manual paper processes. It has the potential to make a great impact on the future of healthcare administration and save the healthcare sector hundreds of millions of dollars in paper and mailing costs, maybe even more.
What excites you most about where Availity is headed next?
The cloud migration and expansion of the data lake really excite me for Availity’s future. We have so much data, and I think we’re just starting to leverage some of it to enhance the user experience, but there’s so much opportunity to make more intelligent workflows when all of our data is easily accessible.
When you think about our Core Values, which one resonates most with you, and why?
Be All-In: We work across silos and embrace diverse perspectives to tackle hard problems head-on together. One Team. One Mission. One Availity. Be All-In resonates the most with me. In my position, I’m lucky to work across many departments, and the solutions I’m most proud of, and that have improved the user experience the most, are often those in which there was fantastic collaboration across multiple departments. It may just be Product, UX, and Technology most of the time, but when we lean in and learn from ACS, Compliance, Security, Legal, and our Growth teams, etc., and we’re all working together, those are the best projects.
What are three words you’d use to describe Availity today?
Evolving. Cornerstone. Influential.
What’s one way your team quietly helps simplify healthcare that most people outside Availity would never notice?
Element. Over the last couple of years, our team has spent a lot of time developing and evangelizing our new design system, Element. Consistent components like buttons, form fields, and tables, and consistent layouts and page patterns have proven to make anything you do in an interface easier. Most people outside of Availity won’t notice when they know exactly where to click; it seems obvious. But everything that seems obvious and simple is because we put a lot of time and thought into standardizing it and making it as easy as possible. That’s how the User Experience team quietly helps simplify healthcare.
Thank you, Zia, for your dedication and the impact you’ve had in shaping Availity’s story. We’re grateful for all you do as we celebrate 25 years of Availity!