Bill Payment and Bad Design

I had to have a medical test done at the end of April.  Last week I got two things in the mail.  A bill for my portion, and a check for the same amount out of my flexible spending account.  I have no clue where my EOB is.  I finally figured out it must be subject to my deductible which I haven't reached.  Fair enough.

Oh, and I got a bill and a check for each of two things: the test and the doctor's fees for reading it.  Luckily both could be paid online.  Much easier, right? 

The first one I had to create an account for, with password, security questions, and the like.  Here are all the things that were wrong with it.

1. One field was "account nickname."  As I have no reason to think I'll be back, I left it blank.  Error message number one.  It wasn't optional.  Sigh.
2. My next error message was that my password didn't meet the requirements.  Doggoneit, I looked for requirements when I was putting it in and there weren't any.  They don't bother to tell you until you've screwed up.
3. Nowhere did it tell me my balance (or at least, nowhere I could find).  If I didn't have the piece of paper in front of me, I wouldn't have known how much to pay.  That's just plain dumb.
4. I had to fill out patient information, including address.  Never mind the fact that they mailed me the bill with the account number on it.
5. I had to enter the same address for the billing info.  Every two-bit e-commerce site has a check box to use the same information for billing that you've already entered.  Is health care that intent on making us miserable?

I finished account one and moved on to number two.  Here's its list of transgressions.

1. I had to enter my address in three places.  Geez.
2. The payment page had the American Express logo along with MasterCard and Visa, but guess what.  It wasn't in the drop down.  Had to walk downstairs for the other card.  Seriously, why put the logo there if you don't take it?

So this second site wasn't quite as bad overall.  They even do one thing I really liked.  They have four different bill formats (well, that in itself is bad but is probably due to mergers or something).  The first thing you do on their website is click on a picture of what yours looks like so they can walk you through it.

Although now that I think about it, that's just wrong too.  If they ask for the account number, they should know what kind it is.  And besides, there's no guarantee that you have the paper bill in front of you, especially if you're coming back for subsequent payments.

Why does bad design persist?  Very simple and inexpensive testing would uncover these things.