Avoidable burdens are driving inequities in healthcare and health outcomes. The results can include people delaying or feeling discouraged about seeking care, and clinicians experiencing burnout or leaving healthcare altogether. A study from the Mayo Clinic found 63% of physicians practicing in the United States experienced at least one manifestation of burnout. Bain and Company’s Frontline of Healthcare survey found that 25% of US clinicians admitted they were contemplating changing careers, with a staggering 89% citing burnout as their primary reason. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is committed to flourishing in health by identifying and addressing the root causes that impact health equity, healthcare delivery, access to services, and burdens experienced by providers and patients. To identify opportunities for change, CMS uses human-centered design (HCD) to place customer perspectives at the center of CMS’s policy writing and operational work. Human-centered design is organized into three stages: discovery, conceptualize, and evaluate with six phases, which are repeatable in an iterative cycle until complete. Participatory design is at the center of the HCD process. Teams work directly with many customers to collaboratively understand the context of their work, engagement with CMS and other payers, and identify potential solutions. By centering the customer voice to directly inform potential policy and program enhancement, CMS supports strategies that improve the experience of patients and the healthcare workforce. In the past, HCD engagement data have informed the Physician Fee Schedule final rules supporting changes that would reduce the burden on beneficiaries enrolling in the Medicare Shared Savings Program, increasing access to care for vulnerable populations. The Prior Authorization Final Rule published in January 2024 incorporated data collected from HCD engagements to streamline the prior authorization process to reduce avoidable burdens on patients, providers, and payers. Any agency can apply the HCD methodology to understand how policy, rule, and procedural changes impact providing and accessing care. The following use case provides a demonstration of how CMS applies HCD methodology. In 2024 CMS launched a Clinician Engagement to understand the relationship between Medicare payment, billing, administrative burden, and attrition among clinicians. The Customer Focused Research Group (CFRG), in CMS’s Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics (OBRHI) employed HCD methodologies to conduct qualitative research to better understand the impact of avoidable burdens on healthcare delivery and the clinical workforce. In this engagement, the discovery stage included a literature review, interviews with over 100 clinicians, and analysis of collected data synthesized into themes, insights, and opportunities. Organizing knowledge uncovered through primary and secondary research drives the team to the next stage to conceptualize opportunities and recommend potential solutions. In the evaluate stage, CFRG invites back a subset of the people interviewed to co-create visual illustrations representing the experiences. As a healthcare community, CMS is committed to tackling these challenges together as part of a collective mission to deliver better health and healthcare to all people. Using human-centered design, CFRG builds relationships and trust to transform healthcare challenges into thoughtful accessible healthcare delivery.