New Baby, New Headache: How Verifiable Digital Credentials Could Simplify Insurance Enrollment

Imagine this: you’ve just experienced one of the greatest joys of the human experience (having a new baby) – followed by one of the most bizarre and stressful bits of paperwork rigamarole imaginable. 

After the joyful part of having a new baby comes the boondoggle of trying to add your newborn to your health insurance policy. What should be a routine necessity unfolds into a daunting undertaking demanding Ocean’s 11-tier planning, meticulous timing, laser-focused attention, and flawless execution to survive with coverage intact.

This same conundrum that confronts millions of new parents in the U.S. each year. Conflicting timelines and requirements between hospitals, insurers, and government officials routinely leave parents panicking, adding stress and instability to what is supposed to be the happiest moment of a new parent’s life.

This trap is just one of many strange bureaucratic tangles caused by outdated, slow, paper-based processes. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way: verifiable digital credentials can be used to securely digitize sensitive documents, eliminate delays, and close stressful administrative gaps.

“For unlucky parents, it can be *effectively impossible* to assemble the needed paperwork in time to add your newborn to your health insurance.” 

In the U.S., having a child is a “qualifying event” that allows major changes to a health insurance policy. A child’s birth gives parents a 30-day window to add their new family member to their policy. Simple enough! Until you realize ...

To add your newborn to your insurance, you need their birth certificate and social security number. According to the Social Security Administration, the average turnaround time for a new baby’s SSN and card is about two weeks, but it can be up to six! You begin to see the issue.

Health insurers also need a birth certificate for your newborn, and the timeline to deliver that document is even more hair-raising. While a freshly delivered Los Angelino can expect a birth certificate within about ten days, the New York City records agency warns that a newborn’s birth certificate can take four weeks to generate. Furthermore, at every point in this process, there’s the uncertainty of physical mail, presenting the risk that precious documents can be delayed or go missing.

In short, for unlucky parents, it can be *effectively impossible* to assemble the needed paperwork in time to add your newborn to your health insurance. That’s not even considering the possibility of birth complications for the baby or mother, which can distract a family from this extremely dicey enrollment process … at exactly the moment it’s most crucial. Across baby and parenting forums, you can take your pick of panicked stories from worried parents.

The nominal reason for these headaches is pretty straightforward: documents like a birth certificate or a social security card are sensitive, both to verify and to create. But the adoption of verifiable digital credentials can streamline many parts of such processes.

But That’s Not All

The newborn health insurance enrollment scenario is just one example of a paperwork bottleneck that shambles on, a lingering relic of the old, paper-based world. Paper documents are simply slow to process: they take extra time to verify, create, certify, and deliver, compared to digital records. Some time-sensitive documents might even still require physical signatures, placing them at the whims of an individual officer or executive. 

One group that it is particularly burdensome for is immigrants. Legal U.S. immigrants must wait up to 90 days to receive a permanent resident card (or “green card”) after immigrating. During that time, they’re prevented from leaving the country. Upon approval for permanent residency, the applicant’s temporary travel authorization card is invalidated; however, it can take weeks for the physical card (which is required for travel outside of the U.S.) to be mailed to the new U.S. permanent resident, leaving them in a travel-blocked limbo.

For U.S. citizens, a similar gap can open up while waiting to receive a proper driver’s license in the mail: the temporary license you’re issued in the meantime isn’t considered legal identification for many purposes.

The same kind of delays can create headaches for anyone getting married. Entry into wedded bliss opens a short qualifying window for changing things like health insurance plans, but again, the paperwork process can be slow enough to disrupt the transition. And maybe the most absurd example of this sort of trap is qualifying for COBRA benefits, or the continuation of insurance after losing a job. COBRA coverage itself is most crucial in the months immediately following a layoff, but getting actual enrollment documents can take multiple months. That can leave you paying punishing premiums, without getting actual proof of coverage in return … all while unemployed!

The Verifiable Digital Credential Fix

As the old infomercials said, there’s got to be a better way.

And there is. SpruceID is part of a rapidly growing universe of companies, governments, and tech organizations building the tools for trustworthy verifiable digital credentials. These documents aren’t just digital images of documents like driver’s licenses and birth certificates - those would be extremely vulnerable to fraud or theft. Instead, verifiable digital credentials use a system of cryptographic digital signatures. Digitally-signed documents are stored in a special chip on hardware such as your cell phone. Most verifiable digital credentials can or must be backed up by paper copies – so you’d still be able to stick a paper birth certificate in your kid’s scrapbook.

The primary benefit of these cryptographically secured credentials is that they can be securely presented for authentication over the Internet. This means a lot of bureaucratic headaches can be eliminated through the use of these credentials that can be delivered immediately, rather than via snail mail. While there are still verification processes, the creation of a ‘digital birth certificate’ using these tools would be near-instantaneous. With a bit of smart planning, documents could be delivered to devices belonging to the newborn’s parents, then just as quickly provided to insurance administrators. 

In fact, the entire situation could (and should!) be automated, through a mix of policy and technology. Your child should automatically be added to your health insurance policy as soon as they’re born, and with verifiable digital credentials, the necessary paperwork could be sent directly from the hospital to the insurer.

That’s all in the future, and would require a lot of coordination and agreement among players the industry. For now, verifiable digital credentials are steadily rolling out in a few more straightforward realms, such as California’s Mobile Driver’s License, Utah’s Passes and Permits, and now U.S. Passports in Google Wallet.

Imagine a world where vital life events—like adding your newborn to your health insurance—don’t come with an overwhelming dose of paperwork stress. With SpruceID’s expertise in verifiable digital credentials, that reality is closer than you think. Ready to see how digital credentials are transforming government processes and simplifying life’s biggest moments? Visit our website to learn more about how we’re making secure, streamlined solutions possible for everyone.

About SpruceID: SpruceID is building a future where users control their identity and data across all digital interactions.