ID.me is now available in Epic Toolbox as a digital identity option for MyChart

MCLEAN, Va., April 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ID.me today announced that it is available in Epic Toolbox for the Identity Verification for MyChart category. The integration provides health systems a turnkey option to support identity verification within MyChart workflows—helping patients securely create and recover accounts while reducing administrative burden and strengthening protections for sensitive health information. ID.me can also be configured as a sign-in option for MyChart should a health system request it.

ID.me is the next-generation digital identity wallet trusted by more than 165 million users, including over 88 million verified to federal standards for consumer authentication. ID.me is currently trusted by 22 federal agencies and over 85 healthcare organizations, with new organizations onboarding each week. Built to help individuals prove who they are online with high assurance, ID.me enables organizations to raise security at high-risk touchpoints without forcing patients through unnecessary friction.

Digital Access Requires Higher Assurance

Patient access has become a primary entry point for healthcare, yet it remains vulnerable. Account takeover, synthetic identities, and credential stuffing attacks have grown as fraudsters use automation and AI to produce convincing attempts at scale. At the same time, patients often struggle with basic access tasks like creating an account, managing multiple accounts, recovering a password, or regaining control after a lockout. Each failed self-service attempt turns into a call, a manual review, or an in-person reset—driving costs and delaying care.

Health systems face an uncomfortable tradeoff: tighten controls and risk higher abandonment, or keep access lightweight and absorb the fraud, rework, and downstream patient harm. The challenge isn't simply "more security." It's adding the right assurance at the right moment—especially during account creation and account recovery—while keeping the experience intuitive for legitimate users.

Hidden Costs of Weak Identity and Matching

Even when fraud doesn't occur, weak recovery paths are expensive. Password resets, locked accounts, failed knowledge-based verification, and manual identity checks create recurring workload for help desks, call centers, registration teams, and clinical support staff. These workflows aren't just costly—they are inconsistent, difficult to scale, and often fall hardest on patients who already face barriers to digital access.

With insufficient matching practices, providers can also face downstream clinical workflow inefficiencies that are costly: prolonged troubleshooting to locate the correct patient record, reversion to manual telephone and fax workflows to exchange information, ordering duplicate tests, and failure to detect and honor patient privacy preferences. Intermountain has estimated the operational cost of fixing a duplicate record at $60 per manual review and intervention, with other sources citing up to $96.

Most importantly, mismatched records create patient safety risk. A College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) survey indicated that one in five hospital CIOs linked at least one case of patient harm within the past year to a patient mismatch.

As health systems invest in digital front doors that can enable greater interoperability, they need controls that both increase assurance and reduce rework. Improving self-service identity verification for account creation and recovery helps reduce unnecessary touches, shortens time-to-access, and enables staff to focus on higher-value patient support rather than repetitive access issues.

Securing Account Creation and Recovery in MyChart

Now that ID.me is available in Epic Toolbox, the focus is on the MyChart moments that most directly impact both risk and operational load: new account enrollment and account recovery. Organizations will be able to use ID.me to help confirm that the person attempting to create or reclaim a MyChart account is the rightful individual—supporting a more secure pathway to access while helping reduce manual interventions for staff.

ID.me's approach is built around a reusable, privacy-preserving credential. Patients verify once to establish a trusted identity in their ID.me wallet, and can then return to securely sign in where ID.me is accepted—reducing repeated identity proofing steps across organizations. For healthcare, that reuse can translate to less friction for legitimate patients, fewer dead ends during self-service recovery, and a stronger foundation for protecting accounts from takeover.

Practical Benefits for Health Systems and Patients

When enabled, secure verification and authentication workflows help health systems:

• Protect sensitive health data: Strengthen safeguards at high-risk touchpoints such as account creation and account recovery to reduce unauthorized access attempts.
  
  
• Reduce operational burden: Shift common access issues toward self-service resolution and reduce the volume of manual checks and support escalations.
  
  
• Improve patient experience: Provide a straightforward, guided verification process designed to help legitimate patients regain access without repeated retries or in-person resets.
  
  
• Increase confidence in digital access: Support stronger identity assurance for patient-facing interactions that depend on accurate account ownership.

A Foundation for Patient-Centered Access

Patient access is the entry point to scheduling, results, messaging, payments, and longitudinal engagement. As health systems expand digital front doors and connected care experiences, confidence in account ownership becomes central to both safety and trust. The goal is simple: make it easier for real patients to access care, and harder for bad actors to exploit weak recovery paths.

Wes Turbeville, Senior Vice President of Healthcare at ID.me, explains that "CMS and the entire healthcare technology ecosystem are moving towards a more patient-centric interoperable model." The ability to benefit from secure, reusable identity "makes it easier for our healthcare industry to offer users streamlined experiences before, during, and after clinical visits."

Momentum for a More Secure Digital Front Door

Health systems are investing heavily in patient experience, virtual access, and modernization—but those efforts depend on trust at the front door. Identity verification and authentication that is both high-assurance and patient-friendly helps organizations protect accounts, reduce avoidable operational load, and strengthen confidence in the digital services patients rely on every day. Simultaneously, a seamless and secure AAL2/IAL2 credential aligns neatly with CMS's Aligned Networks initiatives to "Kill the Clipboard" and power high-fidelity clinical data exchange networks.

As ID.me progresses through the Epic Toolbox process for Identity Verification for MyChart, additional details will be shared in the months ahead. 

For more information, you can find ID.me in Toolbox on Epic Showroom.

Epic and MyChart are registered trademarks of Epic Systems Corporation.

About ID.me

ID.me is the next-generation digital identity wallet that simplifies how individuals securely prove their identity online. Consumers can verify their identity with ID.me once and seamlessly sign-in across websites without having to create a new sign-in and verify their identity again. Over 165 million users experience streamlined sign-in and identity verification with ID.me at 22 federal agencies, 50 state government agencies, and more than 85 healthcare organizations. More than 600 consumer brands use ID.me to verify communities and user segments to honor service and build authentic relationships. ID.me's technology meets the federal standards for consumer authentication set by the Commerce Department and is approved as a NIST 800-63-3 AAL2 / IAL2 credential service provider by the Kantara Initiative. ID.me is committed to "No Identity Left Behind" to enable all people to have a secure digital identity.

SOURCE ID.me, Inc.