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Take it from me, a dad who’s in the throes of having a 3-week old baby–the first month of a newborn’s life is nuts. Your routine gets thrown out the window, sleep deprivation becomes a constant struggle, and everything just becomes a blur. Thirty days pass by in a flash, and then suddenly a horrible realization sinks in: “I forgot to add our new baby to the insurance plan.”
Unfortunately, this exact experience happened to a close friend of mine very recently. The 30-day open enrollment period closed before he added his newborn son to his insurance plan and now he’s strapped with a $15,000 medical bill. The worst part of the entire story? He thought he successfully added his son to the plan weeks before the deadline. The process of adding a newborn to his insurance plan was so confusing that he had no idea that it didn’t work until it was too late. The HR representatives at his company were basically radio silent for the entire process (except to tell him that it was too late to fix his mistake).
Which reminds me, I need to contribute to his GoFundMe because $15,000 is simply ridiculous.
While my heart (and some of my wallet) goes out to my friend, I am happy to report that I had a completely different experience adding my newborn to our insurance plan.
I knew exactly where to start the process with Pendant. Anytime I have an HR-related question, I start with the AI-powered Pendant assistant. This is how it went:
Okay, so that response gives me all the essential information. I understand I’ve got 30 days to add my baby to our insurance plan, and I know I need her social security number. But now I need more specific instructions on what to do after I get everything sorted, so I click on the “Having a Baby” checklist.
What appears next is absolute catnip for an ultra-organized person like my wife. Thankfully I already knew about this checklist months ago and sent it her way, which made me seem like an ultra-organized person to her, which was nice.
But for my needs today, I scrolled down to the bottom of the checklist to this item:
I landed on a page that gave me the specific instructions I needed to follow with our particular insurance provider. Here’s what it looks like:
Just like the instructions said, I downloaded the form, filled it out, sent it to my HR rep, and within a few days my baby was successfully added onto my insurance plan. I’ve already taken care of the big hospital bill and now I’m onto worrying about other things, like, when will I ever feel well-rested again?
The entire process of getting my newborn added to my insurance plan was made incredibly easy with Pendant. I was able to find quick answers, and I didn’t need to wait for an HR representative to give me the next steps.
The reality of my friend’s situation was that his company had laid off most of the HR employees in an effort to save money. Since the HR team was basically a skeleton crew, he didn’t get the help he needed and now he’s got a $15K bill to show for it. Needless to say, my friend is less than thrilled to continue working for his company.
I, on the other hand, had a friendly AI-assistant that was ready to help me at any hour of the day, which, as it turns out, comes in handy when you’re up at all hours of the night. I may not be sleeping very many hours in a row these days, but the hours I do get feel a little more restful knowing that my newborn is already insured.
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