One of the key benefits of Verifiable Credentials is the time savings from reduction in repetitive, manual data entry. Here we will examine just how much time can be saved by using decentralized identity to automatically fill in information for us.
By: Tim Spring
The time cost of forms
How many hours a year do you spend filling out forms? While it might seem like an annoyance that comes up every now and then, the US Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center released a report in 2022 that found that the government has 9,881 unique forms, which took an estimated 10.3 billion hours to complete.
And these numbers are only increasing, if you use the tool provided by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and apply it to 2024 numbers, you can see that we are up to almost 12.3 billion hours.
There are five stand out departments with the most forms and impact. 2022 numbers provided by the US Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center report:
Department of the Treasury: 1,838 forms
Department of Health and Human Services 1,242 forms
Department of Agriculture 553 forms
Department of Commerce 437 forms
Federal Communications Commission 436 forms
Have you ever wondered why there is so much paperwork to see a doctor? Or why you need to fill it in every time? It could have something to do with the 1,242 federal forms that the hospital or clinic will need to fill out to comply with the department of Health and Human services, not to mention updating your own charts and patient data.
Accuracy and user experience improvement
What we could all benefit from is a way to create authenticated data once and reuse it often — instantly, conveniently, with the touch of a button.
Here is where Verifiable Credentials come to the rescue, the thing that will make you say “why haven’t we been doing this before?” Verifiable credentials can store any authenticated data (and especially personal data) in a tamper-proof way and allow the user to share it without the need for the verifier to check in with the source. Think of your web browser’s autofill function that remembers your name, email address, phone number, etc, but for the real world. These credentials can store any information that could be on that doctor’s form, such as height, eye color, name, address, or medical history, and share it accurately, instantly. Which is particularly handy because if you need a doctor, you’re probably not in the mood to do paperwork.
The usefulness grows exponentially when you take a look at what this technology can do for organizations. An American Hospital Association survey found that there are 6,120 hospitals in the United States, and between them had admitted 33,679,935 patients in 2022.
Fraud reduction
Aside from the time saved from not having to manually enter all this patient data, businesses can benefit in the form of eliminating human error and reducing fraud. If you have almost 33.7 million forms to fill out annually, there are going to be some errors or fraudulent information, which often take time and money to correct. By sharing pre-authenticated data digitally (which is what is inside a Verifiable Credential) you can instantly trust the data and use it however you need, such as verifying a patient’s identity and medical history to begin treatment. This technology also enables biometric patient check-in, which reduces fraud (getting treated under someone else’s name) or giving the incorrect medications due to not reliably identifying the patient as they leave the waiting room for treatment.
Verifiable Credentials have already seen traction in several industries for their ability to fast-track processes. An excellent example of this is in airports and travel, where their authenticated data can be used for pre-authorization for each traveler and leads to significantly faster international border and border crossing. To learn more about this use case you can read a recent article from Indicio.
No one enjoys paperwork, it is a necessary part of life, but it doesn’t need to be such a big part.
If you would be interested in exploring how you can start using Verifiable Credentials to save your team and users time while providing a significantly better experience, you can learn more about Indicio’s complete solution for Verifiable Credentials, Indicio Proven®, or reach out to our team to discuss your specific needs.
