The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) works with ID.me to verify people applying for Medicaid and accessing services online. ID.me provides secure digital identity verification to government agencies and other organizations to make sure you are you—and not someone pretending to be you. This article explains how to verify with ID.me for SCDHHS.
I’m new to ID.me
To access some South Carolina Healthy Connections Medicaid services online, you’ll need to:
- Create an ID.me account using your personal email address
- Verify your identity
- Consent to share your identity information with SCDHHS
You only need to verify your identity once—then you can use your ID.me log in at for the citizens portal at apply.scdhhs.gov and anywhere else ID.me is accepted.
Create an ID.me account
To help ensure you always have access to your ID.me account, you should always create your ID.me account using your personal email address. To create a new account:
- Go to ID.me and select Create an ID.me account.
- Enter your personal email address and a strong password, then select Create account. Learn how to create a strong password.
- Follow the prompts to finish setting up your ID.me account and confirming ownership of your email.
Verify your identity
You can verify your identity using Self-Service or on a video call with an ID.me agent. Select the tab below for an overview of each verification method:
Self-service is the most common verification method and takes 5-10 minutes to complete. To verify, you’ll need:
- A mobile phone that has a camera or a computer with a webcam
- Email address
- Government-issued photo ID (driver's license or state ID, passport, or passport card)
- Social Security number
To verify your identity using Self-Service:
- Go to the citizen portal at apply.scdhhs.gov and select Sign in with ID.me.
- Enter your email address and password, then select Sign in with ID.me.
- Set up multi-factor authentication.
- Select Self-Service.
- Follow the prompts to upload your US driver’s license or state photo ID, or select Change Document to upload a passport or passport card. Learn how to take photos of your documents.
- Take and submit a video selfie. Your selfie will only be used to confirm that the person in the selfie matches your government ID. You may request that ID.me delete your Biometric Data at any time.
- Enter your Social Security number.
- Enter your US address, if prompted.
- Review and confirm that all of your information is accurate, then select Yes. After ID.me verifies your identity you will receive a confirmation message as a way to protect you from fraud.
- Select Allow to finish your identity verification process.
During a video call, you’ll upload a document and connect with a live agent to verify your identity without uploading a selfie. To verify, you’ll need:
- A mobile phone that has a camera or a computer with a webcam
- Email address
- Government-issued photo ID (driver's license or state ID, passport, or passport card)
- Social Security number
After you’re signed in to your ID.me account, you can verify your identity on a video call. To verify:
- Go to the SCDHHS Verification Landing Page and select Verify identity.
- Select Create an ID.me account.
- Enter your personal email address and a strong password. Learn how to create a strong password.
- Select Video Call.
Note: If you don’t have the required identity documents, select I don’t have a driver’s license, state ID, passport, or passport card to verify on an extended video call. - Select Get Started, accept the ID.me consent to collect personally identifiable information, then select Continue.
- Follow the prompts to upload your US driver’s license or state photo ID, or select Change document to upload a passport or passport card. Learn how to take photos of your documents.
- Enter your remaining information, including your Social Security number, then select Continue. Learn why ID.me asks for your Social Security number.
Connect with a Video Chat Agent
During the call with your Video Chat Agent, the agent will compare you to your uploaded identity document. To connect to a video call:
- After your information is confirmed, you will be prompted to join a video call. Select Join video call to proceed.
- Wait for the next Video Chat Agent to be available.
- Consent to having your call recorded, select Continue, then select Join video call when prompted.
- Stay on the call as the Video Chat Agent compares you to your identity document photo. This should only take a moment.
Share your information with SCDHHS
To complete the process, you must consent to share your information with SCDHHS. How you do this depends on the verification method you used:
- Self-Service: After you confirm your information, select Allow to share your information.
-
Video Call: To return to Authorize screen and review the information that SCDHHS will receive:
- Go to the citizen portal at apply.scdhhs.gov and select Login, then select Sign in with ID.me.
- Sign in to your existing ID.me account and authenticate with your MFA option.
- When prompted, select Allow to share your identity information with SCDHHS.
Get help
Who you need to contact for help depends on if you completed the verification process or not.
ID.me
ID.me can help if you have trouble with the identity verification process. Common issues include:
SCDHHS
They can best help with questions and next steps after you complete the verification process. For example, you may have questions about benefits or services you verified for. Before contacting them:
- Confirm your verification was successful
- Confirm you shared your information with the organization
- Review our best practices and sample messages of how to request help from the organization you need to access.