Every person gets one health story, and one private Family Stork email address every clinic already knows how to use. Tired of managing health records for yourself and everyone you love? Family Stork organizes them for you automatically.
Saving your records before a plan change is step one. But records you saved six months ago may already be wrong. The allergy list from your daughter's last visit — does it include the reaction she had in September? Your father's medication list — does it reflect the dosage change his cardiologist made in October?
A plan switch is the one time a year when every gap in your family's health records becomes a real problem. Here's the checklist that catches what downloading a PDF won't.
Most open enrollment advice tells you to download your records. That's necessary but not enough. Records you download are a snapshot — frozen in time. If they're already out of date when you save them, you're carrying stale information into the new plan year.
This checklist is organized by family member. Go through it for every person on your plan.
Pull each family member's current medication list — from their doctor's portal, pharmacy app, or your own records. Then check:
Why it matters now: When you check your new plan's formulary to see what's covered, you need the real list — not last February's list. One wrong dosage means one wrong tier lookup, which means a surprise at the pharmacy in January.
Allergy lists are the records most likely to be incomplete. A child who had a reaction to amoxicillin in August — is it in the record? An adult who discovered a contrast dye sensitivity during an imaging scan — did anyone write it down?
A new provider who sees an incomplete allergy list doesn't know it's incomplete. They trust what's there. Make sure it's complete before the new plan year begins.
Open referrals and pending specialist reports are the most common records that fall through the cracks during a plan switch.
If anyone in your family has an active prior authorization — for a medication, a procedure, or ongoing treatment — it almost certainly expires when the plan year ends. Prior authorizations do not transfer between insurers.
When you start with a new plan, the plan's preventive care clock resets. Check what's coming up:
Mental health records deserve their own checklist item because they're the hardest to transfer and the most important to keep continuous.
If you have an open appeal or disputed claim with your current insurer, the December 31 plan termination does not end your right to appeal. But it does make it harder.
Insurance plans change. Doctors change. Portals expire. But your family's health story shouldn't reset every January 1.
Family Stork gives each person one private @families.familystork.com email address. Any clinic, lab, or specialist emails records to it — and the record builds itself. When you switch plans, the record stays. When you change doctors, the record stays. When a portal shuts down, the record stays.
One timeline per person. Every family member. Every provider. Every year. $99/year for the whole family — or about $10 a month.
No. Your health records live with your doctors and hospitals, not with your insurer. When you switch plans, your doctors' records stay put — but your access to insurer portals (EOBs, claims history, prior authorizations) often ends on December 31. Download what you need before then.
Focus on accuracy, not just saving files: verify medication lists are current, allergy lists are complete, specialist reports are in your PCP's chart, and any referrals or prior authorizations are documented. Stale records cause real problems with a new insurer.
Almost never. Prior authorizations are specific to your current plan. If you need ongoing treatment (physical therapy, infusions, specialty medications), you'll need a new prior authorization from the new insurer. Start that process before January 1 if possible.
Family Stork gives every family member a permanent health record that doesn't depend on any insurer's portal. Clinics email records to your private @families.familystork.com address — they file automatically. When your insurance changes, the record stays complete. No downloads, no portal migrations, no starting over.
Saving records captures a snapshot — whatever was in the system at the time you downloaded it. Updating means verifying that the snapshot is actually correct: current medications, recent allergy discoveries, this year's specialist visits. A saved record from June is missing five months of your family's health story.
One health story. One email address every clinic already knows how to use.
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