New Medicare cards start mailing in April 2018
We’re removing Social Security Numbers from Medicare cards
to prevent fraud, fight identity theft, and keep taxpayer dollars safe. We’ll
mail the new Medicare cards from April 2018 through April 2019. Learn how we’ll
mail the new Medicare cards in phases by geographic location.
What do the new Medicare cards mean for providers?
Look at your practice management systems and business
processes and determine what changes you need to make to use the new Medicare
Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). You’ll need to make those changes and test them
by April 2018, before we mail out new Medicare cards.
If you use vendors to bill Medicare, you should contact them
to find out about their MBI practice management system changes.
Even though we’ll stop using Social Security Numbers to
identify Medicare beneficiaries, what won’t change is how your Social Security
Number’s used for the IRS and tax reasons, like on your W-9.
Learn, in English or Spanish, what you need to do now and
see a timeline of what’s next.
What should providers do to get ready for the new Medicare
cards and MBIs?
To get ready to use the new MBIs, make and internally test
changes to your practice management systems and business processes by April
2018 before we mail new Medicare cards.
Your billing and office staff might have to coordinate their work to
make sure your practice is ready. Also,
if you use vendors to bill Medicare, contact them to find out about their MBI
practice management system changes. It’s
especially important that you’re ready for people who are new to Medicare in
April 2018 and after because they’ll only get a card with the MBI.
You may want to consider:
Automatically accepting the new MBI from the remittance
advice (835) transaction.
Identifying patients who qualify for Medicare under the
Railroad Retirement Board (RRB).
If you don’t already have access to your MAC's provider
portal, sign up so you can use the provider MBI look-up tool starting in June
2018. Your office/facility staff might
want to coordinate with your billing/administrative staff, who may already have
portal access.
If you need additional information, please contact our
Support Staff:
