New Medicare cards start mailing in April 2018

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: