Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Now that your patients are getting their Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) numbers, you should be using these new numbers on your claims.

Reminder: CMS began mailing out new Medicare cards with MBIs in April. “MBIs will replace the existing Social Security Number-based Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) on the new Medicare cards and in the systems Medicare uses now,” CMS explains in a recent update. “Medicare will replace all current cards and SSN-based numbers by April 2019.”

CMS urges providers to “use the MBI to bill Medicare as soon as you get a Medicare patient’s new number” and to “use the transition period to make sure your systems can accept and transmit MBIs,” CMS guidance maintains.

Problems with MBIs: Staff must remember to ask all Medicare beneficiaries for their MBIs, ensuring that the patients did receive the new cards. Also, all MACs now have secure MBI look-up tools for practices struggling with the card transition, according to MLN Matters release SE 18006.

Starting in October 2018, MBIs will be returned on remittance advice even if you sent the original claim with a valid and active Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) instead of an MBI.

Progress: CMS acknowledges that its completed the first wave of mailings to beneficiaries in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, a June 25 release says.

“We continue to mail new cards to people who live in Wave 2 states and territories (Alaska, American Samoa, California, Guam, Hawaii, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon), as well as nationwide to people who are new to Medicare,” notes CMS. “We started mailing new Medicare cards to people with Medicare who live in Wave 3 states: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin.”

Reminder: Patients who did not receive a new card yet, may call 1-800-MEDICARE for assistance. Practices are also encouraged to print out copies of the “Still Waiting For Your Medicare Card” handouts for worried beneficiaries, which can be found on the CMS website, advises the agency.

Resources: To read the MLN Matters article on MBIs, visit www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNMattersArticles/Downloads/SE18006.pdf.

Review an up-to-date fact sheet on the Medicare card transition at www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/Downloads/TransitiontoNewMedicareNumbersandCards-909365.pdf.