Gastroenterology Coding Alert

Question: A Medicare patient came to our practice and said she isn’t allowed to show us her Medicare card because she believes it’s no longer valid, and she is waiting for her new card —which doesn’t include her Social Security Number on it — to arrive. We called her MAC and they said they hadn’t sent her a new card and that the prior one was still active, but she refused to show it to us. Can you clarify whether we are supposed to be accepting the new Medicare card yet?

Codify Subscriber

Answer: No. The Medicare patient is correct in stating that she will soon get a new Medicare card that doesn’t include her Social Security Number on it, but that time hasn’t come yet, and for now she’ll have to keep using her existing card.

“CMS will issue new Medicare cards with a new unique, randomly-assigned number called a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) to replace the existing Social Security-based Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) both on the cards and in various CMS systems we use now,” said Part B MAC CGS Medicare in its June 20 article,  Five Ways for Healthcare Providers to Get Ready for New Medicare Cards. “We’ll start mailing new cards to people with Medicare benefits in April 2018. All Medicare cards will be replaced by April 2019,” the MAC added.

Therefore, you’ll keep accepting the patient’s current Medicare card for another year or more, based on CGS’ article.

Resource: To learn more about the new types of Medicare cards, visit: cms.gov/Medicare/SSNRI/Providers/Providers.html.