Home Health & Hospice Week

Long-coming requirement finally to hit.

While the PDGM switch flipping on Jan. 1 will be drawing most of home health agencies’ attention, another billing requirement can cut off cash flow just as surely as PDGM problems.

The feds have been ringing the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier bell all year, and that bell will toll for thee if you fail to adopt the new Medicare number on time. “All claims submitted with the Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) on or after January 1, 2020 will be denied,” HHH Medicare Adminis­trative Contractor CGS stresses on its website.

And Medicare systems will “reject all eligibility transactions submitted with HICNs,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services emphasizes in a recent message to providers.

Don’t wait even a few weeks to use MBIs, CMS urges. “Protect your patients’ identities by using MBIs now for all Medicare transactions,” the agency says. And while you don’t technically have to use MBIs for claims with dates before Jan. 1, you should go ahead and get in the good habit, the feds exhort.

Remember: “If you get an eligibility trans-action error code (AAA 72) of ‘invalid member ID,’ your patient’s MBI may have changed,” CMS says. In that case, “do a historic eligibility search to get the termination date of the old MBI,” then get the new MBI from your MAC’s lookup tool, the agency instructs.

Plus: Encourage your referral sources to use MBIs when referring patients, too. “We are asking all providers to update their referral forms to include the MBI to facilitate proper entitlement verification and claim submission for providers you refer your patients to,” MAC National Government Services says in a message to referring providers.