Home Health & Hospice Week
Social Security Numbers Ordered Off Medicare Cards
You and your patients won’t have to deal with the risks of their Social Security Number (SSN) printed right on their Medicare identification cards much longer, thanks to the doc fix bill enacted April 16. Due to the risk of identity theft, CMS will discontinue printing SSNs on beneficiary cards within the next four years.
The OIG’s Deputy Inspector General Gary Cantrell recently testified before Congress about Medicare fraud, and recommended removing SSNs from the documents to curb the growing problem of medical identity theft (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIV, No. 13). Congress took note and included language in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) that will eliminate the problem.
The Department of Health and Human Services “shall establish cost-effective procedures to ensure that a Social Security account number (or derivative thereof) is not displayed, coded, or em-bedded on the Medicare card issued to an individual who is entitled to benefits ... and that any other identifier displayed on such card is not identifiable as a Social Security account number,” the law says.
The legislation goes on to say that the agencies have four years to make the transition to SSN-free cards.
Home Health & Hospice Week
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