As patients begin to receive new, social security number-less Medicare cards, your practice
will benefit from taking several steps to ease your administrative burden as the slow-rolling initiative officially commences in Jan. 2020.
In the meantime, you can find guidance straight from the horse's mouth. On May 2, CMS
released an updated batch of frequently asked questions related to the new Medicare card project, which replaces the health insurance claim number (HICN) with a new Medicare beneficiary ID (MBI) number.
Based on feedback from the provider and payer community, the updated FAQs provide answers to dozens of questions. For instance, one compliance-related question asks, "How can providers confirm a Medicare patient’s Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) is real?"
The answer? "Providers can confirm a Medicare patient’s Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) using the HIPAA Eligibility Transaction System (HETS), just like they confirm Health Insurance Claim Numbers (HICN) and patient’s eligibility today."