If you are treating patients with original Medicare, your practice and your vendors should be using the new Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers (MBIs) for those patients. Starting Jan. 1, 2020, providers must only use MBIs on claims submitted to Medicare (with a few exceptions).
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has completed mailing new Medicare cards to Medicare beneficiaries. The cards have new MBIs replacing the old Health Insurance Claim Numbers (HICNs) that were based on beneficiaries’ Social Security numbers. These Medicare cards and MBIs do not apply to Medicare Advantage plans, like the ones ConnectiCare offers.
MBIs should be treated as personal health information. To find out more about MBIs and what they mean for providers and office managers, check out this CMS resource.
