“The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently completed a large-scale effort to provide new Medicare cards without Social Security numbers to people with Medicare. The new cards support the agency’s work to protect personal identity and reduce fraud and abuse. Over the past nine months, CMS sent new cards to more than 61 million people with Medicare across all U.S. states and territories, completing the mailing ahead of schedule…”
“In April 2018, CMS began mailing the new Medicare cards, each of which features a unique, randomly assigned Medicare number known as a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). The MBI is a combination of letters and numbers that helps protect against personal identity theft and fraud. CMS mailed the new cards on a rolling schedule to all people with Medicare, completing the task three months before the April 2019 deadline for replacing old Medicare cards set by Congress as part of the legislation passed under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015…” Read the full press release here.
Source: CMS finalizes New Medicare Card distribution ahead of deadline, accelerating fight against Medicare fraud and abuse – January 16, 2019. CMS.
