SSN Will Be Replaced From Medicare Cards

SSN will be replaced by CMS starting next year.

It seems that social security numbers will be removed from Medicare cards by April 2019. The decision was taken by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. However, the providers will need some years to keep up with the changes. SSN will be replaced by Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers.

At the moment, there are almost 60 million people who have Medicare cards with Social Security Number. CMS promised to their best in teaching providers and patients about the benefits of the new system. People are expecting more details about how this change will be done and what impact it will have for the patients.

The new MBIs will be available from April 2018 for all living and deceased Medicare beneficiaries. CMS is hoping that they will have the information systems needed to start the process. The MBIs will be distributed until the end of 2019. Until then, all Medicare patients should have the new cards. CMS will also have a transition period of 20 months. After that moment, they will no longer accept the older cards.

Providers have a lot on their minds at the moment. They need to find the best solutions for the changes that will come. First of all, they will have to change the coding information in their systems. Moreover, they will also have to explain their patients about the new electronic cards. There will be cases when people will come with older cards because they did not know about the new ones.

People will have a lot of questions regarding this matter. They will want to know how much time they will have to wait for the new cards and how much money it will cost. Providers also need to make sure that their patients’ medical care will remain the same or be even better after MBIs will replace the SSN.

The new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier will have alphanumeric characters and it will be 11 digits long. Even though there will be some major changes in the system, CSM is really hoping that Medicare patients will not be affected by the new cards. It seems that we have to say “goodbye” to Social Security Number. How much do you think the health industry will be changed after MBIs will be introduced?

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.