Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers (MBI)

In 2018, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the transition from current Medicare Health Insurance Claim Numbers (HICNs) to a new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) for all Medicare patients, as required by recent regulation to remove Social Security Numbers from Medicare insurance cards. This change will begin to take effect in April of this year, with patients being issued new Medicare insurance ID cards with the new format of MBI numbers. 

MacPractice wants to assure our clients of how easy this transition will be! Currently the HCINs are entered for Medicare patients as their Subscriber ID on the Insurance tab of their account. The only thing that will need to be done when a patient comes in to your office with a new Medicare insurance card and new MBI number is a simple update of their Subscriber ID! From there, simply continue billing as usual. 

From April 2018 until December 2019 will be considered a ‘live testing’ phase for these new MBIs. During this time, claims can be submitted to Medicare with either the original HICNs or the new MBIs. We encourage you to begin using the new MBIs as you have patients receiving them. This way you will be prepared for Medicare billing in the future, when the MBI format will be required starting in January of 2020.