Medicare ID Changes Are Looming, with or without Clear Guidance from CMS

Here’s what we know: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is going to stop including Social Security numbers on Medicare ID cards. Here’s what we don’t know: How this is going to work, and how it’s going to affects healthcare providers. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act requires CMS to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards due to increasing risk for identity theft and fraud. The year-long process of issuing new Medicare cards, with all-new ID numbers, will commence in April 2018. CMS issued a brief advisory just last week; however, many physicians believe that CMS still has a lot of work to do in order to ensure practices have the information they need to be ready in time. Claims with the old numbers will not be accepted at all staring in 2020. Electronic health records systems will have to be updated in that span, as well.