END OF MBI TRANSITION PERIOD

You may have received a message this week from Medicare MLN Matters that reads something like this:

Special Edition – Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Provider Education Message:

MBI Transition Ends This Month: Will You Be Paid On January 1?

The 21 month transition period will end on December 31; use Medicare Beneficiary identifiers (MBIs) now.

You are currently submitting 80% of claims with MBIs.

Get MBIs from your patients and through the MAC portals

(sign up) now and after the transition period. You can also find the MBI on the remittance advice.

Protect your patients from identity theft – use MBIs.

Starting January 1, if you do not use the MBI (regardless of the date of service) for Medicare transactions.

We will reject your claims with a few exceptions.

We will reject all eligibility transactions.

See the MLN Matters Article for more information on getting and using MBIs.

So what does this mean? Medicare switched to the MBI ID numbers at the end of 2018 and phased out the older legacy SS#’s from the patient’s cards. The notice is to inform the practice that there are still some patient accounts that have not been updated. Medicare will no longer process your claims if these new id’s are not captured by Jan. 1.

What can you do?

As the article states, the new ID’s can be found in the Medicare Contractor’s portals or on the remittance advice. Additionally, we recommend that any patients with Medicare as their insurance (either Primary or Secondary) have the id number checked when coming into the office. If the ID is still their SS# a new card needs to be captured into the system and the id updated. Doing a pre-check when confirming appointments is the best time to do this, but upon check in is also good to ensure no one is missed.