CMS Rolling Out New Medicare Identification Numbers

LeadingAge NY reminds Managed Long Term Care (MLTC) plans that they may begin receiving new Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers (MBI) in place of the Social Security Number-based Health Insurance Claim Numbers on their Primary and Secondary Rosters as early as April 2018. The transition to new Medicare cards with new beneficiary identification numbers will be gradual, but plans should be ready to accommodate the change in their system. Current New York Medicare beneficiaries are not scheduled to receive replacement Medicare cards until after June 2018, although new Medicare enrollees will be issued MBIs.

The Department of Health (DOH) has test roster files available to allow MLTC plans to confirm their ability to accept files with the new MBI information. Plans should contact doh.sm.MLTC.System.Issues@health.ny.gov if they would like to request the test file for their plan. The DOH memo that outlines the changes to the roster to accommodate MBI is available here.

Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841