CMS rang in 2020 by officially replacing the Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) with the new patient Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI), an 11-character, randomly generated alphanumeric identifier, for Medicare transactions.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on eSolutions' website
MBIs were created in response to a congressional mandate in the Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act (MACRA) to delete Social Security Numbers (SSN) from Medicare cards by April 2019. MBIs are thought to better protect patients by providing greater security against fraud and safeguarding patients’ personal data.
CMS mailed all 60 million active Medicare beneficiaries new cards containing MBIs in place of HICNs between April 2018 and May 2019.
As of January 1, 2020 – after a 21-month transition period for providers – CMS began automatically rejecting claims that don’t include MBIs. Claims with a HICN, which was a patient’s SSN with a letter after it, now are summarily denied, so making sure every claim includes an MBI is critical. Most transactions, including OASIS, MDS and eligibility status, also require an MBI.
CMS data reveals that as of November 2019, only about 87% of claims were being submitted with an MBI number in place of a HICN. If that rate still holds, that means as much as 13% of all Medicare claims might be denied in January 2020. Click here to continue>>
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