The Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015 required CMS to remove social security numbers from all Medicare cards and replace them with a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). The MBI is 11 characters in length and are made up of only numbers and upper case letters. The MBI doesn’t use any special characters (e.g. #, @, !, $) or the letters S, L, O, I, B, and Z to avoid confusion between some letters and numbers (e.g., between “0” and “O”). So when must providers begin using the MBI on claims submitted to their Medicare Administrative Contractor? Beginning with

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has finished the mailing of new Medicare cards to 61 million people with Medicare prior to the original deadline of April 2019. But what are these new Medicare cards and how do they impact providers of therapy services? The Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015 required CMS to remove social security numbers from all Medicare cards and replace them with a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). The MBI is 11 characters in length and are made up of only numbers and upper case letters. The MBI doesn’t use any special characters (e.g.