New Medicare Cards!
The long-anticipated wait is over and those Medicare Cards that have your Social
Security number as your Medicare ID number are going to be a thing of the past.
Starting in April 2018 and continuing through April of 2019, Medicare will be mailing
out brand new replacement Medicare ID cards to some 56 million folks on Medicare.
The new cards will look only slightly different, but the major change is a new random
ID number on each card.
For you folks with Medicare Advantage Plans, just place your new Medicare card in
your file cabinet or folder at home. Remember, you don’t need your Medicare card
because you transferred your Medicare benefits to an all-in-one Medicare
Advantage Plan. Stop reading here!
Now, before everyone starts worrying about “how’s my doctor’s office going to know”
and “what do I have to do” with this change, the answer is simple. Nothing.
Center for Medicare Services (CMS) has an electronic system called MARX, and it
will automatically notify all your contracted doctor’s offices and let them know your
new ID number. So, the transition should be seamless.
We would recommend holding on to your old card and taking both the old and the new
Medicare cards to your next doctor’s appointment just to ensure there are no issues.
Remember, the new cards will arrive by mail and the envelopes will look like “Junk
Mail!” So be careful and don’t throw them away.
