The biggest problem with the old Medicare card is that it includes the participant’s Social Security number. Therefore, when someone’s card is lost or stolen, it not only threatens to create problems with Medicare-related fraud, but also risks broader financial identity theft. The move allows CMS to protect private healthcare and financial information and to ensure that benefit and service payments are handled correctly.
Congressional legislation passed in 2015 required CMS to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards by April 2019. Instead, the current Health Insurance Claim Number — which is identical to one’s Social Security number — will get replaced by the new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier.
What will the new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier look like?
The Medicare Beneficiary Identifier is 11 characters long and can include both numbers and capital letters. The identifiers will be randomly chosen and therefore be clearly different from Social Security numbers, so you shouldn’t expect to see all or part of your Social Security number appear in the identifier on your new Medicare card.
Specifically, the first, fourth, seventh, 10th, and 11th characters will always be numbers, while the second, fifth, eighth, and ninth will always be letters. The third and sixth characters can be either letters or numbers. In order to prevent any confusion between letters and numbers, the system will never use the letters S, L, O, I, B, and Z — which some can mistake for the numbers 5, 1, 0, 1, 8, and 2, respectively.
When will I get my new Medicare card?
CMS will start sending new Medicare cards to participants in April. The agency will send out the new cards in seven waves based on where you live. The cards for the first two groups of states are set to be mailed between April and June. The first group includes the mid-Atlantic areas closest to Washington, D.C., including Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The second wave covers U.S. territories in the Pacific, as well as Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Oregon. The five other groups will be sent after June, with specific dates not yet determined. You can get the specific groups from this document on the CMS website (opens PDF).