Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) Field To Be Added

To address fraud, confidentiality and security concerns, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be replacing the Social Security Number-based Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) with a new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). As of April 1, 2018, CMS will be able to process both the old HICN and the new MBI in all transactions.

As a leader in industry innovation, Axxess is updating our software to accommodate the collection and submission of the new MBI number on CMS transactions:

• An MBI field will be added in the patient chart.
• Users will be allowed to enable the feature functionality under an effective date in the “Manage Company Information” tab.
• All documents before the MBI effective date will retain the HICN as originally documented.

These new features will be available later this month.

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015 requires CMS to remove Social Security Numbers from all Medicare cards by April 2019. CMS will have a transition period that runs through December 31, 2019, that will allow either the MBI or the HICN to be used for Medicare-related processing. Effective January 1,^,2020, CMS transactions will only accept the new MBI number with only a few exceptions.

Axxess remains a dedicated partner in guiding you through this change. Additional detailed information will be added to our software updates when needed.