Use of Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) for claims submission effective January 1, 2020

January 2, 2020 – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) re-issued the MLN Matters® Article SE18006 “to update certain language to show the use of MBI is fully implemented.”  The MBI cards are to be used for all Medicare transactions and will  identify beneficiaries without the use of social security numbers (SSNs). MBI offers better identity protection. With a few exceptions, both electronic and paper claims submitted with Health Insurance Claim Numbers (HICNs) rather than MBI will receive rejections.

There are three ways to obtain MBIs:

  1. Ask your Medicare patients to provide their new Medicare cards containing their MBI;
  2. Use your Medicare Administrative Contractors’ (MACs) secure MBI look-up tool; or
  3. Check remittance advice from October 1, 2018 through December 31, 2019 which provided the MBI for active HICN beneficiaries.

For more information on how to receive and use MBI for payment of Medicare claims, click here.