Transition to New Medicare Numbers and Cards

CMS, through the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs), recently mailed letters to all Medicare Fee-For-Service providers about our work to assign new numbers (known as Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers or MBIs) and issue new Medicare cards to all people with Medicare beginning in April 2018.

Our top priorities are to make sure:

• Your Medicare patients have continuous access to care.
• You have the tools and information you need for a smooth transition. Starting in June 2018, you can look up your patients’ new Medicare numbers through your MAC’s secure web portal.

Carefully review the letter and accompanying fact sheet and find out how to prepare to accept the new number beginning in April 2018. Your letter will contain specific information for your MAC. You can also view a sample letter and print-friendly fact sheet.

We also recently unveiled the new Medicare card design and issued a press release with more information about the project.