SSNRI is coming!

Since the beginning of time itself, Medicare cards have looked something like this:

But, beginning April 1, 2018, Medicare cards will look like this:

The big change is that the Medicare Claim Number will no longer be based on a Social Security Number, in order to help prevent identity theft.

The wage-earner's Social Security Number has always been the basis for the assignation of a Medicare Claim Number. The claim number is then used for routine Medicare business transactions and regularly appears on Medicare cards, explanation of benefits, annual notices, billing statements, insurance claims, etc. Occasionally, cards are lost or misplaced, or correspondence is accidentally mailed or delivered to the wrong address. When this happens, the Social Security Number is inadvertently revealed to someone who is not entitled to have that information.

Portal to the identity vault

Social Security numbers were never intended to be a form of identification, yet the reality is that the Social Security Number is as close to a national identity card as we get. A lost SSN, vis-á-vis a lost Medicare card, exposes the Medicare beneficiary to a very real possibility of identity theft. The SSN is the key to the identity bank vault and yup, there it is, printed right on front of the Medicare card for all the world to see.

I said PII, not PIE!

With ever increasingly sophisticated methods of perpetrating identity theft, it has become imperative more than ever that personal identifying information (referred to as PII) be protected as much as possible, as identity thieves really would like an extra helping of that PII, figuratively speaking. And that brings us around to today's topic: SSNRI.

Dr. Frankenstein is ready for SSNRI

Formally, SSNRI stands for Social Security Removal Initiative, part of a Medicare related law passed in 2015. In that law, it was mandated that, beginning April 2019, the Social Security Number can no longer be used as the primary basis for assigning a Medicare Claim Number. There will be a transitional phase-in period beginning April 1, 2018, a full year before the mandatory change.

Beginning April 2018, Medicare recipients will receive a new Medicare card that will have a randomly assigned 11-digit Medicare claim number. The process will be automated and recipients need not take any action other than making sure their address is current with the Social Security Administration. During the subsequent year-long transition period,  either the new Medicare claim number or the old Social-Security Number-based Medicare claim number can be used to process Medicare claims, appeals, requests for medical information, and the like.

However, the gig will be up in April 2019 . At that point, claims must be submitted with the new Medicare Claim Number or else. But have no fear, we are all over this and will have the new process fully implemented long before then. This blog posting is intended to be more of a heads-up informational treatise, rather than a how-to technical instruction. We will post further instructions as we implement changes to Rexpert.