MACRO MOVES means big changes in Medicare are taking place. In case your practice didn’t know, Medicare has been issuing new cards since the beginning of April, 2018 and will continue throughout the next few months. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are required by law to have all social security numbers removed from the cards by April 2019. The reason for the change is to help protect individuals from fraudulent use of their social security numbers.

Be on the lookout for these new cards with the new identification numbers and be sure that any patients with Medicare have provided their new card information to your office. There will be transition period of time from April 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019 where Medicare will still process claims with the old numbers but it is important to get those new identification numbers entered into the insurance information fields in MacPractice as to avoid Medicare billing issues down the road.

For more detailed information check out the CMS site.