In today's mail, I had a letter from the government... Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The letter began with: "You now have a new Medicare Number and your previous Medicare Number is no longer valid. Your new Medicare card is inside." It further informs me that the new card/number is effective April 2 and that I should inform my providers of the change.
I have no idea why they would replace my Medicare card and assign me a new/different number.
Has this happened to any of you UHHers?
My guess is that part of the new number is a flag to doctors and hospitals that... this old guy has cost us enough money... treat him accordingly... been nice communicating with you UHHers.
KillroyII wrote:
In today's mail, I had a letter from the government... Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The letter began with: "You now have a new Medicare Number and your previous Medicare Number is no longer valid. Your new Medicare card is inside." It further informs me that the new card/number is effective April 2 and that I should inform my providers of the change.
I have no idea why they would replace my Medicare card and assign me a new/different number.
Has this happened to any of you UHHers?
My guess is that part of the new number is a flag to doctors and hospitals that... this old guy has cost us enough money... treat him accordingly... been nice communicating with you UHHers.
In today's mail, I had a letter from the governmen... (
show quote)
I have not heard of this and Medicare is my primary.
Have you applied or requested anything for Medicare?
I would. Contact Medicare and ask them what’s going on.
I’m curious to see what’s going on here with you and I hope it’s good.
Bruce
jfdnp
Loc: Coastal Connecticut
The Medicare numbers were changed several years ago from your SSN To a combination of letters and numbers; unless its a replacement of that card, I never heard of it.
Mine was changed after I reported fraud in reviewing my statements.
KillroyII wrote:
In today's mail, I had a letter from the government... Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The letter began with: "You now have a new Medicare Number and your previous Medicare Number is no longer valid. Your new Medicare card is inside." It further informs me that the new card/number is effective April 2 and that I should inform my providers of the change.
I have no idea why they would replace my Medicare card and assign me a new/different number.
Has this happened to any of you UHHers?
My guess is that part of the new number is a flag to doctors and hospitals that... this old guy has cost us enough money... treat him accordingly... been nice communicating with you UHHers.
In today's mail, I had a letter from the governmen... (
show quote)
I am inclined to believe that recent hacks and new issues in types of services may have a great deal to do with these changes.
Most clinical services will have completed their billing cycles. Take your old cards and shred them. They cannot be used any longer. Now your new cards are the your preferred way to contact your providers. Write down your providers, they will contact you if there is a billing issue.
This is the sign of the times. As a pharmacist, I am often correcting billing information. While it is an arduous process i do it so that prescriptions can be processed.
JimNC wrote:
Mine was changed after I reported fraud in reviewing my statements.
That would be my guess that something suspicious related to the original card was detected.
I would call medicare and ask.
Two possibilities that I can think of:
"In response to a May 2023 data breach, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has notified Medicare beneficiaries who may have been affected. The agency is mailing approximately 47,000 new Medicare cards with a new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) to those affected."
or:
"Medicare is getting rid of the old card because the old Medicare Number was based on a person's Social Security Number. Scammers sometimes use Social Security Numbers to try to steal someone's identity, open new credit cards or even take out loans in someone else's name."
This should have happened to you once already when they changed it from your social security number. So, is this your second number change or the first number change from your SS#?
terryMc
Loc: Arizona's White Mountains
odujim wrote:
Two possibilities that I can think of:
"In response to a May 2023 data breach, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has notified Medicare beneficiaries who may have been affected. The agency is mailing approximately 47,000 new Medicare cards with a new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI)
This was the reason they sent me a new card a couple of months ago.
KillroyII wrote:
In today's mail, I had a letter from the government... Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The letter began with: "You now have a new Medicare Number and your previous Medicare Number is no longer valid. Your new Medicare card is inside." It further informs me that the new card/number is effective April 2 and that I should inform my providers of the change.
I have no idea why they would replace my Medicare card and assign me a new/different number.
Has this happened to any of you UHHers?
My guess is that part of the new number is a flag to doctors and hospitals that... this old guy has cost us enough money... treat him accordingly... been nice communicating with you UHHers.
In today's mail, I had a letter from the governmen... (
show quote)
Scam alert. Contact Medicare directly.
Bloke
Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
jfdnp wrote:
The Medicare numbers were changed several years ago from your SSN To a combination of letters and numbers; unless its a replacement of that card, I never heard of it.
Yes, I received mine a few years ago. They wanted to avoid people from having to quote their SSN on forms and stuff.
47greyfox
Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range
We’re all guessing. Call Medicare.
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