The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is planning to phase in Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers (MBIs) between April 2018 and April 2019 to replace the current Medicare Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) based on beneficiary Social Security Numbers. The MBI and HICN will be linked and used, with SSA generating HICNs and CMS generating MBIs.
Starting April 2018, the SAWS and MEDS systems, along with other statewide systems, are expected to be able to receive MBI information. The transition period will run through December 2019. During this time, when beneficiaries will only receive an MBI, Counties are not to share MBI with anyone. County workers will continue to enter Medicare information as they receive it. A new field for MBI has been added to MEDS.
DHCS MEDIL I 17-15 (September 18, 2017).