New Medicare Card Transition Ends Next Week: Claim Reject Codes Beginning January 1

New Medicare Card Transition Ends Next Week: Claim Reject Codes Beginning January 1

Get paid. Use Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers (MBIs) now. If you do not use MBIs on claims (with a few exceptions) after January 1, regardless of the date of service, you will get:

• Electronic claims reject codes: Claims Status Category Code of A7 (acknowledgment rejected for invalid information), a Claims Status Code of 164 (entity’s contract/member number), and an Entity Code of IL (subscriber)
• Paper claims notices: Claim Adjustment Reason Code (CARC) 16 “Claim/service lacks information or has submission/billing error(s)” and Remittance Advice Remark Code (RARC) N382 “Missing/incomplete/invalid patient identifier”

How can you get the MBI? If your patients do not bring their Medicare cards with them:

• Give them the Get Your New Medicare Card flyer in Englishor Spanish.
• Use your Medicare Administrative Contractor’s look-up tool. Sign up for the Portal to use the tool.
• Check the remittance advice. Until December 31, we return the MBI on the remittance advice for every claim with a valid and active Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN).

See the MLN Matters Article to learn how to get and use MBIs.