WE’VE BEEN HERE before, but I see that with the growing level of noise about new Medicare cards there is also a growing level of angst, so let’s go back over what is (and is not) happening here.
Yes, all of us who are on Medicare will get new cards.
Folks who become eligible for Medicare will get the new cards at time of enrollment, so the cards won’t be new to them.
But for those of us who already live in the magical world of Medicare, they will be new.
The next question I hear most often is, “When?”
Well, we were initially told that Western Washington would start receiving them “… after June 2018 …” which this clearly is.
The most recent info I have (as of this month) is that we should start seeing them toward the end of 2018/early 2019.
For your information, they are being mailed randomly to different regions of the country, so the fact that your sister in Saginaw, Mich., may have gotten hers does not suggest that there’s a problem.
How will we get them? In the mail.
Yes: the good, old underfunded U.S. Postal Service.
I haven’t seen them, but I presume that they’ll appear in an envelope with various CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) logos and probably some red, white and blue here and there.
The problem this represents is that a lot of us get a lot of stuff (mostly Medicare-related sales stuff such as Medicare supplement plans, advantage plans or whatever) in envelopes that look a lot like that, so we’ll all need to be more OCD about actually opening said envelopes before reflexively pitching them in the general direction of the recycling can.
What do we have to do? Nothing.
Well, unless you’ve moved recently and Medicare might not have your current address, then you might want to contact them and make sure they have your current address.
But other than that, nothing.
Stop. Did you get that?
We don’t have to do anything. So, if someone contacts you by phone or email or whatever and offers to facilitate this for you, solve some imagined problem or get it quicker, etc., for a fee … It’s bogus. A scam.
Don’t buy it and don’t go for it.
So, what we’re all going to get is a paper (yes, regular paper) card that will look a lot like our current Medicare cards.
The big difference will be (and the reason for doing all of this in the first place is) that our current Medicare number, which is our Social Security number, will be replaced by a new 11-character sequence made up of numbers and uppercase letters.
See, a lot of us have been whining for years about the fact that, by using our Social Security numbers as our Medicare numbers (which get handed out to every medical provider in a nine-county radius), we’re just begging for identity theft.
The Feds finally figured that out, so here come new cards with new sequences.
The numbers and letters in these new Medicare sequences (“Health Insurance Claim Numbers,” or “HICN’s,” for the wonks among us) will not have any secret meaning. They’ll just be randomly assigned characters.
Stop (again).
Let’s think about this: Yes, it’s a vast improvement, from an ID theft perspective, to have these new not-your-Social-Security-number sequences.
However, they are still going to be the sequences that qualify you for Medicare and get those medical services paid for, so keep an eye on it and protect it.
Finally (I think), these new cards aren’t changing anything else.
They don’t change your benefits or your eligibilities or anything.
If/when you enroll in a Part D prescription drug plan (or the rare advantage plan), you’ll get different and separate cards from them.
That doesn’t change.
Both cards/either card will be usable through the end of 2019, so you can start using it as soon as you get it and don’t need to worry about anything unless we start getting close to the end of next year and you still haven’t received.
OK? That’s it. There’s nothing more to it.
If anybody (or agency, phone caller, emailer or whomever) tries to tell you something different, be very skeptical and check it out before you do, change or buy anything.
The fact that we’re paranoid doesn’t suggest that there’s nothing to be afraid of.
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Mark Harvey is director of Clallam/Jefferson Senior Information & Assistance, which operates through the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He is also a member of the Community Advocates for Rural Elders partnership. He can be reached at 360-452-3221 (Port Angeles-Sequim), 360-385-2552 (Jefferson County) or 360-374-9496 (West End), or by emailing harvemb@dshs.wa.gov.
