New Medicare Card Preparation for Home Health & Hospice Providers Ask-the-Contractor Teleconference
View the handout for the September 27, 2017, New Medicare Card Preparation for Home Health & Hospice Providers ACT.
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- I'm trying to find out how we're going to know if a client has a railroad benefit since we don't see the patient's Medicare cards.
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The admission nurse or therapist will verify the Medicare number on admission with the patient, but either the agency or clinician would need to obtain a copy from the patient or the referral source, the same as they do now. The agency would not be obtaining copies of beneficiary Medicare cards from any other source. Remember Railroad Medicare Cards will contain the Railroad logo.
Added: 10.19.17
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- Have you sent out letters and things to the Medicare beneficiaries yet notifying them of the new changes?
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Yes, information has started going out to the beneficiaries. That's going to be more so from the Medicare.gov perspective that they're sending that information out. But yes, they have started to receive information and outreach about the new cards that are coming. There have been some TV commercials that have happened nationally and then also in their Medicare & You, new handbook that comes out, they'll also receive information to be on the lookout for the new Medicare cards.
Added: 10.19.17
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- My question is also kind of related to the railroad Medicare but if I remember seeing something correctly, are we going to have a different claim address to submit the railroad Medicare claims or is it still all going to our MAC?
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The jurisdictional Home Health and Hospice (HHH) Medicare Administrative Contractors process home health and hospice claims for both Medicare and Railroad Medicare beneficiaries. You will continue to process those as you normally do.
Added: 10.19.17
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- I'm calling from Montana. So we're a wide open space. We might have somebody come from one side of the state. Let's say they've had a car accident and it's determined, okay, you're going to pass away so then we get them. So we don't have any information and those situations happen more often than not. It is extremely hard to get an idea of their Medicare number. Just wanted to reiterate that more for you.
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Refer to questions #1. Also, as a reminder the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) are required to offer a look-up tool/option within their portal, so that should help alleviate some of these issues where you're afraid you won't have their card. If you had their old Medicare number on file then you should be able to use that portal that they're creating and developing to log on and get their new NBI number as well.
Added: 10.19.17
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- My question is for your managed care patients, I know they receive cards through their insurance; will you guys still be giving them an MBI number? And what happens in the interim if they should decide during open enrollment to switch back to Medicare?
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Please refer to the CMS MLN Fact Sheet, which indicates the following:
What about Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug plans?
Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug plans will continue to assign and use their own identifiers on their health insurance cards. For patients in these plans, continue to ask for and use the plans' health insurance cards.Added: 10.19.17
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