The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin issuing new Medicare Cards to over 60M Medicare members beginning April 2018.   To help prevent fraud and identity theft, the cards will no longer include the social security number (SSN).  The new Medicare cards will have a randomly assigned number called a “Medicare Beneficiary Identifier” (MBI).  Because of the large volume of Medicare enrollees, the replacement cards will be mailed from April, 2018 through April, 2019 in waves by geographic location.  It may take several weeks to months after the mailing begins for enrollees to receive their new Medicare card.

DON’T get scammed……

There are already scammers calling enrollees pretending to be with Medicare or hired by Medicare.  They say that there is a fee to receive the replacement card and will want your credit card number so they can charge the fictional mailing/replacement fee.  Other scammers say they want to “verify” your existing Medicare number (which is the social security number!) in order to authorize mailing of your replacement card.  THESE ARE SCAMS. 

The new Medicare Cards are FREE and will be mailed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  For more information on the Medicare card replacement project you can go to www.cms.gov  

Thank you for that info, JustLikeMom.

To keep your Medicare card from falling apart, get it laminated. (Do the same with your SSN card.) Just take it to Staples or Office Depot or Office Max, and ask them to laminate it for you. I think it cost me under $2 to do that.

Please review this FAQ about laminating your Social Security Card:

https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/Article/3786/Can-I-laminate-my-Social-Security-card

I keep mine in a plastic sleeve and don't carry it with me. It's lasted very well for many years.

Hope this helps.

https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/New-Medicare-Card/Open-Door-Forums.html

There are slides of the new Medicare card program .The new number is alpha and numbers .

Will be pretty darn hard to remember.

If they catch these scammers they should tar and feather them.                                                  But knowing our government they will just give them a pat on the hand.                               What a shame.