CMS Medicare ID Cards Hit Another Potential Snag

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has signed an emergency contract agreement with West Publishing Corp. to ensure its new Medicare ID cards are assigned to the right beneficiaries, reports Modern Healthcare . CMS is mailing the cards with randomly generated beneficiary identifiers instead of Social Security numbers, and about 60 million beneficiaries will receive the new cards by next April. However, CMS learned via simulation that a data vulnerability could cause the wrong beneficiaries to receive some of the cards, as some of the address information the agency has may be inaccurate. "To mitigate this risk, CMS requires a contractor to perform a validation of Medicare beneficiary address information in advance of the Medicare Card mailing project," says the agency. West Publishing will get $5.5 million to ensure the cards go to the right beneficiaries. "The agency's need to have a contractor perform the beneficiary address validation services is of such an unusual and compelling urgency that the government would be subject to serious financial injury if this contract was delayed and Medicare cards were mailed prior to the addresses being validated," CMS noted. West Publishing bid against two unnamed competitors, and CMS determined it had the best private-sector database to track down beneficiaries.