CMS has a handy tool for doctors to determine if they are exempt from MIPS participation in 2018 because they saw less than 200 Medicare patients or billed less than $90,000 in Medicare fees.  Go to https://qpp.cms.Gov/participation-lookup.

One of our billers was so excited because she filed her first claims with the new 11-character Medicare IDs, but her excitement soon turned to disappointment when 14 of the 16 claims rejected.   It took a little research and a few calls to Medicare to discover the problem:  the office had entered the ID numbers with the letter O instead of the number zero!

In order to avoid confusion over letter and number look-alikes, the new IDs will NOT have the letters O, I, B, L, S, or Z.    So when you see that round character in the ID, type in the number zero and not the letter O! (Or 1, 8, 5, and 2, instead of I, B, S, or Z!)  Being careful to enter the correct ID will save us all of lot of time-consuming rejections!

Please remind your front desk staff to be asking patients if they have received their new Medicare cards yet.  Scan copies of the new cards and update the Medicare numbers in your software.  Medicare will allow us to file under both IDs through next year, but you’ll want to start updating your records now.   Also, when you type in the numbers, please enter the IDs without dashes even though dashes appear on the card.