Medicare card without Social Security number.

I don't carry my card anymore. I have taken a photo of both sides. Sometimes physician offices don't like it. It can be emailed in photo form.

I remember back when we had our social security number on our driver's licenses and it wasn't uncommon for someone to have their checks with their full names, address, telephone number and social security number. How times have changed. My checks just have my first initial, middle initial, and last name... nothing else.

Government bureaucracies can sometimes move like molasses. In Ontario Canada we began to phase in a new photo ID health card... 21 years ago! Seems they finally lit a fire under someone's a** and are pushing to have the process completed by next year, about time as "Ontario has admitted that there are more active health cards in circulation than there are living Ontarians".

This change was long overdue and should have taken place years ago. Four years is a long time because all Medicare beneficiaries are subject to increase risk of exposing sensitive Social Security info right now. I haven't found any info on when this change will be rolled out but I was assuming it would have been in stages.

There are over 58.3M people on Medicare. This isn't going to be an easy task. Would you believe that more than 4,500 people a day sign up for Medicare. So I figure I won't get an updated card for a few years.

Four years seems way too long. But is the government starting four years from the announcement? Or will it take four years to completely distribute these new Medicare cards? Has the government started sending these new Medicare cards out to anyone?

I didn't know about this, great idea to help reduce identify theft in case one's wallet is missing. President Obama signed this into law last year, and the bill gives Department of Health & Human Services four years to issue modernized cards to new beneficiaries, and four more years to issue the new cards to existing. beneficiaries.