US · guidance
CMS Pub. 100-04, ch. 2, § 10.1.3
Importance of Medicare beneficiary identifiers
The term Medicare beneficiary identifier (Mbi) is a general term describing a
beneficiary's Medicare identification number. For purposes of this manual, Medicare
beneficiary identifier references both the Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) and
the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) during the new Medicare card transition
period and after for certain business areas that will continue to use the HICN as part of
their processes.
The Medicare beneficiary identifier is used in Medicare records to identify the
beneficiary. The provider or supplier obtains this number before billing. See §30 below
for a description of appropriate processes for obtaining the Medicare beneficiary
identifier.
History
(Rev. 4247, Issued: 03-01-19, Effective: 04-01-19, Implementation: 04-01 -19)
Provenance
- Source
- cms.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-25
- Edition
- iom-2026-08-25
- Content hash
a57ce167460f8241119c17d5d927f724cf9daf32f834e1761d649af6854a0c84
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.