My Comments: I have not yet received mine but perhaps it’ll come in today’s mail.

The idea is that with so much money at stake, there are too many opportunities for the bad guys to game the system. This is an effort to make that harder. I hope it works as planned.

What I know is that without Medicare and what is known as a medi-gap insurance policy, my out of pocket expenses would dramatically exceed what I now pay as my share of the insurance premiums. Hardly a month passes without my spending time with one physician or another.

September 4, 2018 | Leada Gore

More than one million people in Alabama and four other states will be receiving new Medicare cards in the coming weeks.

The new cards no longer contain a person’s Social Security number, replacing it with a unique, randomly-assigned Medicare number designed to protect people’s identities.

“This change not only protects Medicare patients from fraud, but also safeguards taxpayer dollars by making it harder for criminals to use Social Security numbers to falsely bill Medicare for care services and benefits that were never performed,” said Angela Brice-Smith, Regional Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The new card will not change any of the program benefits and services that eligible people enrolled in Medicare receive.

The cards are currently being mailed to residents in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. If you’ve not received your card, you can log on to your mymedicare.gov account and, if your card has been mailed, you can see your new number or print an official copy. If you don’t have an account, visit MyMedicare.gov to create one.

You can go here and put in your email to see the current status of your card.

You can also call Medicare at 1-800-633-4227.