When Will Your New Medicare Card Arrive?

from aarp.org

Medicare will send you an email when it’s on the way

If you’re on Medicare and waiting for your new card, you can sign up to receive an email telling you when the new ID is on its way.


A Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) web page includes a map that tracks the progress of the mailing in each state and a list of when enrollees in each state will start receiving their cards. The page also invites beneficiaries to sign up for an email that CMS will send once their ID cards have been mailed.

New members will receive the new card as soon as they sign up. The ID, which has been redesigned to prevent fraud, is still red, white and blue, but instead of a Social Security number, the identifier is an 11-character, randomly assigned combination of numbers and letters that has no connection to an enrollee’s personal information.

Cards for current beneficiaries living in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia started going out May 1, and CMS says it will take about a month for everyone in those states to receive a new ID.

It will take until April 2019 for all 60 million beneficiaries to get their new identification cards. You can begin using your new card as soon as it arrives.