Civil Service
Retirement
System
Federal Employees’
Group Life
Insurance Program
Federal Employees
Health Benefits
Program
Federal Employees
Retirement
System
Long Term
Care Insurance
Program
United States
Office of
Personnel Management
The Federal Government’s Human Resources Agency
Retirement and Insurance Service
Benefits Administration Letter
Number: 02-309 Date: May 13, 2002
Subject: Request for Employers' Identification Number
Your agency or retirement system may have received bills dunning you as an employer for
amounts owed to the Medicare Program. This letter requests your assistance in an attempt to
reduce the occurrence of these invalid bills.
By way of background, many individuals have both Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
(FEHB) and Medicare coverage. The law establishes that one of the two programs must pay
benefits in full as the primary payer, while the other pays a reduced benefit as the secondary
payer. Generally, the FEHB is the primary payer for active Federal employees, whereas
Medicare is primary for annuitants.
The Medicare administrator, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly
the Health Care Financing Administration, has established a data-match to identify instances
where it paid benefits as the primary payer, but should have paid as secondary payer. When it
identifies such instances, the CMS recognizes a receivable and seeks to collect the overpaid
benefits from the employer or retirement system of the pertinent individual. Hence, the bills you
may have received.
OPM is working with CMS to improve the match process and reduce future agency billings.
CMS has agreed to suspend collections while the system is being improved. We need your help
to reduce and hopefully eliminate the CMS dunning of Federal employing agencies and
retirement systems. Specifically, we want to provide the CMS with a list of the employer
identification numbers (EINs) of Federal agencies/retirement systems which have
employees/annuitants with FEHB coverage. We will provide the EINs to CMS, which will in
turn incorporate them into their database. By citing the EIN, CMS will be able to correctly
identify employers as Federal employing agencies and retirement systems and forgo the dunning
process.
