|a - _ )
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
BALTIMORE,   MARYLAND  21235
OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER
SSI-6
JANUARY 1968
Dear Medicare Beneficiary:
Your medicare health insurance card is enclosed.   Please keep it with you or keep
it in a safe place where you and your family can locate it at all times. When you
need health care, this card will show the doctor or the hospital the protection you
have under medicare and when it starts.
Your health insurance card shows:
1. Your name, exactly as it is in your social security records—
2. Your own claim number (which may include letters as well as numbers)—
3. When your hospital insurance starts—
4. When your medical insurance starts if you are enrolled for this protection.
(If you recently signed up for medical insurance, you will soon receive a new
card showing you have both hospital and medical insurance.)
Each person who has medicare protection receives his own health insurance card.
Even if your card looks like one issued to someone else (for example, to your husband
or wife), it is not exactly the same.  ALWAYS USE YOUR OWN HEALTH
INSURANCE CARD.
Your medicare protection is described briefly on the back of this letter.  A new
Medicare Handbook which describes your benefits in detail is now being prepared.
It will include the improvements recently made in the law. We will send you one
as soon as they are completed.
When you need health care, SHOW YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE CARD.   The
people in the hospital or your doctor's office are probably familiar with medicare coverage.
If you have questions—or need assistance with anything about medicare—just phone,
write, or visit your social security office.
Sincerely yours,
sj sincerely yours.
/uUcf4f/7<U£y
Robert^M. Ball
Commissioner of Social Security
Enclosures