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If I pay my unpaid Medicare plan premiums after being disenrolled, will the plan then reinstate my Medicare Part D plan coverage?

Category: Paying your premiums
Updated: Apr 08, 2025
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Not exactly.  After disenrollment, paying your past unpaid premiums will not get you automatically reinstated back into your Medicare drug plan. Rather, your plan will make a determination as to whether you have "good cause" to be reinstated.

Section 70.3.5.1 – Process for Good Cause Determinations for Nonpayment of Plan Premiums of the Medicare Advantage and Part D Enrollment and Disenrollment Guidance Updated: 2024, states:
When an individual initially contacts the plan following disenrollment for failure to pay plan premiums and indicates that they "have a good reason for not having paid the premiums", the plan must:

  1. Confirm that the request for reinstatement is being made within 60 calendar days of the disenrollment effective date.

  2. Inform the individual that reinstatement is a possibility only if it is determined that their failure to make timely payment was due to circumstances over which they had no control OR could not reasonably have been expected to foresee.

  3. Obtain a credible statement from the individual regarding the circumstance that prevented them from making timely payment.

  4. Obtain affirmation from the individual indicating their willingness and ability to pay all overdue plan premiums within three months of the disenrollment date in order for reinstatement to occur.

  5. Review the request and make a favorable or unfavorable good cause determination.
    • If Steps 1-4 are met, CMS expects that plans will make such determinations within five business days of initial receipt of the request, so that the individual has a reasonable amount of time to make full payment for reinstatement.
    • If the individual does not indicate that an unusual or unexpected circumstance caused the nonpayment of premiums, the plan should clearly communicate that the request will not be reviewed further and it does not meet the criteria for reinstatement. The individual remains disenrolled and they may not make another request for good cause during the same 60-day period following the involuntary disenrollment.
Plans would need to collect any additional data that is needed to make a determination and make that determination within five business days of the date on which the individual first contacts the plan. In such cases where the plan does not have sufficient information to determine if the enrollee's circumstances meet the requirements, it should make a good faith effort to collect it within that time frame (e.g., making multiple attempts on different days or at different times). However, if attempts are unsuccessful, the plan must use the information provided with the initial request to make its determination.

If the plan makes a favorable determination and there are past due premium amounts owed to the plan, the plan should notify the individual of this decision within three business days of making the determination. If the plan offers immediate payment options, such as payment by credit card via phone, it may provide the notification verbally; however, if the individual does not complete the payment at that time, the plan should issue a written notice to ensure that the individual has the information necessary to pay the owed amounts.



If the plan's makes an unfavorable determination, you will need a valid enrollment period to rejoin a Medicare Part D plan – such as a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) or the annual Open Enrollment Period (AEP) that begins October 15.

In the Medicare manuals, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notes that:
"If the individual is involuntarily disenrolled [from their Medicare Part D plan] for failure to pay premiums, in order to re-enroll in that plan, or to enroll in another, the individual must request enrollment during a valid period. Payment of past due premiums after the disenrollment date does not create an opportunity for reinstatement into the plan from which the individual was disenrolled for failure to pay premiums." 
Sources include:

2025 Medicare Advantage and Part D Enrollment and Disenrollment Guidance, Section 70.3.5 – Reinstatements Based on a Determination of Good Cause for Failure to Pay Plan Premiums or Part D-IRMAA Timely, Updated: 2024
2024 and prior years: Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Manual - Chapter 3 - Eligibility, Enrollment and Disenrollment - Updated: August 19, 2011 (Revised: November 16, 2011, August 7, 2012, August 30, 2013, August 30, 2014, July 6, 2015, September 1, 2015, September 14, 2015, December 30, 2015, May 27, 2016, August 25, 2016 & June 15, 2017, July 31, 2018, August 12, 2020, & August 15, 2023)


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