CMS waives Part D late enrollment fee for some

The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that the late enrollment penalty for the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit will once again be waived for low-income beneficiaires (Marketletters passim). The decision was welcomed as "a good move" by Senator Charles Grassley (Republican, Iowa), who previously sponsored legislation to abolish the penalty for all applicants.

Acting CMS Administrator, Leslie Norwalk, explained the decision: "this is our most difficult population to reach and the one for which we continue to focus our efforts." Last year, the first for which the prescription drug benefit was implemented, enrollment rates for low-income patients were lower than for the higher-income population.

30 million hits on drug benefit web site