Appeal deadline calculator

By Andrew at Axion Labs · August 19, 2026, updated September 5, 2026

Enter the date on your denial letter. You will get the date your internal appeal is due and, if that is refused, the date your independent external review is due.

Date on your denial notice Which denial is this? Where does this coverage come from? Which state? The reason your notice gives

Looking for a redetermination calculator? “Redetermination” is Medicare's own word for the first level of appeal, and Medicare runs its own clock: a Medicare Advantage plan gives you 60 calendar days after you receive its notice (42 CFR 422.582(b)), and for Original Medicare the deadline for a redetermination is printed on your Medicare Summary Notice. This calculator computes neither of them. It works out the employer, Marketplace and individual-plan deadlines from the fields above, and if you pick a government plan it will say so and send you to 1-800-MEDICARE. It sits here, under the date field and above your answer, so you read it before any date this page gives you, and before you act on one.

These are the standard federal timeframes for non-grandfathered plans. Your plan documents and denial letter state the deadlines that actually apply to you, and some plans and states allow longer. Always follow the dates on your letter. Not legal advice.

The two dates, before you type anything. Internal appeal: generally 180 days from the date on your denial notice. Independent external review: generally four months from the final internal denial. Expedited review, about 72 hours, where delay would seriously jeopardize your health. The calculator turns those into your actual calendar dates, but the rules above are the whole of it, and they are free.

Same deadlines, different door. The two dates above do not change with your plan type. Where you file the external review does. This route is the one for insured plans, Marketplace, individual, and employer plans where an insurance company carries the risk. If your coverage is through a job and the employer pays the claims itself (a self-funded or self-insured plan, which is 63% of covered workers), the state process does not apply to you whatever your state operates, and your external review goes through the federal process instead. Your denial letter names your route; if it does not, ask your plan in writing whether the plan is self-funded. That share is KFF's 2024 Employer Health Benefits Survey, Section 10. That is why the calculator asks who pays your claims, it is the one question that decides the route, and getting it wrong means filing into a process that has no power to hear you while your four months run out.

Get my Appeal Kit, $29

Everything you need for your appeal: your two deadlines, the argument that fits your denial reason, the letters, the clinician brief, and the external review request. One payment. No subscription. No cut of your claim. Opens on screen the moment you pay. 14-day refund, no questions, one email to hello@getaxionlabs.com.

Why the second date matters most

The internal appeal is decided by the insurer that already said no. The external review is decided by an independent organization, is free to you, and binds the plan. Nationally only 1 in 14,369 denials ever gets there, and 32.8% of those succeed. How both stages work →

This is the page I would have wanted first. Put the date from your letter in, get your two dates, and write them on the letter itself, that alone protects the part of this that is easiest to lose. The date never leaves your browser: we do not see it and we do not store it. If your dates come out strange, or your letter says nothing about independent review at all, which 29 CFR 2560.503-1(g)(1)(iv) requires it to describe, send me the wording with your details removed and I will tell you which clock you are actually on.

, Andrew at Axion Labs · hello@getaxionlabs.com

Where these numbers come from

Counts: CMS Transparency in Coverage Public Use File (PY2026 release, PY2024 claims), data.healthcare.gov — US Government public domain. Rights and timeframes: 29 CFR 2560.503-1 (180 days, and your free right to the claim file) and 45 CFR 147.136 (4 months, and what qualifies), explained at HealthCare.gov. Expedited review is decided in about 72 hours under both sections.

Reading either regulation from a script rather than a browser: eCFR answers automated fetches with a challenge page, so the same two sections are mirrored as government PDFs at govinfo.gov (29 CFR 2560.503-1) and govinfo.gov (45 CFR 147.136).

Questions people ask

These are the questions Google shows people asking alongside this page, in the words they are asked in. Each one gets one sentence, from the same sources as the rest of the page.

What is the deadline to file a Medicare redetermination request?

For a Medicare Advantage plan it is 60 calendar days after you receive the notice (42 CFR 422.582(b)), which is why this calculator refuses Medicare dates rather than quietly applying the 180-day rule that governs Marketplace and employer plans.

What are the timeframes for appealing a Medicare decision?

Medicare Advantage runs on 60 calendar days from the notice (42 CFR 422.582(b)), and Medicare's own line will confirm the timeframe for the part of Medicare you are in; the two dates this calculator prints are the Marketplace and employer-plan ones.

Where to send a medicare redetermination request form?

To the address on your own Medicare notice, which is the only place it is written for your plan, no address on this site is the right one for a Medicare appeal.