diff --git a/ghost/admin/app/controllers/members.js b/ghost/admin/app/controllers/members.js
index 0e68214c7f..0149df9f62 100644
--- a/ghost/admin/app/controllers/members.js
+++ b/ghost/admin/app/controllers/members.js
@@ -216,33 +216,18 @@ export default class MembersController extends Controller {
         });
     }
 
-    refineFilterParam(filterParam) {
-        // We have some crazy regex below, here's a breakdown of what it does:
-        // \\(             - Matches an opening parenthesis "("
-        // [^)]*          - Matches zero or more characters that are NOT a closing parenthesis ")"
-        // [,+\\-]?       - Matches an optional comma, plus, or minus sign
-        // email_disabled - Matches the exact string "email_disabled"
-        // [^)]*          - Matches zero or more characters that are NOT a closing parenthesis ")"
-        // \\)             - Matches a closing parenthesis ")"
-        // (?!
-        //  [+\\-]        - Negative lookahead: Asserts what directly follows is neither a plus "+" nor a minus "-"
-        //  |             - OR
-        //  :\\'[^']*\\'  - Negative lookahead: Asserts what follows is not a colon ":" followed by a string in single quotes
-        //  |             - OR
-        //  :\\"[^"]*\\"  - Negative lookahead: Asserts what follows is not a colon ":" followed by a string in double quotes
-        // )
-        const regex = new RegExp(`\\(([^)]*[,+\\-]?email_disabled[^)]*)\\)(?![+\\-]|:\\'[^']*\\'|:\\"[^"]*\\")`, 'g');
-        return filterParam.replace(regex, '$1');
-    }
-
     getApiQueryObject({params, extraFilters = []} = {}) {
         let {label, paidParam, searchParam, filterParam} = params ? params : this;
 
-        // NOTE: this is a temporary fix to help where the API/NQL isn't handling the parentheses correctly
-        // It's potentially a deeper issue with NQL. This should be removed once the API is fixed.
-        // This could be related https://github.com/TryGhost/NQL/issues/16
         if (filterParam) {
-            filterParam = this.refineFilterParam(filterParam);
+            // If the provided filter param is a single filter related to newsletter subscription status
+            // remove the surrounding brackets to prevent https://github.com/TryGhost/NQL/issues/16
+            const NEWSLETTER_SUBSCRIPTION_STATUS_RE = /^\(subscribed:(?:true|false)[+,]email_disabled:[01]\)$/;
+            const SPECIFIC_NEWSLETTER_SUBSCRIPTION_STATUS_RE = /^\(newsletters\.slug:[^()]+[+,]email_disabled:[01]\)$/;
+
+            if (NEWSLETTER_SUBSCRIPTION_STATUS_RE.test(filterParam) || SPECIFIC_NEWSLETTER_SUBSCRIPTION_STATUS_RE.test(filterParam)) {
+                filterParam = filterParam.slice(1, -1);
+            }
         }
 
         let filters = [];