New Flexible Spending Account Strategy – Personal Finance Review
March 11, 2008
Every year I always scramble to try and spend my flexible spending account balance before the deadline. As it comes down to the wire I start looking for anything to spend the money on that meets the FSA guidelines. This year I ran across a promising strategy that should make it easier to clear out the FSA balance and ensure the money is put to good use.
During our last visit with the pediatrician I was pondering how I could spend our remaining FSA balance. I asked the lady at the billing desk if we could pre-pay for future services and she was more than happy to accept payment. I know the money will be used because we’re regular visitors at the pediatrician’s office so it seems to be a perfect solution.
I haven’t submitted the receipt to our FSA provider for reimbursement yet so I’ll let you know how that goes. I don’t anticipate any issues, I’m excited to have hopefully found a good strategy for making sure we get to use all the pre-tax money we put into our flexible spending account.
On the topic of heath care and insurance payments, Blueprint for Financial Prosperity discusses HSA, HRA and FSA Differences and the Mighty Bargain Hunter reminds us we get what we pay for with health care. Here are some other recent money articles I enjoyed:
-The Suns Financial Diary has a Financial IQ Quiz
– Generation X Finance goes over Social Security Disability Benefits
– The Digerati Life covers Small Business Payment Hassles
– Lazy Man & Money complains about door to door salesman
– Brip Blap gives coverage of the classic book, Think & Grow Rich
– Million Dollar Journey is giving away the book Fast Profits in Hard Times
– Five Cent Nickel reminds us that Past Performance Does Not Predict Future Returns
– No Credit Needed reveals his biggest financial regret
– Free Money Finance hosts personal finance March Madness
Stop by the Travel on a Shoestring carnival and checkout how you can save money in Las Vegas and other US cities. Or if you want to learn more about peer lending, visit the prosper lending review for the carnival they hosted that included some peer lending lessons.
All posts by Ben Edwards
Simon, I’ve submitted the reciepts. We’ll see if it works or not.
Your strategy will not work. The medical services must have already been provided prior to plan year being over or your date of termination. Your plan administrator my not notice but IRS will when they get audited.
Not a good Idea!!
Most flex plans require that the service has to be incurred, not the payment. Prepaying generally won’t work. However, your administrator might not notice and could still pay it.
What a smart solution to using your account. We also have flex spending account and last year we were running to the pharmacy to stock up on contact solution, etc. We’ll do differently this year. Health insurance these days seems to be prepayment for services. It just leads to not paying full price for services rendered.
Jerry
Thanks for the mention. That’s a very interesting idea. I might have to try that, although I have a “prepaid” Mastercard benefits card for my FSA, so I REALLY would wonder whether they’d accept prepayment. But that thought never crossed my mind, so I’ll try that. What do I have to lose? I don’t want to have to buy $80 worth of OTC medicines I don’t need right now like I did last year…
I’m wondering the same thing. I’m submitting the receipt tomorrow to see what happens.
That’s a very interesting idea. I’ll be very curious to find out if you are reimbursed because our program explicitly requires that the date of service be on the form, and that the service must already have been rendered.
Thanks for the mention!