Health Insurance hacks

[doc holiday13]

Yup thats right, lets discuss hacks for insurance.

My biggest one has been the HSA.. Anyone can open one. You NEVER loose the money. The money can be invested through a qualified HSA investment account; which means, if you're savvy, you can grow that money.

The money that you put into it is considered pre tax(even if your employer isn't putting the money into it) So for a married couple/family you can drop $8500/year into it and it lowers your taxable income. So if your employer doesn't do a HSA you might want to talk to an accountant and provide proper documents at tax time.

The HSA can only be used for qualified medical expenses. there are list out there but you can buy first aid kits, toothpaste, vitamins, etc. You might even be able to pay for a gym membership but don't quote me on that.. Here is where it gets good. Whatever company that you have your HSA with, they will send you a form at tax time that shows how much you spent. Then you can deducted those expenses from your year tax bill, so its like a double dip when combined with your contributions

Vision insurance. F-ing scam. Go ahead and calculate how much it pulls over the course of the year and come back to tell me if you're better off just skipping vision insurance and paying for all things vision out of pocket(or with your HSA).

 

[KooterJ]

I agree; HSA's offer triple-tax advantages. Money contributed is tax deductible, it grows tax free, and can be withdrawn with no tax penalty.

However, you can contribute to an HSA only if you have an HSA-eligible plan (also called a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP))

 

[huntineveryday]

Yup thats right, lets discuss hacks for insurance.

My biggest one has been the HSA.. Anyone can open one. You NEVER loose the money. The money can be invested through a qualified HSA investment account; which means, if you're savvy, you can grow that money.

The money that you put into it is considered pre tax(even if your employer isn't putting the money into it) So for a married couple/family you can drop $8500/year into it and it lowers your taxable income. So if your employer doesn't do a HSA you might want to talk to an accountant and provide proper documents at tax time.

The HSA can only be used for qualified medical expenses. there are list out there but you can buy first aid kits, toothpaste, vitamins, etc. You might even be able to pay for a gym membership but don't quote me on that.. Here is where it gets good. Whatever company that you have your HSA with, they will send you a form at tax time that shows how much you spent. Then you can deducted those expenses from your year tax bill, so its like a double dip when combined with your contributions

Vision insurance. F-ing scam. Go ahead and calculate how much it pulls over the course of the year and come back to tell me if you're better off just skipping vision insurance and paying for all things vision out of pocket(or with your HSA).

Our vision plan pays out for us. My yearly contribution is $281.84 to cover myself and our 3 children. I get $130 credit towards contacts each year, which is used, and both our sons get $100 credit towards glasses yearly, which has been used every year we've had them covered (between changes in prescription and kids breaking stuff). So we're ahead at that point, plus it's just a copay for the yearly check-ups for the 4 of us as well as my yearly contact appointment, so some savings on each of those. Our plan is through VSP.

 

[Haggin]

Don't forget a limited FSA on top of your HSA. Limited FSA will cover qualified dental and vision expenses. Max is $3,300 and its a use it or lose it scenario, so you need to budget pretty close. Your optometrist office provider can (generally) tell you pretty close how much your glasses or contacts will run. We may have purchased an extra two months supply of contact lens solution and a new pair of sunglasses at the end of the year to drain ours a few years ago.

I agree on vision coverage, its either a prepay for your visits and glasses, but not much else. We use the Limited FSA for vision and dental, which generally isn't much, unless you need a crown or your kid needs their wisdom teeth out.

That stuff we try and figure out in the fall, before open enrollment, then move around coverage and contributions as necessary. If you have a comprehensive dental plan, move to that, get the crown/wisdom teeth done, stay on it for a year, then drop back down to basic coverage (for dental anyway, not everybody has that from their employer).

Editing to add - @huntineveryday is right on Vision. Vision "return on investment" depends highly on how many are in your family and what they wear. If you have perfect vision, its really not that great.

 

[Jethro]

As a glasses and contacts wearer, my vision insurance pays for itself many times over.

 

[Idaboy]

HSA is great for sure. Vision cam be hit or miss, for me probably a wash but I was able to add my wife a couple years ago and it's paid off as she has a bunch of issues with eyes

I am hoping to retire a little before 65. What are guys doing to bridge the gap in health care insurance for a couple years before age 65 when Medicare kicks in?

 

[Sccritterkiller]

Truemed.com
Get your letter of medical necessity and pay you gym membership with pretax dollars out of your HSA...saves me almost 400 bucks a year on my Crossfit membership.
There is a bunch of other stuff you can pay for out your HSA there too, mattress, vitiams, ect.

 

[The_Jim]

Truemed.com
Get your letter of medical necessity and pay you gym membership with pretax dollars out of your HSA...saves me almost 400 bucks a year on my Crossfit membership.
There is a bunch of other stuff you can pay for out your HSA there too, mattress, vitiams, ect.

Is there a membership cost to truemed?

 

[BRTreedogs]

With my employer the hsa is use or loose every year.

 

[GrayGoose]

With my employer the hsa is use or loose every year.

HSA plans are not a use it or loose it. That sounds like an FSA or HRA plan through your employer.

 

[Sccritterkiller]

Is there a membership cost to truemed?

Nope 30 bucks for your letter. Super easy, almost to easy to be true...but it works.

 

[eamyrick]

Time is money. There have been multiply issues over the years where I have spent 7-8 hours collectively on the phone for something that wasn’t covered by insurance just to find out later that out of pocket was only $100 bucks. Latest example was an Epi-Pen. Prescribed by my doctor. Denied 2x by insurance just to find I could go grab a pack for $105 my local CVS. So much time wasted on the phone.

Other recommendation that i tell all of my younger guys at work is that when you have kids to keep every document, receipt etc in a folder. Don’t pay anything until you absolutely have to. Eventually everything will work its way through processing and you will get a singular bill or two.

 

[doc holiday13]

With my employer the hsa is use or loose every year.

Thats not an HSA. You have a FSA
HSA= Health Savings Account
FSA= Flex spending account

 

[WaWox]

Just to clarify/correct: you cannot double dip the HSA tax savings.

If you contribute 8k in January and then spend 8k on health care in December and withdraw the 8k, you don't get to deduct 16k from your taxes.

But the even smarter move, if you can afford it, is to never withdraw from the HSA.

The money in the HSA grows tax free -- and withdrawing tax free only requires you to have *ever* expended money on medical items.

So for example if you put 8k in and in the same year have 8k in expenses you can leave the 8k in the HSA for another 10 years, enjoy the compound growth, let's be optimistic and assume it doubled in the 10, so 16k, and now you want to pay an Outfitter-- you withdraw 8k, still have 8k in the HSA, and if the IRS asks you point to your 10 year old bill.

This means you just got yourself 8k of tax free money to spend when you have another healthcare situation.

Or, if you put tons of money into the HSA, are blessed with perfect health, and enjoy huge return, the worst case scenario is that you withdraw the money after 65 in the same tax treatment as an IRA, ie taxed as ordinary income at withdrawal.

 

[svivian]

Dont forget once you turn 65 you can draw funds out of an HSA for any reason without penalty.

 

[Forestryguy]

Don’t have it. All the money you would put into paying for insurance invest it in a way that you can have easy access to it. When you get a bill tell them you want it itemized, cost usually goes down. Tell them you are paying cash, again price reduction. Same goes for when getting prescription meds. The pharmacy will sell them to you cheaper than if they know you have insurance. Medical expenses are still a write off at the end of the year.

 

[WaWox]

Don’t have it. All the money you would put into paying for insurance invest it in a way that you can have easy access to it. When you get a bill tell them you want it itemized, cost usually goes down. Tell them you are paying cash, again price reduction. Same goes for when getting prescription meds. The pharmacy will sell them to you cheaper than if they know you have insurance. Medical expenses are still a write off at the end of the year.

Medical expenses are not a tax deductible expense unless you run it via business entity that self insures or the limited deductibility you get from disaster level expenses. And if you frequently hit the latter insurance would have 100% been the smarter choice.

 

[CorbLand]

HSA should be taken advantage of by anyone that can.

A simple way to keep your receipts is to set up an email for your family and have any medical receipts sent to that or you can send them to your email and forward them to the email you created.

 

[Pharmseller]

Time is money. There have been multiply issues over the years where I have spent 7-8 hours collectively on the phone for something that wasn’t covered by insurance just to find out later that out of pocket was only $100 bucks. Latest example was an Epi-Pen. Prescribed by my doctor. Denied 2x by insurance just to find I could go grab a pack for $105 my local CVS. So much time wasted on the phone.

That’s how they win.




P

 

[180ls1]

A few specifics to point out. I think the HSA is fantastic, for the record.

Anyone can open one.

Anyone with a HDHP/HSA eligible plan can open one.

So if your employer doesn't do a HSA you might want to talk to an accountant and provide proper documents at tax time.

If your employer is not funding/offering one its unlikely that opening an eligible plan on your own and funding it makes sense unless you get it on the exchange and receive significant premium credits. Odds are that plan will not be HSA eligible.

Vision insurance. F-ing scam. Go ahead and calculate how much it pulls over the course of the year and come back to tell me if you're better off just skipping vision insurance and paying for all things vision out of pocket(or with your HSA).

For you, sure. Many others it is not, depending on the costs.