Use it or lose it: Upcoming new year means limited time to use FSA Dollars

As Christmas and the new year approach, so does the deadline to use your pre-tax Flex Spending Arrangement (FSA) money. Those pre-tax dollar accounts millions of Americans use to help with medical costs are reset at the end of the year, meaning when it comes to FSA dollars, if you don’t use them you lose them.

Combine this fact with patients having met insurance deductibles, is why December is one of the busiest month for people in the medical field. (In fact, here at KIFI/KIDK we tried to set up interviews with several people from local hospitals ahead of time to talk about this, and all of them were completely booked.)

While in most cases it may be too late to set up a knee surgery or a hip replacement surgery, there are still several things you can do last minute to make the most of your FSA funds. Below are several links that give a good overview on what you can and can’t do.

One of the major FSA providers, WageWorks, provides a comprehensive list found HERE.

An online store that sells only FSA-eligible items can be found HERE.

A link to the official IRS site that answers most questions on what’s FSA eligible can be found HERE.

Some of the items listed in the above links do require a doctor’s recommendation, meaning you may need to set an appointment first. Also each FSA is slightly different. Yours may have fewer (or more) options and different procedures than what was listed above. The best way to find what you can and can’t do with your FSA funds is to talk to your provider.