Comment

Comment on There is a fee to close my HSA account

You know, I can look up the definitions of HSA and FSA and things like that, and I can have the definitions right there in a document on my screen, but they still don’t make any sense to me in terms of how they relate to me specifically. A lot of times they seem like they depend on me predicting things in the future that are unknowable, like my future health or how and where I will be billed for something. And that’s assuming I also look up related terms like APY and deductible and figure out what those mean. If I ask any HR people they’re like “just contact the provider for an explanation” and I’m like yeah, I totally want to deal with the phone menus and hold times of some faceless corporation, just to have them pull some BS like OP’s talking about.

Sorry about the rant. I guess that’s what I find mildly infuriating.

source

Sort:hotnew top

bitchkat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The main difference is FSA is use it or lose it. I got Lasik many years ago because I had 1 month to use $2000 in my FSA.

HSA is like a 401k that you can deduct from immediately for medical needs.

source
jacksilver@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
To simplify both posts below:

FSA: good if you know you’re going to have $2-3k+ medical expenses and want to use tax deffered money.

HSA: good if you want to save tax deffered money year over year (and don’t mind having a high deductible insurance plan)

additionally, some people use HSAs as an investment for retirement.
source
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
FSAs do depend on you kinda predicting or hedging bets against your own health since they only last the year. You can also use them to buy certain health/exercise equipment though.

HSAs can often be invested (in stock market) thus act like an IRA with extra tax avoidance if you manage not to use it for long enough. It’s counter to the stated purpose but it’s basically better to not withdraw or reimburse from it unless you need to.

Deductibles are Deductibles. How much you have to pay before insurance “kicks in”. There are per visit deductibles and yearly deductibles which are as they sound. HSAs are only available to plans with high deductibles. FSAs are available to plans that aren’t just high deductible.

source