Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Frustratingly Healthy

I have spent most of my Veteran's Day going through my file cabinet.

For the past few years, I've opted to do a Flex-Spending medical account via pre-tax deductions from my paycheck.

I figured this was a good idea - I only take $50 out per month, and then at the end of the year, I submit the records to get my $600 pre-tax money back. Or at least that's how its gone the last few years. After all, Trevor has a prescription that's covered under this plan that costs $60 a month. No worries, right?

Wrong. Our beloved son has 'forgotten' to take his ADHD medication it turns out, about 2/3rds of the time! Gah! I realize now that the urge to throttle him has not been completely unwarranted - and no, I didn't throttle him.

Okay, so I start looking through the receipts of stuff and find we've paid over $600 in medical bills this year. Oh but wait, the bills from January & February are for services rendered in DECEMBER - which is not in the 'plan year.'

I have very decent insurance through work, and mostly everything other than the odd co-pay here & there is covered.

Connor did have the ER visit for the puncture in his foot, but that's only $190.00 out of pocket. And I can't seem to find the original bill, just the balance forward, which is not going to work for proof of payment. Ugh. So we will have to contact the hospital & get an accounting for that.

There was a bill for $1,900.00, but that was for Diana's screening for MADE, and we didn't pay that (altho it doesn't show that anywhere on the billing....). I think they might ask why she needed an echocardiogram if we submit that one :P

What a mess.

I'm sure somewhere/somehow we have managed to spend $600 total on things that qualify. It's just going to take time to go through all the receipts to find the Theraflu and Ibuprofen purchases. Lee is going to the pharmacies to see if they can give us a breakdown of the accounts for us - that works too. Lee's prescription is only $6/month, but that's $72 for the year...

On the plus side, knowing we're so healthy that we didn't incur a lot of expenses over the year is kind of nice. And I do have all the receipts...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the Mannatech, and other vitamins and Chiropractor--how about dental/eye exams and glasses?

Tina said...

I found the receipt from the ER visit for Connor, and then another receipt. Lee stopped by the chiropractor today & got that rundown.

The Mannatech, sadly, doesn't count. Neither do vitamins unless they are prescribed by a doctor. Boy, I WISH the Mannatech would count!

It has to be considered "medically necessary" to be refundable. Or over-the-counter medicine.

So massage doesn't count unless it's prescribed. But chiropractic is okay.

Go figure.

- Rob said...

We ran into a similar problem a few years ago and stopped using it. We had too many things that they would not accept and then they started charging things to the Flex Spending Medical account that should have been paid by insurance. The amount of time and aggravation was not worth the money that we saved to begin with. Our last year of doing it, we actually forfeited some of the money due to items that were not allowed.

The really frustrating thing was that disallowed items had been acceptable in the past, so we counted on that and got burned. Even with several years of saving money before our "got burned" year, I think that we lost money overall with Flex Spending Medical Accounts. If we count our wasted time, even at minimum wage, then we definitely lost money!

keeka said...

What about the things like Melatonin and stuff for Connor?
Does that get covered?

Tina said...

Nope. Has to be prescribed, or known medicine for colds and stuff like that.

Yeah, as long as Trevor's meds were in there, it was fine.

Still, after this, I think I'll let it be taken off my checks.

Unknown said...

I'm going to vow to get injured so we can use that this year...

Good Plan eh?