<p>Does anyone here on CC have much experience with Health Savings Accounts? We are sort of new at this as we switched from a PPO in 2009 to a High-Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) and Health Savings Account (HSA) combo for 2010. I’m still learning how to manage the paperwork.</p>
<p>Here is my question: When a physician owes me a refund and refuses to put it back on the debit card which we use for our HSA, can I just take the check he sends me and deposit it back into my account? Won’t that look strange? I am worried that it will appear that we overpaid since we are right at the limit for the maximum contribution we are allowed to make. </p>
<p>I am in this situation with two physicians’ offices right now. I can’t believe how difficult it is to get these refunds anyway – like pulling teeth – and now they insist on mailing me a check instead of just putting it back on my card.</p>
<p>Is there a special way I should handle this “re-deposit” so I don’t get in trouble at tax time or with over-contributing?</p>
<p>We use HSA but I have no idea how to handle this problem. Call the HSA people.</p>
<p>What I wanted to say is that I have been told many, many years ago to never pay for health services up front if you have any kind of an insurance. Pay your co-pay if it is applicable and wait for the office to bill you.
When I look at the bills, they overcharge 99% of the time!</p>
<p>Well, I wasn’t allowed to check in to the hospital until they dinged my debit card. I knew at the time that I was overpaying but felt I had no choice.</p>
<p>Really, what could I have done? NOT had the procedure I needed?</p>
<p>givings, I was in a similar situation back in January and my insurer told me to return the funds as an overpayment and even gave me a mailing address called HSA Overpayments so apparently this happens all the time. Try giving your insurer a call as Kelowna recommended.</p>
<p>is the refund <$100, <$1000? Your effort is rewarded in your marginal tax bracket.</p>
<p>DS asked a similar question this weekend. He’s eligible for HSA contribution of $800 this year. His marginal tax is 25%. Could he part with $800 for the contribution and get tax refund of additional $200 back next May or Can he use the net $600 now and forgo the HSA contribution?</p>
<p>My insurer is not involved with this, as the doctor never even filed a claim. </p>
<p>Nor do I have a receipt that shows I paid (because the hospital demanded it over the phone.) It was taken out of my HSA account and will be refunded to me by a check. </p>
<p>Maybe tomorrow I will call the administrators of the HSA account (in our case Wells Fargo) and ask how they handle it.</p>
<p>I find it weird though.
DS had to have an emergency procedure in the middle of the night, he ended up needing an emergency surgery which happened at 1 A.M.
I did give ER my insurance card, but I was not expected to pay anything up front.
I guess it is very different from place to place.</p>
<p>I think you should call your HSA administrator. I am confused though by your story, since I work with health insurance. No need for you to spell out more details to us on this thread, but for your benefit, I make the following observations.</p>
<p>Most insurance plans do NOT permit a deposit for a deductible, even a high deductible plan. This will vary by state, but you should check since the hospital may be violating its contract with the insurance company (if participating), and member services loves to jump all over them if they do this. Next, for HSA for a covered medical procedure, except for copays, which may be charged upfront, the insurance is supposed to be billed and the non covered deductible may then be paid out of HSA (to avoid just the problem that you have). Why was’t a medical bill sent to your insurance? You want the bill to be submitted, so that if you need something else, it all goes against your deductible.
Hospital should be required to file a claim for the same reason.</p>
<p>“Most insurance plans do NOT permit a deposit for a deductible, even a high deductible plan. This will vary by state, but you should check since the hospital may be violating its contract with the insurance company”</p>
<p>^^This is interesting!! I’m in Texas, and that is the way I and my family have always had to do it when we have a hospital procedure. I shall call my insurance plan and ask about this specifically, although I suspect it is legal here since I know others who have this experience.</p>
<p>For all practical purposes, though, let’s just say the doctor charged my debit card $100 for an upcoming procedure. Would not do the procedure without this payment. After the procedure and after the insurance company paid them off, I am left with a credit of $50 with the doctor’s office. They won’t put it back on my card; they will only send me a check. I don’t think I can just go deposit it back in my HSA account. It would look like a deposit, made by me. We would be over our maximum contribution for the year.</p>
<p>We have a HSA. I pay out of our regular funds for everything and then write myself a check to cover amounts at least once per year. This has avoided refund of payment hassles. I keep all of the receipts in the folder. Next year nonprescription drugs will not be covered- a reminder to buy that Advil before January 1st! You can deposit that check in your regular account and then not reimburse yourself for amounts up to that amount, or use other funds to pay HSA covered bills until the amount is zeroed out. The HSA fund is a pretax dollars account, you only worry is to be square with the IRS, hence the need to keep proof of purchases. Target even has a line on their receipt that tells you the amount that can be claimed for your HSA. </p>
<p>The bottom line- keep money in/out legal at the end of the tax year for the IRS.</p>
<p>It would seem to me that some HSA banks want your $ and take ‘refunds’ and some banks are not set up for that procedure. DS HSA Bank (Citibank) decided that it did not want to be in business of taking HSA deposits and charging a monthly fee. I guess its not in Citi’s interest to be in the business of deposits and transaction processing.</p>
<p>The succeeding HSA bank has a wrong URL on their literature mailing to DS.</p>
<p>Givings, I am not in your state, and as I said, I know it varies by state. Even though it is not allowed in my state, there are doctors who do this, and as I said, if a patient complains, the insurance companies will tell the doctors not to do this. </p>
<p>I had a balance billing problem with my local hospital for my own account, and after calling and writing without results, I complained to my health insurance company. I then got a call from someone at the hospital to tell me that the hospital fixed everything. I said yeah, right, after I told Blue Cross how you tried to overcharge me. </p>
<p>I suppose you can not force them to refund your card. If it is a substantial amount, I suppose you can try to work something out with the HSA account custodian or allocate it to other covered health expenses for the balance of the year, as suggested by Wis above.</p>
<p>You take the check and deposit it into your HSA account and code it as a refund so it does not count towards your annual limit. The HSA account bank will have a form on the web site to send with the refund.</p>