>$1000 per hour for nothing

[Swirls]

Eventually my employer got tired of holding all this money and made me give them a bank account number where i just jused the checking account. Of course i spent every last penny within the year but im not so sure that was legal.

Yeah, that sounds illegal if you did not pay the required tax. Did your employer transfer these funds to you as a rollover distribution? If so, you were required to deposit those funds in another HSA within 60 days. If you did not, the distribution adds to your taxable income and is also subject to an additional 20% tax.

I'm not sure how exactly the enforcement works on this, but I believe your employer would have filed a form with the IRS reporting their distribution to you, so if you did not then report having contributed the funds to another HSA or having spent the money on qualified medical expenses, the IRS would have a record.

Right. You should have reported it, AW.

[Swirls]

Oh, I thought the purpose of it was to save. If it's not there to save, you can always use a flex spending account which is pre-tax earnings as well. But, it can not be carried over year to year.

Right, that's the fundamental difference in an HSA versus an FSA.

FSAs are "use it or lose it" each calendar year, but you can contribute to one if you have a traditional healthcare plan. I don't believe there is a cap to the amount you can put in one.

HSAs will remain forever (even if you change jobs), but can only be contributed to if you have a high deductible healthcare plan. You are limited each year on the amount you can deposit (I think 2016's cap was $3,350).

Both can be paid with pre-tax earnings and can be withdrawn from tax-free for any medical related expense. If you are a dinosaur, you can withdraw money from an HSA tax-free for any expense.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Eventually my employer got tired of holding all this money and made me give them a bank account number where i just jused the checking account. Of course i spent every last penny within the year but im not so sure that was legal.

Yeah, that sounds illegal if you did not pay the required tax. Did your employer transfer these funds to you as a rollover distribution? If so, you were required to deposit those funds in another HSA within 60 days. If you did not, the distribution adds to your taxable income and is also subject to an additional 20% tax.

I'm not sure how exactly the enforcement works on this, but I believe your employer would have filed a form with the IRS reporting their distribution to you, so if you did not then report having contributed the funds to another HSA or having spent the money on qualified medical expenses, the IRS would have a record.

Right. You should have reported it, AW.

Well, [expletive] me. But that's some bull [expletive]. Why should it matter where you invest so long as the money is spent on approved costs.

[Arthur Dent]

I'm not totally certain, but I think if you spent the money on qualified health expenses within the same year you got the distribution, you're ok, although if that's the case, I'm not sure why your company needed to cut you one big check.

The point (and also the annoyance) of the HSA is that it is a segregated account you can only used for qualified health expenses. You can't just mix it all up in a checking account used for all kinds of other purposes.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I'm not totally certain, but I think if you spent the money on qualified health expenses within the same year you got the distribution, you're ok, although if that's the case, I'm not sure why your company needed to cut you one big check.

The point (and also the annoyance) of the HSA is that it is a segregated account you can only used for qualified health expenses. You can't just mix it all up in a checking account used for all kinds of other purposes.

The biggest annoyance, in 2013/2014 at least, was the lack of options available. The company I work for had a bank that was willing to let you open an HSA without any fees. Outside of having >$10k available for an account, that was the best offer I could find. There was a local bank that would let me open an account with 0.1% apr but it charged if it wasn't active or something. Naturally, an account with 1.25% apr and no fees is better.

My company was holding the deposits until I could make arrangements for an HSA. After a couple months of not being able to find a deal (where admittedly I gave up searching after a month or so), they said I had to have a place to deposit the money. The money was the amount out of each paycheck which iirc was $1k (total investment for the year) divided by 26 (amount of paychecks in the year) plus the original investment by the company ($500). It was just sitting in their bank who was like...hey, you all need to pay this employee this money. And, I was like...I don't want it until I have a place to put it. Eventually they said they couldn't hold it anymore and I would have to do something. So, I gave them my checking account as it was the only viable place they could deposit it.

Regardless, I hit my deductible which was $3500 within a couple months, so it's pretty easy to prove I spent all the HSA$ on qualified health expenses.

I understand why the setup requires a separate account, but in this case it was beyond stupid to do that. It was a 3 hour drive for me to get it set up as the company's bank is in northwest arkansas without a branch in little rock; the account was only going to be open for a year at which point I would have to turn in receipts to be reimbursed for the expenses; and the bank would have to go through all the trouble of opening/closing the account as well as reimbursing expenses. All that trouble to earn no interest (granted, we're only talking a couple dollars).

[pioneer98]

I called and complained. They said they could put in a request to make sure the bill was coded correctly. They called back the next day and said it was coded correctly. As far as being "out of network"....They are in our network, that's why we got the 20% off. If they were out of network, we would not have gotten that. I also asked if this could be considered "preventive" because there is nothing really wrong with these kids (preventive is covered 100%), but they said no.

The only problem with these kids is they are right on the low edge of the normal range for height and weight for their age. For example, the range for boys was 33 to 39 lbs, and our son weighs right at 33 lbs. They have always been small for their age because they were born about 10 weeks premature. So you expect them to lag behind to some extent. To me, this visit was preventive - let's make sure they don't fall out of the "normal" range. They wanted us to schedule x-rays, blood work and a follow up visit in July. So they weren't even planning to start treating them until July at the earliest. So it's not like an emergency situation. We are really thinking about just skipping all of this stuff and reading up on what we can do ourselves to make these kids grow more. We obviously are aware of their size and are already doing some things ourselves, but maybe we should read up on what else we can be doing.

[Tambourine Man]

Man, I wouldn't sweat that too much. I was 4'11, 95 lbs. entering high school and graduated at 5'9 165 lbs (still growing). Some kids are just small. My ped ordered some thyroid exams out of concern, and they all came back normal. It was just genetically predetermined that I would grow later than most kids my age.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Aw jr just turned 4 and was 32 lbs. I thought maybe we needed to force him to eat more or eat more fsttening foods or something. But despite being in the lower 10% for weight and lower 25% for height his bmi was near 50% and in the healthy range. He seems happy and healthy. Im on 5'10 and my wife is 5'2. Her dad is 5'6". Poor aw jr just isnt going to be a tall fella.