Cuts to Health Accounts May Force Patients to Expedite Care - Bloomberg.com

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Brock N. Meeks" <bnmeeks () verizon net>
> Date: November 1, 2009 1:14:47 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  Cuts to Health Accounts May Force Patients to  
> Expedite Care - Bloomberg.com

> When I was with MSNBC I was able to take advantage of a flexible  
> spending program.  It always worked like a charm for my family, only  
> an occasional blip — nothing works perfectly — and even then it  
> was usually just a matter of a some new clerk getting some coding wr 
> ong.  Each year when it came time to sign up for the plan the “how m 
> uch should we allocate?” question became something of a ritual for m 
> e and my wife because, as is pointed out, “what you don’t use,  
> you lose.”  After a few years we pretty much had it nailed on how mu 
> ch to set aside.  One year we pumped up the spending to the maximum  
> because that was the year I intended to “get my eyes done” (laser  
> surgery) and since it was an elective and not covered by insurance,  
> the flexible spending account really helped cut down on the cost.
>
>
>
>
> On 11/1/09 9:56 AM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:
>
> I have never had any problems with this. Easy and fast. I fax in the  
> meterial.
>
> djf
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Wulf%20Losee <qx49 () comcast net>
> Date: October 30, 2009 7:57:42 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] Cuts to Health Accounts May Force Patients to  
> Expedite Care - Bloomberg.com <http://Bloomberg.com>
>
> Dave:
> I've come to regard these flexible spending accounts as scams. I  
> don't put money into them anymore. Over the years they became more  
> and more restrictive about *which* medical charges they'd reimburse  
> me for -- out of *my* cash! There was always some sort of paperwork  
> issue that would take weeks to resolve (which would require a lot of  
> work on my part to drive it though the system).
>
> One time, I even got lectured by an FSA call center agent that I  
> needed to first get my insurance company to cover higher percentage  
> of the costs, because they decided that my insurance company had  
> short-changed me, and it was against their policy to reimburse for  
> insurance underpayments (I kid you not!). Over the years it took  
> more and more phone calls and effort to get these crooks to cough up  
> reimbursements.
>
> The last time I used one was a few years back, but I ended up only  
> being able to use 70 percent of the money that I had put in the  
> account. They kept the rest -- even though in my estimation, my out  
> of pocket expenses that I submitted were something more than a 150  
> percent of what I had paid in. Basically I had to submit 2.5 dollars  
> of expenses to get 1 dollar back. It would have been cheaper for me  
> to have paid taxes on that income, and then used it to pay my  
> medical bills. Caveat emptor!
>
> --Wulf
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
> To: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 7:40:21 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: [IP] Cuts to Health Accounts May Force Patients to Expedite  
> Care - Bloomberg.com <http://Bloomberg.com>
>
> Screw the middle class again djf
>
> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCrjtwzqVL6s
>
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