How can a health savings account be used with Medicare? A client asked me this question recently. She is self-employed. She is turning 65 in July, and she has $10,000 in a health savings account (HSA).
Irene enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan and figures she will pay her co-pays from her health savings account (HSA). She says she will probably end up in a Medicare supplement in a year or two, but she has read that she cannot use her HSA to pay a Medicare supplement premium.
Irene is not yet collecting Social Security and she just got a bill for her Medicare Part B premium. The bill is asking her to pay for 3 months at a time and she can’t figure out how to do this from her HSA. I told her I think she will have to pay the first three months by check (or credit card) and then set up auto bank drafts, or bill pay to use her HSA.
I told her to let me know how this works for her so I can share this info with other clients – although Irene is the first person in ten years who has told me she wants to use an HSA to pay her Medicare Part B premium.
Click on this link more info on Medicare and HSA from the Medicare Rights Center:
When you have Medicare and your HSA what can the funds be used for?
Here is a list from HSAresouces.com:
Expenses paid by the account beneficiary for medical care are covered. These expenses include:
- acupuncture
- ambulance costs
- artificial limbs
- artificial teeth
- bandages
- birth control pills
- contact lenses
- crutches
- doctor visits
- some dental expenses
- vision care (eyeglasses, contacts, Lasik surgery)
- hearing aids
- lab fees
- prescriptions
- X-rays
- …and many more.
View a more detailed list of qualified expenses. Generally, health insurance premiums are not qualified medical expenses however, in certain circumstances they can be qualified (e.g., certain amounts of Long Term Care Insurance or Medicare part A or part B for qualified individuals).