How You Can Pay for LASIK with an FSA By David Gross on September 01, 2014

By now, most patients who come into our office realize that most insurance plans consider LASIK an elective procedure and therefore will not cover it to any extent. Many of these patients believe that their only options are to pay for surgery out of pocket or to finance their procedures through a third party. It is our pleasure to inform them - and to inform you right now - of a potentially ideal alternative: flexible spending accounts, or FSA.

At Deen Gross Eye Centers in Merrillville, LASIK and FSAs are among the topics most commonly discussed during consultations at our state-of-the-art offices. Patients are often delighted to learn that they can pay for LASIK without having to owe money to a third party. While we strive to offer competitive pricing on all our services, we also refuse to compromise the quality of the care we provide. We cut no corners and cannot, therefore, discount our services below a certain threshold. Nevertheless, we believe that quality, custom LASIK should be available to as many people as possible, which is why we are quick to suggest FSAs to prospective patients.

We invite you to read on to learn more about FSAs and then ask your employer whether opening a flexible spending account is an option for you.

What is an FSA?

An FSA is an optional medical benefit program that many employers offer to their employees. The purpose of an FSA is to collect funds that can be used to cover medical procedures, such as LASIK, which are not usually covered by conventional health insurance plans. Employees can choose to have a pre-determined amount of their paychecks set aside and placed in their FSAs, up to a limit of $2,500 per benefit period. This money can be used at any time to cover an approved elective healthcare procedure on behalf of the employee, the employee’s spouse, or any of the employee’s dependent children.

At Deen Gross Eye Centers, LASIK is just one of the procedures that can be covered by the funds from an FSA. Patients are welcome to use their funds to cover any of our services that are not covered by their conventional health insurance.

What are the benefits of using an FSA to cover my LASIK?

FSAs offer several unique benefits, including:

Tax benefits: The money placed in your FSA will come out of your pre-tax income, allowing you to keep more of the money you work hard to earn.
Use the funds as you wish: If you want to use all of the funds in your FSA for a single procedure, you can. If you wish to use just a portion of the funds to complement another source of payment, that’s fine, too.
Debt-free payment: The money in your FSA is 100-percent yours. You won’t have to pay back a credit card company or a bank.
Use it for any approved elective healthcare procedure: You can use your FSA to cover your LASIK surgery and other eye care procedures, as well as plastic surgery, audiology, bariatric, and other elective procedures.