Understand how you and your family can take full advantage of your Health Savings Account.
Log into Your HSA Portal through Online Banking
Or call 1-855-440-4472
Your Health Savings Account allows you to save money for future medical expenses.
The funds are not taxable if used for qualified medical expenses. At the end of the year, any funds remaining in your account will carry over for use in future years. Contributions to your account can be made by you, your employer or other individuals.
You can easily log into the HSA Portal directly within Online Banking or our mobile app. When you login to online banking simply select Services > HSA Portal from the main menu.
If you aren’t already enrolled in Online Banking, you can enroll anytime. You'll need your Elements member number to, which can be found in your welcome email from Elements, your Elements statements, or by contacting us at 1-800-621-2105.
Once logged in, select from menu tabs at top of screen:
In addition to your participation in a qualified High Deductible Health Plan, there are a few additional qualification rules in order to be considered eligible for each month during the year. Please make sure NONE of the following are true:
Are you covered by another insurance plan, including any of the following:
- Coverage under your spouse’s health plan?
- Your spouse’s participation in a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) and/or a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) at work?
- Supplemental health insurance policies, including those from other countries?
Are you covered by any part of Medicare?
Have you used VA non-preventive health benefits within the last three months?
Can you be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return?
If any of the above become true during the year, your HSA eligibility may end, affecting the contributions and distributions you are allowed from your account. If you believe you may not be eligible, please contact the Customer Support Center for assistance.
Contributions can be deposited to your HSA from several sources. As the account holder, you
reap the tax benefits of all deposits made.
If you have any questions about funding your account, contact the Customer Support Center for assistance.
Your HSA debit card will be mailed to you within 7-10 business days after your account is established. To activate your card, simply call the toll-free number provided with the card and follow the instructions provided over the phone. You may use your HSA debit card to pay for medical expenses as soon as contributions are deposited to your account. If you incur expenses and your balance is not large enough to cover the cost, you can reimburse yourself for any out-of-pocket medical expenses once your balance increases.
Transactions using your HSA debit card will generally appear in your account within 1-3 business days and can be reviewed through your online account.
If your HSA Debit Card is lost or stolen, or if you think someone is using the card without your permission, call the credit union immediately to report the loss and request a new card. Report a lost or stolen card to Elements Contact Service Center at 1-800-621-2105.
Most carriers do not require payment at the time of service; however, if you feel you should need to make a payment at the doctor’s office, first show your health insurance card. This helps ensure that you receive the lower negotiated rate for the services rendered.
Then complete payment with your HSA debit card. Your doctor should then file a claim with the insurance company and the payment amount should be applied to any outstanding deductible you may owe. If your HSA balance is not large enough to cover the expense, complete payment with personal funds and reimburse yourself once funds are available.
To pay for a prescription, show your health insurance card to the pharmacist to get your network’s negotiated rate for the drug. Then complete payment with your HSA debit card.
Your HSA funds are available to pay for qualified medical expenses. Those expenses the IRS has determined to be “qualified” are listed in Publication 502 and defined in IRC Section 213d. A link to this list is available within your online HSA.
Examples of qualified medical expenses payable from your HSA:
As of January 1, 2011, HSA funds may not be used for over-the-counter medications (except Insulin) without a doctor’s prescription.
Note: If you use your HSA funds for non-qualified expenses, and are under the age of 65, you may incur a 20% penalty and owe income taxes on the amount used. After age 65, HSA funds can be used for any expenses with no penalty, but you may still owe income taxes on those funds. Qualified expenses remain tax-free after age 65.
Be sure to show your insurance card at the doctor’s office and pharmacy to guarantee negotiated discount rates.
When buying prescriptions:
When seeking medical care:
Funds must be available in your account in order to pay for a medical expense with your HSA debit card. You may find your debit card declined at the point of purchase or may be charged non- sufficient funds fees if you attempt to use the card for amounts above your available balance. You can easily check your balance through your online HSA or by contacting the Customer Support Center. If you do not yet have enough funds in your account, you may pay with your own funds and reimburse yourself through your online account at a later date when additional deposits have been made.
The IRS requires that you keep your receipts for HSA expenses. While you can track your expenditures online, the receipts will be required should you ever be audited by the IRS. You may upload receipts for each transaction to your online account for easy retrieval at a later date. See the following page for more information about this online feature.
Keep your receipts with your annual tax file. Failure to retain receipts could result in required payment of taxes and a 20% penalty if expenses cannot be confirmed as “qualified” expenses.
Your HSA Debit Card will not function in ATMs or at non-heath related merchants such as gas stations.The purpose is to prevent your account from being overdrawn which is not allowed by the IRS tax code and would cause your account to no longer qualify for HSA status.
Because your HSA funds are tax advantaged, there are some reporting requirements for the IRS at tax time. You will receive a Form 1099-SA and a Form 5498-SA from the account custodian each year which should be kept in your tax file.
As an HSA holder, you must submit Form 8889 with your Form 1040 tax filing, reporting information related to your HSA. See the following page for more information about this online feature.
If you contribute to your account through employer payroll deduction, or if your employer contributes to your account, such contributions will be reflected on Form W-2 provided by your employer each year.
To help you track the medical expenses that apply toward your deductible, and to track qualified expenses for tax purposes, we provide an account reconciliation feature within your account on the website. You may also upload and store receipts online for retrieval at tax time.
Select Reconcile to select an expense – a box will appear. Specify if expense is “approved” to meet your deductible and “qualified” according to IRS guidelines.
Click where indicated to upload a receipt you have scanned into your computer.
Once reconciled, each expense will appear as such within your account transaction history. The Deductible Tracker™ will display the transactions you have marked as expenses that apply toward your deductible.
You may then compare this information to that provided by your insurance carrier to locate any possible discrepancies.
For assistance in reconciling expenses, contact the Customer Support Center.
Elements Financial HSA members have access to an investment program through TD AMERITRADE. Those who do not plan to use all of their HSA funds for current year medical expenses may wish to consider these investment options for potential added savings.
Please note: Your medical expenses can only be paid from the Elements HSA, not from your TD AMERITRADE investment account. Therefore, funds must be liquidated from their investments and moved back to your credit union HSA in order to use those funds for expenses. This process can take several business days to complete so please keep this in mind when planning your investment deposits and transfer of funds.
In order to enroll in the investment program, you must have an account balance of at least $2,500 in your HSA at the time of enrollment. Eligibility does not constitute enrollment in the program. You must actively elect to enroll in order to use the investment funding provided to you through TD AMERITRADE.
To begin the enrollment process, log into your HSA through elements.org/hsa. On your menu, select My HSA and from the Account Summary screen select the ‘Investments’ tab.
If you are not yet eligible to enroll, the screen will display a message to let you know you are not yet eligible to enroll.
If you are eligible to enroll (by meeting the minimum required balance), you will then have access to the Enrollment link to TD AMERITRADE. Simply click Enroll to begin the process.
You will now see the following message as you leave the HSA site and are transferred to TD AMERITRADE’s enrollment portal. Click where indicated to proceed.
Follow the online instructions to complete your enrollment in TD AMERITRADE.
At this point, TD AMERITRADE will lead you through the additional screens needed to establish your account. You will see an indication of completion when done. TD AMERITRADE will contact you directly about your account via email, including providing you with information about how to access your online account through their website.
Once complete, TD AMERITRADE will pass information back to our HSA system, indicating that you have an investment account established. Once we receive this information, transfer of funds may begin (see the following section). This can take up to 3 business days for completion of the account setup.
Please note: You will have two separate logins for your HSA. Your Elements account login will be used to access information about your Elements account, as well as to view the balance and to request transfer of funds to TD AMERITRADE. In order to affect trades and view investment balance details, you will use your TD AMERITRADE login. The TD AMERITRADE system will have no information regarding your account at the credit union.
Once your Investment account is established, you may fund it. To do so, you must transfer funds from your HSA at Elements. If you wish to use funds in your TD AMERITRADE Investment Account to pay for medical expenses, you must first transfer those funds back to the HSA at Elements. NOTE: Funds must be in the cash position at TD AMERITRADE before you request a transfer back to the credit union.
To begin the process, login to online banking to access your HSA Portal. Under My HSA Account Summary tab within the HSA Portal, select Investments. Select the Transfer Money tab to access the Transfer Request screen. You will see your current HSA balance at Elements Financial Federal Credit Union, as well as the cash position balance in your Investment account at TD AMERITRADE. Read the screen carefully before submitting your request.
Using the drop down lists provided, select the account you wish to move funds from and then the account to which you wish to deposit funds. Then enter the dollar amount to be transferred and click Submit Request.
Once submitted, you may view your transfer requests from the screen shown on the prior page, by clicking on either of the Click Here options on the right side of the screen. The first will show funds transferring to your TD AMERITRADE account.
Once submitted, you will see the request as ‘Pending’. Once Elements processes the transfer, you will see ‘Approved’ or ‘Disapproved’ and a reason if the transfer could not be completed.
The second link on the right side of the Transfer screen will show funds transferring to your Elements HSA Account.
There are 3 possible messages from this screen, as follows:
These screens will also show a history of the requests you have made to transfer funds between your accounts, with the most recent displayed at the top of the screen.
All requests made by 12:00am midnight are forwarded to Elements and/or TD AMERITRADE for processing on the next business day (example: a request submitted at 2:00pm on Wednesday is sent Thursday morning. A request submitted Saturday at 10:30pm would be sent Monday morning).
Funds are withdrawn from each account as a “Trust to Trust Transfer” in order to avoid taxation and reporting.
The funds are then wired to the appropriate institution, generally the following business day, but this can take several business days. TD AMERITRADE will place funds received into the cash position of your account. You must then actively elect where those funds are to be deposited by logging into your TD AMERITRADE account to affect trades. Elements will deposit funds received into your HSA, and at that point, the funds would become available to you to use for medical expenses.
Please note: Medical expenses can only be paid from your HSA at Elements, not from the TD AMERITRADE investment account. Therefore, you must liquidate funds and request movement back to Elements in order to have funds available for payment. The liquidation of funds at TD AMERITRADE can take up to 8 business days for re-deposit to your Elements account so plan accordingly when expenses arise.
If you should have any questions about the TD AMERITRADE investment program, including enrollment and transfer of funds, please contact our Customer Support Center for assistance at 1-855-440-4HSA (4472).
Our Customer Support Specialists are available to answer questions about your HSA and assist you with your High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) or for questions about the HSA Product or Portal:
By Phone — Toll-free: 855-440-4HSA (855-440-4472) Available 8:00am to 5:00pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday
By Email — hsasupport@elements.org
(Please allow one business day for a proper response)
We are proud to serve as your HSA administrator. We appreciate your business and look forward to providing you the highest level of service and support. Our goal is to ensure that you maximize the benefits of participating in a Health Savings Account. To that end, we are constantly seeking ways to provide a better customer experience. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to improve the service provided to you.
