HSA Welcome Kit

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 becomes 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.

• Employer Contributions – Your employer may elect to contribute funds to your account on a pre-tax basis. Amounts may vary from year to year.
• Payroll Deduction – If your employer allows it, contributions may be deducted from your paycheck. Deductions may be on a pre-tax or post-tax basis, depending on how your employer’s benefits program works.
• Catch-up Contributions – Those age 55 and older are eligible to contribute additional funds above the annual IRS limit, up to $1,000 depending on monthly eligibility.
• Personal Funds – You may deposit personal funds to your account. Such deposits are completed on
  a post-tax basis and then are deducted on your Federal 1040 tax filing to achieve pre-tax status.

If you have any questions about funding your account, contact the Customer Support Center for assistance.

Your HSA Debit Card

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.

Lost or Stolen Debit Cards

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.

At the Doctor's Office

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.

At the Pharmacy

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:

• Health insurance deductible and co-insurance payments
• Physical examinations
• Prescription drugs
• Dental care
• Vision care
• Chiropractic care
• Medical Equipment

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:

• Shop around. Not all pharmacies charge the same amount for the same medication.
• Check out large discount retailers who now offer medications at deep discounts.
• When taking a short-term medication, ask your doctor about free samples.

When seeking medical care:

• Go to the emergency room only for emergencies. See your own doctor when possible or use urgent care centers and mini-clinics if possible you can save yourself hundreds of dollars. 

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.

Keep Your Receipts

The IRS requires that you keep your receipts for HSA expenses. While you can track your expenditures online, the itemized receipts will be required should you ever be audited by the IRS. You may upload receipts to your online HSA account for each transaction, to allow 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, penalties, and interest if expenses cannot be confirmed as “qualified” expenses. Please speak to your personal tax advisor regarding any tax consequences for your personal account.

Tax Reporting

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.

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.

Reconcile Expenses — Upload Receipts

Your HSA account is the most convenient place to manage your receipts and see your progress toward your health insurance deductible. There are three ways you can interact with your health expenses:

1. Automatic – Link your personal accounts

When you link your personal banking accounts or credit/debit cards to your HSA account, your transactions will automatically be pulled into the “Unreviewed” tab in your HSA’s “Healthcare Expenses” page.

Transactions you make via your linked cards and accounts will be moved into one of three groups: Very likely, Potential, and Unlikely healthcare expenses.

The transactions that most likely include HSA qualified purchases (ex. Dental or Doctor’s visits) will fall into the “Very Likely” category. While transactions at merchants that are not typically associated with health care expenses will fall into the “Potential” or “Unlikely” categories.

Pharmacy transactions will typically fall into the “Potential” category, but since it’s possible to make non-HSA eligible purchases at the pharmacy, all linked account transactions will remain in the “Unreviewed” tab until you indicate that the transaction was in fact an “Eligible” HSA expense.

2. HSA Card Transactions

Whenever your HSA card is used, funds from your HSA account will be used to cover the charge. For that reason, all HSA card transactions are automatically added into the “Reimbursed tab” of the “Healthcare Expenses” page. There is no need to link your HSA card to your account.

3. HSA Card Transactions

For those who prefer not to link your personal bank account or credit/debit cards, you may enter your transactions manually. Click the “Add New” option in the upper right of the “Healthcare Expenses” page to create your transaction.

Manually added expenses will be added to the “Unreimbursed” tab until you indicate that you’d like to be reimbursed for the charge from your HSA account.

Receipts

To upload your receipt:

1. Locate the transaction in the “Unreviewed, Unreimbursed or Reimbursed” tabs on the “Healthcare Expenses” page.
   
   
2. Click the transaction you’d like to add a receipt to 

3. Upload your receipt document and save your changes.

For assistance in adding receipts, please contact the Customer Support Center at 1-855-440-4472.

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 investing HSA dollars 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.

Participation Requirements

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.

Post enrollment in TD Ameritrade, you’ll be able to move any amount over $2,500 from your HSA account to your TD Ameritrade investment account. If your HSA account balance goes below $2,500, you will not be able to move additional funds to your investment account.

Enrollment

To begin the enrollment process, log into your HSA through elements.org/hsa. From the left navigation menu, select Investment Account from the navigation bar.

The screen will display a message in the event you are not yet eligible to enroll in TD Ameritrade.

If you are eligible to enroll (by meeting the minimum required balance), you will then have access to create your account at TD Ameritrade from the Investment Account page.

You will leave the HSA site and be taken to the TD Ameritrade’s enrollment portal in a new tab. Follow the online instructions to complete your enrollment in TD Ameritrade.

Once your enrollment is complete, TD Ameritrade will pass information back to our HSA system, indicating that you have an established investment account. Once we receive this information transfer of funds may begin.

Once you’ve successfully logged in to TD Ameritrade from your HSA account, you can access your TD Ameritrade account directly from your HSA without inputting your TDA credentials again. Clicking Manage my Investments in your HSA’s Investment Account page will take you directly to your TD Ameritrade account.

Please note: You will have two separate logins for your HSA. Your Elements account login and TD Ameritrade login. You may access your investment account from your HSA, or login to TD Ameritrade directly at tdameritrade.com. You will receive emails from TD Ameritrade with further information about your account.

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 to successfully make a request to move money from your investments to your HSA account.

To make a transfer, visit the Investment Account page in your HSA portal and select the Transfers tab. You’ll see your HSA balance and the amount that is available to transfer to or from your investment account.

In the Transfer section, select that you’d like to move money “to TD”, enter the amount and select Transfer Now. Select “from TD” if you’d like to move money from your TD Ameritrade cash position back to you HSA account.

Transfer Request Status

Once submitted, you may view your requests in the Transfer History section. Simply scroll down in the Transfer tab to view your recent and historical transfers.

Once submitted, you will see the request as “Processing”. Once Elements processes the transfer, you will see a “Completed” or “Rejected” status.

Transfer Timing

All requests made by 9pm Eastern Time will be processed 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 elect how those funds are to be invested by accessing your TD Ameritrade account to affect trades. Elements will deposit funds moved from your TD Ameritrade account into your HSA. Once complete, the funds are available to use for qualified expenses.

Please note: Qualified 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.

Questions?

If you 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).