If you have a high deductible health insurance plan, or even a low deductible plan, your deductible will reset on the anniversary of your plan year. That means that if you’ve been enjoying the reduced cost of care that comes after meeting your deductible, you’ll be in for a bit of an awakening when you need to begin paying out-of-pocket to meet the new year’s deductible.
If this is a situation you’ll be encountering soon, here are a few tips:
- Contribute to your HSA: Tax deductible contributions to a health savings account not only save you money on taxes, but they also provide a dedicated pool of funds from which to draw for medical expenses. In addition, you can earn interest and even invest the HSA funds. Best of all, unlike in a flexible spending account (FSA), the unused funds roll over every year.
- Budget healthcare expenses: It can be difficult to balance budget concerns and the resetting of your deductible, but you can’t put off medical care because of your out-of-pocket exposure. Instead, find out the cost of your routine care visits, medications and tests and create a separate medical budget in order to schedule them. Even though you are in the deductible period of your plan, you will still benefit from the insurer’s negotiated rates, so you might be able to afford much more than you realize.
- Be sure to have something set aside for emergencies: Emergencies have a knack for occurring when you can least afford them. If you have a high deductible insurance plan and little to no need for regular medical care, don’t assume that you can go without any kind of emergency savings for medical treatment. While you may be hesitant to put it in a health savings account where it can only be used to pay medical expenses, at least have savings somewhere. That way, if you do have a medical emergency, you can take the money out of your non-HSA savings account and deposit it into the HSA (maintaining compliance with annual contribution limits) to use for the emergency and enjoy a tax deduction.
If you want more tips on high and low Houston deductible health insurance policies and planning, give us a call at 877-349-020.