My situation sounds similar. Here's what I do:

Situation 1: My claim is automatically paid from my FSA account so I use no money of my own (this sounds like your paying from your HSA account).

Enter your claim with the amount billed and the amount allowed for each service; enter the amount paid by the insurance company; enter the amount you paid using your HSA account. For the payment method, use debit card or other. In the reference field, enter something like HSA account used. If you don't know the amount the insurance company will pay, don't enter it yet. If I don't know the entire amount billed, I just enter the amount I've paid and update the claim later after I know all the details. Now there are TWO status fields for you to set. First the "Tax & FSA Status" - in my case, since my FSA account paid the bill, I set this status to FSA - Reimbursed. You would do the same since HSA paid the bill (in essence, an immediate reimbursement). Then the "Expense Status" should be set based on the overall claim status. "Paid" if you know all the details and the claim is fully paid or "complete" is the way I like to think of it. If the claim is not Paid/complete, then select the appropriate Pending status.

Situation 2: You pay the bill from your regular credit card and have to be reimbursed.

Enter your claim with the amount billed and the amount allowed for each service; enter the amount paid by the insurance company; enter the amount you paid using your personal credit card. For the payment method, use credit card. In the reference field, enter something like "visa" or "mastercard". If you don't know the amount the insurance company will pay, don't enter it yet. If I don't know the entire amount billed, I just enter the amount I've paid and update the claim later after I know all the details. Now there are TWO status fields for you to set. First the "Tax & FSA Status" - in this field, you should set it to "FSA - To Submit". Then the "Expense Status" should be set based on the overall claim status. "Paid" if you know all the details and the claim is fully paid or "complete" is the way I like to think of it. If the claim is not Paid/complete, then select the appropriate Pending status. NOW, how do you know you have something to submit for reimbursement? Go to the FSA tab and be sure that "FSA Expenses" is selected. Then select the appropriate date range and to start, select all Persons and all Services. In the FSA Status box, select "FSA - To Submit", then click the button Display Report. The claims that you need to submit will be listed. Once you submit the claim for reimbursement, change the "Tax & FSA Status" to "FSA - Submitted". When you've been reimbursed, change the status to "FSA - Reimbursed". With this status and the FSA Expenses report, you can track your claims. When you select all three FSA statuses for the report, you'll get your total which you can compare to your total available.

I hope this helps you get going and helps you understand your options.

Regards...

Replies to this message

carens (Jan 20, 2008 1:55 pm)

Thanks this is great. With your guidance I found the FSA statuses. I was not looking at the detailed and therefore did not see them at first. It would be nice if they could be a column on the main screen but at least they are available.
Thanks again.

I have also been trying to use latest version of QMEM to track and manage my high deductible health plan with HSA. One problem I have with QMEM is that the Tax & FSA Status are the same field. Once an expense status changes from Tax-Deductible to any of the FSA status, the expense falls off of the tax deduction report and you lose the parking/tolls/mileage totals.

This is not an issue when it comes time to do my federal tax return, because my unreimbursed medical expenses ususally never exceed 7.5% of my AGI, so I can't deduct the medical expense or the parking/tolls/mileage. That is why I use the HSA, I can use my untaxed contibutions to pay for expenses I can't deduct.

However for my state tax return, FSA/HSA contributions are taxed income, so medical expenses and parking/tolls/mileage are deductible, even when paid or reimbursed from my HSA account. So I need the expenses to stay on my QMEM tax deduction report, even though they are reimbursed from the HSA.

If Tax & FSA each had their own status field in QMEM, the Tax deduction report could be based only on the Tax Status fields (it's deductible and on report or not deductible and off report) and the FSA report could be based only on the FSA status (would need status of "FSA-not submitted" for balances not yet sent to FSA). You could then have both reports at the end of the year and easily calculate the numbers needed for the federal and state tax returns.

The other difference between FSA and HSA, is that with FSA a new fund is create for each plan period and the FSA funds can only be used to reimburse expenses incurred in the same period (there is a time limit for reimbursement) and you lose the unclaimed FSA funds at the end of the plan period.

With an HSA you never lose the funds and there is no time limit. Expenses from the current year can be reimbursed any time in the future. Having separate Tax and FSA status fields would support this.