Content about Flexible spending account

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., and Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., last week introduced the Family Health Care Flexibility Act, repealing restrictions placed on health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts in the President’s healthcare law. A provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, already in effect today, prohibits HSA and FSA participants from using their account dollars to purchase over the counter medicines without a prescription.  

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives on Thursday passed the Protect Medical Innovation Act of 2012 by a vote of 270-to-146, which will reinstate over-the-counter medicines as eligible expenses under flexible spending accounts without the requisite prescription established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last year.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Healthcare Products Association on Wednesday testified before a House subcommittee to urge legislators to restore over-the-counter medicines' eligibility under flexible spending accounts.

WASHINGTON — The Consumer Healthcare Products Association last week teamed up with the American Medical Association in a joint op-ed published in Roll Call that called for the repeal of the over-the-counter prescription requirement for flexible spending accounts.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — The use of over-the-counter medicines as a cost savings tool is catching on, of all places, at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Certain plans under Medicare are utilizing a new prepaid card of sorts to allow members to pay for their OTC medicines. Medicaid administrators, meanwhile, are employing that same card to incentivize healthier behavior among its members.

WASHINGTON — Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., last week introduced the Medical Flexible Spending Account Improvement Act (S. 1404), a bill that would allow consumers to pay taxes on and withdraw any remaining funds in their employer-sponsored flexible spending accounts.

Current rules require that any leftover balance in an FSA must be forfeited to the employer at the end of the plan year, oftentimes identified as the "use it or lose it" provision.

WASHINGTON — Four legislators on Thursday introduced legislation that would restore over-the-counter medicines as qualified reimbursements under health spending accounts and flexible spending accounts without a prescription. A provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act enacted in January had created a prescription requirement in order for OTC medicines to qualify for pre-tax reimbursements. 

There are three issues involving over-the-counter medicines today that have put the industry on the defensive, and all involve the question of appropriate access. Drug Store News examined each.

1. FLEXIBLE SPENDING ACCOUNTS
The issue: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required that FSA participants obtain a prescription for those OTCs incorporated into their health savings agenda.

WASHINGTON — Reps. Charles Boustany, R-La., and John Larson, D-Conn., on Friday introduced bipartisan legislation that would eliminate the “use-it-or-lose-it” provision associated with flexible spending accounts.

“Smah-ten up, Ee-dah.” Loosely translated from deep “Mainer-ese,” that means, “smarten up, Eder.”


It’s a voice from my childhood, an old coach and counselor from summer camp, Tobias Woodworth. I called him Toby. He called me “Ee-dah.”


Stuck with me and all my other quasi-incorrigible New York City friends, Toby found himself saying, “smah-ten up!” an awful lot. It could mean anything from “you’ve got two strikes — protect the plate” to “put down that rock.”


WASHINGTON — Recent restrictions imposed on flexible spending accounts appear to be the first piece of ObamaCare to be challenged by the new Congress.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., on Thursday respectively introduced The Patients’ Freedom to Choose Act, a bill that would repeal two provisions in the Obama healthcare law that limit a patient’s choice in how to use consumer-directed health savings plans, to the Senate and House of Representatives.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Companion legislation, which seeks to change a provision in the healthcare-reform law and permit Americans to use their flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts to buy over-the-counter medications without a prescription, has the support of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.