Accepting Health Spending Accounts (HSAs) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) with Wellevate
Your patients may use FSA/HSA cards to pay for their copays and labs through your office. They can also use them to pay for supplements purchased through Wellevate, with a little bit of help from you!
Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts allow patients to use money deducted from their paycheck pre-tax to pay for health-related expenses. This provides a “savings” to the patient of nearly 30%, as they are not paying taxes on that income. That’s one more big perk for patients who purchase supplements through your practice, versus going to an online retailer!
A Bit about HSA/FSA Cards
In order to be able to process HSA and FSA cards, it requires that your business has a special classification (called a Merchant Category Code, or MCC) set so that the credit card companies that know your products and services are directly related to a patient’s medical needs.
The types of eligible providers are defined by the IRS, but include most healthcare provider types, including these below. (The MCC Code precedes the provider type in this list). If you have any questions about your eligibility to obtain an MCC classification, please consult with your tax advisor.
- 4119: Ambulance Services
- 5047: Dental/Lab/Medical/Ophthalmic Hospital Equipment & Supplies
- 5122: Drugs, Drug Proprietaries, and Druggist Sundries
- 5912: Drug Stores, Pharmacies
- 5975: Hearing Aids Sales, Service, and Supply Stores
- 5976: Orthopedic Goods, Artificial Limb Stores
- 7277: Debt, Marriage, and Personal Counseling Service*
- 8011: Doctors Not Elsewhere Classified
- 8021: Dentists, Orthodontists
- 8031: Osteopathic Physicians
- 8041: Chiropractors
- 8042: Optometrists, Ophthalmologists
- 8043: Opticians, Optical Goods, and Eyeglasses
- 8049: Chiropodists, Podiatrists
- 8050: Nursing and Personal Care Facilities
- 8062: Hospitals
- 8071: Dental and Medical Laboratories
- 8099: Health Practitioners, Medical Services Not Elsewhere Classified
HSA/FSA with Wellevate℠
Stripe, your payment processor, has to apply the MCC Code to your account. It’s easy to request this, just email the following message to the Stripe support team:
”
Hello!
I’d like to add an MCC code as a healthcare practitioner to my Stripe account for my wellevate℠ connection. wellevate℠ is software that fulfills my vitamin and supplement prescriptions for my patients. This is an FSA/HSA eligible category.
My MCC code should be _______________________________.
Please advise how I can go about making this update.
Thank you!
”
It generally takes about 24 hours for Stripe to complete this process.
Please note that just because an account is enabled to accept HSA or FSA payments, it doesn’t guarantee a card will be accepted. Card issuers are still at liberty to authorize or decline any payment as they would with any other type of credit card.
Whether or not purchases through Wellevate are HSA/FSA eligible depends on a number of factors. Please remind your patients that they will need to ensure that their purchase is HSA/FSA eligible. We recommend referring them to their health insurance providers if they have any specific questions.
