Criteria for Evaluating HSA Plans

as a Spending Vehicle

The following list of HSA providers is for HSA spenders. These account holders treat their HSAs as pseudo checking accounts, paying for health care expenses as they occur. When evaluating HSAs as a spending vehicle we focused primarily on the following:

• Fees

• Ease of access to funds (payment and reimbursement)

• Features that make it easy for spenders to manage all aspects of their HSA

• Value Added. Tools and partnerships that lead to cost savings for healthcare consumers.

Fees

When you open an HSA, you are subject to a long list of potential fees, especially as an HSA spender. The majority of HSA spenders are subject to the following fees:

• Maintenance / Administrative

• Paper Statement

• Point of Sale (POS) / Transaction

• ATM Withdrawal

• Debit Card Issuance

• Check Distribution (Reimbursement)

• Overdraft / Non-Sufficient Funds (NSF)

• Stop Payment Request

• Closing / Transfer / Rollover

• Excess Contribution

• Etc.

The best HSAs for Spenders:

1. have no monthly administrative / maintenance fees.

2. give participants a chance to evade the maintenance fee by attaining certain cash level in the account.

3. have very few fees that participants can potentially "run into."

4. have transparent fee disclosures

Fund Access

Ease of access to funds is of the utmost importance for HSA spenders, whether it be for payments or reimbursements.

The best HSAs for Spenders:

1. offer a hassle-free reimbursement and payment experience.

2. allow participants to reimburse themselves in multiple ways (check, ATM withdrawal, and bank ACH transfer).

3. allow participants to pay for qualified medical expenses in multiple ways (check, debit card, virtual card and bill pay).

Features

In our search of the very best HSAs for spenders, we looked for administrators with the following features: 

• Intuitive platforms. Modern platforms that are continually being updated to improve the customer experience.

• Receipt / document storage tool to record and upload related medical invoices

• Robust mobile app that allows on the go management of all aspects of an HSA

• Comprehensive education! HSAs are complex. HSA administrators should provide educational resources to educate their account holders. Educational resources should be available in multiple formats whether it be live webinars, recorded presentations, videos, informative blog posts, or infographics.

• Dedicated customer service team with administrative expertise. When evaluating the best HSAs for spenders we opted to only recommend HSA providers whose core business is HSAs. HSA administrators with other lines of business usually don't allocate the required resources to adequately serve HSA spenders. For HSA spenders, the HSA offering must be comprehensive, and therefore we only recommend administrators who have dedicated HSA teams that are focused on providing the best experience for account holders.

Value Added

The ideal spenders HSA goes the extra mile to save participant’s extra dollars on their healthcare expenses. Administrators are able to accomplish this in a variety of ways including:

• Forging partnerships with companies that provide healthcare services and / or sell medical supplies / equipment that lead to savings for participants.

• Providing unique and useful price transparency / comparison tools is another way to help participants minimize healthcare costs.

• Guiding consumers to the right healthcare. When using health insurance with a high deductible, it is very important to minimize costs. One way to do this is to make sure participants are receiving care from in-network providers, which typically bill under discounted rates through their insurance company. Out-of-network services may result in full charges.

• Experts that help participant’s with medical bill negotiations to reduce their total balance and/or to set up a favorable monthly payment plan.