Have an HSA or FSA? Use your pre-tax dollars to pay for your Firelight Yoga classes!
Fitness can transform whole-body health. And if you exercise to prevent or treat a medical condition, you may be able to get a Letter of Medical Necessity to unlock your HSA or FSA funds and save up to 40% off your classes.
Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) allow you to save pre-tax dollars you can use to pay for eligible medical expenses. Fitness fees do not immediately qualify as eligible HSA/FSA expenses, but they do qualify if a provider recommends exercise to prevent or treat a medical condition.
To qualify those expenses for reimbursement with an HSA/FSA administrator, you need a Letter of Medical Necessity from a provider. Our partner, Dr. B, offers online consultations with licensed providers in every state—365 days a year.
HOW IT WORKS
- Start a $15 medical consultation—no video required
- A licensed provider will review your health history and current condition. If you qualify, they’ll email your fitness recommendations and Letter of Medical Necessity within 3 business hours.
- Submit your letter and Firelight Yoga receipts purchased on or after the date of your letter to your HSA/FSA administrator for reimbursement.
FAQ
You are eligible if:
- You have an active HSA or FSA account.
- You are preventing or reversing health conditions like depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, insomnia, obesity, infertility, diabetes, heart disease and more through an exercise or fitness routine.
Start your $15 medical consultation – no video required!
A Letter of Medical Necessity is a statement written by a doctor or other licensed provider explaining why a patient requires a product or treatment (such as yoga, massage and acupuncture) for health reasons. In other words, it confirms specific items as medical services or medical equipment.
With this letter, patients can then pay for health-related specific services and items from their Health Savings or Flexible Spending accounts.
HSA and FSA accounts allow you to set aside pre-tax money you can use to pay for qualified medical expenses. But sometimes, these health care costs might not be automatically recognized as HSA or FSA-qualified expenses. In such cases, a Letter of Medical Necessity provides documentation explaining why that particular expense is medically necessary so that it meets the criteria for reimbursement under HSA or FSA guidelines.
First, you’ll take an online medical consultation at Dr. B., answering questions about your medical history and current health issues. A licensed provider will review your assessment. If you qualify for a Letter of Medical Necessity, they’ll email your letter and fitness recommendations. (The letter will hit your inbox a few hours after you’ve paid for your consultation.)
You can then file the letter with your HSA/FSA administrator with receipts for fitness classes, gym memberships and personal training costs.
Your HSA or FSA account contains pre-tax funds. That means you won’t pay any income tax on the cash you deposit into the account or funds you draw from it to pay for medical expenses. Because you pay less money towards your income tax, you have more money to spend on your health.
How much you can deposit into your HSA or FSA every year is limited, though. For HSAs, single people can deposit as much as $4,150 and families can deposit $8,300. Both single and partnered employees can deposit a maximum of $3,200 into their FSA yearly. HSA funds rollover from one year to the next. Unused FSA funds get forfeited to the employer.
Depending on their state and tax bracket, patients save around $1,000-$2,000 per year when they use HSA/FSA funds on health care expenses.
- Find your HSA/FSA administrator online: Ask your employer or HR department if you don’t know who your FSA provider is. If you have health insurance through the public marketplace, you can find your HSA provider through the financial institution (like the bank or credit union) that set it up for you.
- Access their web service: Login or create an account to access your HSA/FSA administrator’s online platform.
- Find the ‘reimbursement’ or ‘claims’ section. Each HSA/FSA website should have a dedicated area where you can file reimbursement claims or receipts.
- File your letter and fitness receipts: Upload your Letter of Medical Necessity and receipts for related fitness purchases made on or after the letter’s date.
- Wait for reimbursement: Once you’ve done your part, it may take a few days for your HSA/FSA administrator to finalize your claim. (For some, it takes a few weeks.) Then, they’ll deposit the purchase amount into your chosen account.
- Reuse your letter: You can file your letter with receipts for the duplicate fitness purchases made within 12 months. For example, if you got your gym membership fee reimbursed from your HSA/FSA, you can submit a renewal fee with the same letter—if you paid for it within the same year of your letter.
Finalizing claims typically takes HSA/FSA administrators 7-10 days. But these times can vary depending on your specific administrator.
You can file your Letter of Medical Necessity with receipts for fitness purchases made on or after the letter’s date through 12 months. You can’t file it with receipts dated before the date on the letter.
There are two ways you can access your receipts:
- Our software emails you a receipt every time your monthly membership fees are processed or you make a purchase.
- You can also log in to your account on our website. Click the “purchases” tab and then “view order” to pull up the receipt for that purchase.
You can’t swipe your HSA/FSA card directly at this time. Instead, you’ll need to make your purchase and file receipts for reimbursement. If you have any questions about doing this, contact Dr. B at hidrb.com/contact.
Dr. B is a telehealth platform where patients can take $15 online consultations for a wide variety of conditions and then send resulting prescriptions to the pharmacy of their choice. Patients can also connect with licensed providers in their state who provide the Letter of Medical Necessity required for HSA/FSA fitness reimbursement.