{"id":3893,"date":"2010-09-03T16:18:09","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T20:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/?p=3893"},"modified":"2010-09-03T16:20:18","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T20:20:18","slug":"question-of-the-week-how-does-health-care-reform-affect-reimbursements-for-over-the-counter-medicines-in-fsas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/2010\/09\/question-of-the-week-how-does-health-care-reform-affect-reimbursements-for-over-the-counter-medicines-in-fsas\/","title":{"rendered":"Question of the Week: How Does Health Care Reform Affect Reimbursements for Over-the Counter Medicines in FSAs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Blister-Package.jpg\"><\/a><div class=\"img alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3897\" style=\"width:150px;\">\r\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Blister-Package.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Blister-Package-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Over-the-Counter Medicines Generally Are No Longer Reimbursable\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>\r\n\t<div>Over-the-Counter Medicines Generally Are No Longer Reimbursable<\/div>\r\n<\/div>This week\u2019s question comes from Eric, an HR manager. I know there are changes to flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) because of health care reform. How does health care reform affect reimbursements for over-the-counter medicines in FSAs? Answer: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) made changes to reimbursements for over-the-counter medicines in the following types of accounts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Flexible Spending Arrangements (FSAs),<\/li>\n<li>Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs),<\/li>\n<li>Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and<\/li>\n<li>Archer Medical Savings Accounts (Archer MSAs).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Over-the-Counter Medicines Generally Are No Longer Reimbursable<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Generally, the cost of an over-the-counter medicine or drug cannot be reimbursed from the account unless a prescription is obtained. The change does not affect insulin, even if purchased without a prescription, or other health care expenses such as medical devices, eyeglasses, contact lenses, co-pays and deductibles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Change Is Effective for 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The new standard applies only to purchases made on or after Jan. 1, 2011, so claims for medicines or drugs purchased without a prescription in 2010 can still be reimbursed in 2011, if allowed by the employer\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IRS Provides Guidance on New Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">Internal Revenue Service (IRS)<\/a> recently released <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/n-10-59.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Notice 2010-59<\/a> to provide guidance to employers and employees on the impact of PPACA and how it revises the definition of medical expenses as it relates to over-the-counter drugs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rev. Rul. 2003-102 Obsoleted<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In conjunction with this change, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">IRS<\/a> also released <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/rr-10-23.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Rev. Rul. 2010-23<\/a>, which obsoletes <a href=\"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/rr-03-102.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Rev. Rul. 2003-102<\/a>. This ruling provided guidance on employer reimbursements of amounts paid by an employee to purchase nonprescription medicines or drugs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Employees Need to Plan for Changes When Making 2011 Elections<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:info@visionpayroll.com\" target=\"_blank\">Vision Payroll<\/a> recommends employees start to plan now to account for the impact of these changes on how they will make their elections under these types of plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over-the-Counter Medicines Generally Are No Longer Reimbursable This week\u2019s question comes from Eric, an HR manager. I know there are changes to flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) because of health care reform. How does health care reform affect reimbursements for over-the-counter medicines in FSAs? Answer: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) made changes to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1353,1351,1350,1349,374,375,965,66,964,64,1352,1223,44,37,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3902,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.visionpayroll.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}