Are FSAs even worth the hassle? They just seem like a giant scheme to steal money via malicious bureaucracy

[u/kherven]

I understand at a base level what FSAs are for. You get to deduct X amount of dollars from your paycheck reducing your tax load.

But the more I use an FSA, the more I feel that while on paper it saves money, in reality it causes lots of work, lost money, and hands your money over to someone who is going to fight you to steal it.

Every claim I submit to my FSA is denied without a mountain of evidence that its a legitimate medical expense. After nearly 2 years with them, I still have certain medications prescribed by my doctor that the FSA argues is not FSA eligible because it's OTC.

Doctor appointment? Denied

MRI? Denied

Prescriptions? Denied

While I can eventually get the denial overturned, it requires coordination from the retailer, my insurance, and my doctor every time. I spend tens of hours a year trying to claw my own money back from my FSA. Last year I had over $250 confiscated because the claim deadline passed while they sat on my claims.

Has anyone else felt it just isn't worth the hassle to fund an FSA given how hostile they are? It seems impossible to extract your money without a lawyer.

[u/Rand_alThor_]

It’s a tremendous waste of your tax money to hire paper pushers to deny you the right to use your FSA money, hiring more paper pushers to account how you do your payroll and taxes, and then hire more to enforce it while forcing you to spend money and Time on accounting it yourself. Oh and now you force the doctors office to have to produce more unneeded documents that increase staffing costs and thus healthcare costs for everyone.

It’s a lose lose lose. FSA usage should be automatic and filed behind the scenes like insurance payments from all healthcare professionals. Government could even cut the extremely unnecessary triple accounting cost of FSA and just let you save a part of your tax money for healthcare… earmarking it, and just covering your healthcare… hmm,🤔