Using your Medical Savings Account wisely

The Medical Savings Account is an amount that we give you at the start of the year. You can use this money to pay for day-to-day medical costs like doctor visits, X-rays and dentist visits. Any money in your Medical Savings Account that you haven’t used by the end of the year is carried over to the next year.

Why money can sometimes be owed to the Scheme

The full amount is available to you at the beginning of the year, like a loan. You pay towards it as part of your monthly contribution. By the end of the year, you will have paid the full amount back to your Medical Savings Account.

You can end up owing money to the Medical Savings Account if:

• You leave LA Health before paying in all the money you have used from the Medical Savings Account
• You change your benefit option to one that has a smaller Medical Savings Account
• One of your dependants leaves your benefit option before the year ends. If a dependant leaves the Scheme and has spent more than the amount paid into the Medical Savings Account up to that point, you may owe money to the Scheme, and need to pay it back.

We work out the amount owing to Scheme as follows:

• Amount contributed to the Medical Savings Account so far,
• Less the amount claimed for day-to-day medical expenses,
• Adding on any interest earned on money in the account (calculated monthly in arrears if there is money in the account at that time)

Remember to keep a record of day-to-day expenses and see how much you have in your Medical Savings Account. Try to preserve funds in your Medical Savings Account to fund future medical costs too. That means you won’t have to dip into your personal savings to pay for unexpected healthcare costs.