If you ever experience an emergency, your only option to get care may be visiting the emergency room (ER). Emergency rooms, sometimes called emergency departments, are facilities that offer round-the-clock care for patients needing immediate attention. Some ERs are part of larger hospital infrastructures. Meanwhile, others are standalone facilities.
Either way, the health care professionals working in an ER can immediately treat acute illness and trauma. Typically, you’d schedule a visit with your primary care doctor or an urgent care facility to get attention for moderate conditions and injuries. But the ER is where you should go when you need prompt attention or life-saving care.
Getting quick care doesn’t come cheap, and a visit to an ER can cost you thousands. While you may have insurance to cover most of those associated expenses, what about the out-of-pocket costs? Can you use a health savings account?
Using Your Health Savings Account at the ER
A health savings account (HSA) is a tax-advantaged account that’s purpose-built for medical expenses. Unlike traditional savings, these specialty accounts come with many tax advantages. You can contribute a set pretax amount every year. Meanwhile, you can invest those funds, gaining tax-deferred interest. Distributions are tax-free if you use the funds to pay for qualified medical expenses.
Because there are many benefits to owning an HSA, there are also several limitations. For example, you can only use this account for qualified medical expenses. If you don’t, you’ll need to pay taxes and penalties.
So, what counts as a qualified medical expense? Generally, it covers costs associated with diagnosing, curing, mitigating and treating illnesses. The IRS dictates what health savings accounts can cover.
Trips to the ER do count as qualified medical expenses. The same goes for doctor’s visits, lab tests, imaging and more. You can also use the account to pay for prescription medication and many over-the-counter care products.
A health savings account is a smart investment to help you save for future medical expenses. Should you ever need to visit the ER, you can rest easy knowing you have a tax-advantaged way to pay for it.
Author Resource:-
Daniel Stewart has been helping people with their money management and personal finance with over 15 years’ experience in business finance. You can find his thoughts at savings investments blog.
