Quid's correct, I dug into my HR website and the precise benefit I have is known by the company as a Limited Purpose Health Care Spending Account
, which when viewed from the insurer's website is listed less precisely as Limited Purpose Flexible Spending Account
. Quoting from the HR text:
Limited Purpose Health Care Spending Account
If you’re enrolled in the PPO Plan and open a Health Savings Account,
you’re not eligible to contribute to a regular Health Care Spending
Account, but you can open a Limited Purpose Health Care Spending
Account to pay for eligible out-of-pocket dental and vision costs.
If you choose to open a Limited Purpose Health Care Spending Account,
your eligible expenses include:
Dental deductibles, coinsurance amounts, and other dental expenses not
covered by a dental plan
Vision and hearing care expenses not covered
by a benefit or insurance plan, including examinations, treatment,
corrective lenses, and hearing aids
Non-prescribed reading glasses and
contact lens solution and supplies
The limitations are indeed clearly spelled out. At some point I must have mixed it up with their offering of a Health Care Spending Account
which does cover the sort of products I was attempting to purchase earlier...
Health Care Spending Account
Eligible expenses include:
- Medical deductibles, coinsurance or copay amounts, and other health
care expenses not covered by a medical plan
Dental deductibles,
coinsurance amounts, and other dental expenses not covered by a dental
plan
Vision and hearing care expenses not covered by a benefit or
insurance plan, including examinations, treatment, corrective lenses,
and hearing aids
Prescription drug copays
Non-prescribed first aid
supplies, reading glasses, contact lens solution and supplies
Most
other health care expenses that the Internal Revenue Service may
consider deductible from your personal income tax return that aren’t
reimbursed or paid for by an company health plan or any other health
plan