Flex Frequently Asked Questions
Find the answers below to the questions most frequently asked by our employers.
Find the answers below to the questions most frequently asked by our employers.
Use your Surency Flex Benefits Card like a credit card to pay for eligible expenses at the time of service or write the Benefits Card number on the bill you receive (just like you were paying with a credit card). By providing your card as the initial form of payment, you will automatically use funds in your account and will not need to wait for reimbursement. Please note, you should keep your receipts from any Benefits Card purchases in case we need to see those for verification of the expense.
Unused funds in your HSA will roll over each year. There is no time limit to use your funds.
Surency Flex offers four ways to access your plan details:
When you are in a foreign country, you will not be able to use your Surency Flex Benefits Card. However, you can still file a claim for reimbursement if it is for an eligible medical expense. Always remember to keep your documentation and receipts (in US dollars).
You are eligible to participate in a Health Savings Account (HSA) if you:
A high deductible health plan (HDHP) is a health plan that meets the requirements to allow an individual to participate in a Surency Flex HSA. While the deductibles are higher, compared to other health plans, the premiums for an HDHP are often lower. You are required to be enrolled in a qualifying HDHP in order to participate in an HSA. You may not be covered in any other non-qualifying health plan (i.e. a health plan offered through your spouse's employer).
Catch-up contribution are allowed contributions to your HSA beyond the annual maximum limit. You are eligible for catch-up contributions if you are age 55 or older. Catch-up contributions are allowed the calendar year you turn 55 as long as you are enrolled in an HDHP on or before December 1.
While HSA use continues to grow, it can be intimidating to decide to switch to an HSA-eligible high deductible health plan (HDHP). Surency’s HSA Advance feature provides you with another way to incentivize employees to participate.
HSA Advance enables you to provide HSA funds to your employees to pay for eligible expenses before they have contributed the funds themselves. A typical scenario is at the beginning of a Plan Year when an employee first enrolls in an HSA or an existing enrollee has a zero balance, and incurs an unplanned medical expense. You set the amount per employee.
From an employer perspective, HSA Advance works like this:
This is how HSA Advance works for employees:
As the employer offering this feature, you are responsible for funding the HSA Advance account for all eligible employees.
You will receive a notification indicating when and how much HSA Advance funding will be pulled from the bank account you designated. The system will automatically debit this account based on the amounts in the notification.
If you offer HSA Advance, you must provide it to all eligible employees, but the amount you advance to each employee should not be higher than their annual contribution, so the amount will vary by employee. Employees who do not have an HSA-eligible plan cannot participate.
HSA Advance funds are made available on the effective date of the HSA Advance amount. Typically, this is on the first day of a Plan Year.
You set the HSA Advance amount per employee. Best practice is to set the amount to either the payroll election for the benefit year or a percentage of the consumer’s payroll election to minimize the risk of employees having an outstanding advance repayment amount at the end of the Plan Year. If you make an HSA Advance amount available in the middle of a Plan Year, it is recommended that the advance amount be equal to or less than the amount of remaining payroll deductions. There will be configuration settings to determine if the advance balance should be included in the auto-pay settings for claims exchange.
The process happens automatically. When an employee makes a payment using their Surency Flex Benefits Card or makes a personal payment and requests a distribution using the Surency Flex mobile app or Member Account, and they have insufficient funds in their HSA and their investment account, funds from the HSA Advance account will then be applied.
Surency will automatically facilitate an electronic fund transfer to deposit into your bank account when a consumer’s payroll deduction or employer contribution is received.
Yes. You can set up an HSA Advance account for a new employee at any time during the benefit Plan Year. The advance amount provided should not be higher than the total of employee contributions that will occur in the remainder of the Plan Year.
Similarly, current employees may decide to adjust their payroll election during the year. If an employee reduces or increases their HSA contribution, it is possible to change the HSA Advance amount for your employee as well through your Employer Account or via a CDEx import record. If the employee has used HSA Advance funds, they will not be able to reduce their HSA contributions to less than their advance repayment amount. (Within the Member Account, there is an optional configuration to reduce the updated advance amount by the outstanding repayment amount to reduce risk having an outstanding balance to repay at the end of the year.)
No. Surency will automatically treat each advance funding contribution as a regular payroll deduction in terms of counting it towards the designated IRS maximum contribution limit. Also, when a contribution is used to repay the advance, it will not be included in the maximum contribution calculation, so it is not double counted.
You will receive an employer notification when there is either an advanced funding need or when advanced funds are being repaid to your bank account. The notification will arrive one business day before the electronic funds transfer.
HSA Advance information is included in the HSA Advance Activity available on demand through your Employer Account. It contains numerous sources of information regarding your employees’ HSA Advance accounts. Also, HSA Advance balances are included in the HSA Account Detail report.
In your Employer Account, a new “Advance Account” tab displays both the available advance balance and activity, and the advance repayment amount and activity.
Fill out the form and a Surency team member will reach out to help you as soon as possible.