Medical Savings Account

[Wingnut]

The other cool thing about these accounts is that you pay into it monthly but get reimbursed immediately for any expenses over $50 (at least in our case).
I had allocated $1600 fo rthis year as I'd planned to have Lasik surgery ... scheduled the appointment for mid-January ... had the surgery ... paid for it with my credit card ... and put in for reimbursement. My credit card bll will be here in a week or so ... but I received the reimbursement in the mail last Saturday. So ... I got back $980 (yeah, that's all it cost me to have both eyes done!!!) and I've only made 2 payments into the account ... in effect, using their money as a no-interest (and tax free) load.
Wish I'd looked into this sooner.
As Terry noted, it covers any medical expense not covered, in whole or in part, by my insurance ... and - since it's administered by the same group that handles the insurance ... the reimbursement s mostly automatic. Everytime my medical and drug co-pays exceed $50, I get a cheque in the mail.
But ... as Terry indicated ... you sure want to ensure you don't put too much in. Since the Lasik cost less than I'd planned, I guess I'll have to get my wife an extra pair of glasses this year to use it all ...

 

[ewoss3]

Wingnut, who did your surgery? that is way low price, it would pay for me to drive all the way there and have it done plus do some vacationing. I checked 2 yrs ago and was quoted $1875 per eye

 

[Wingnut]

Yeah ... wat low is right. It wasn't the price that got me there ... it was the experience ... Canada had approved Lasik at least 5 years before the FDA finally allowed it ... which equals 5 years of experience plus a poor currency exchange rate ... etc.
The surgeon I got (Dr. Bains) has welll over 15,000 operations under his belt and also teaches at the local Universary as well as running his own opthalmolgic practice. And they had the newest technology which meant even more precision ... so all that meant that I was driving to Windsor!
Not the slightest bit sorry 'bout that ... as a matter of fact I feel GREAT. After 47 years of wearing glasses ... I no longer have that heavy weight on my nose and pulling on my ears.
The outfit is called Lasik MD, in Windsor, Ontario. The price was based on the current conversion rate for about $1600 Canadian.
If you want to talk to them, let me know and I'll dig out the 800 number.
There were folks in the waiting room from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and I'm sure one person was mentioning Chicago too ...
The price covered the initial exam, the operation, followup exams at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 1 year as well as additional correction were that deemed necessary.
I'm going to be very interested to see whether I'm at 20/20 when I go back in 2 weeks ... it certainly seems to be that good and I'm typing this w/o reading glasses. (Need reading glasses for some smaller type on written materiuals but most newspapaer are ok) ... in two days, it'll be one month since the operation.

peter

 

[ewoss3]

thanks for the info, I found their website in case anyone else is interested <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.lasikmd.ca/>http://www.lasikmd.ca/</A>