Benefits have the potential to be a great value add for your employees, but if they’re too hard to use, they won’t be used, and your employee benefits budget will pay the price.

The consequences of hard-to-use benefits are often seen with flexible spending benefits. Knowing what is and isn’t covered under an FSA is hard enough, but when it’s difficult to substantiate a flex claim, many employees are turned off completely from using that benefit. Between the manual interventions required to get flex reimbursement and the documents needed substantiate a claim, employees often throw up their hands and give up on using their flexible spending benefits altogether. This leaves the employer at the brunt of employee complaints and growing benefit costs due to non-utilization. Thankfully, BMA has the solution.

BMA has over 25 years’ experience in helping employees and employers get the most of their benefits, and flexible spending is no exception. Here’s how we make flex benefit utilization and substantiation a positive experience for employees while reducing the workload for you:

Easy, Well-Structured Flex Substantiation Process

BMA works with each employer to define the most efficient path for getting flex claims substantiated and reimbursed to the member. This includes setting up rules for certain FSA purchase categories or requiring substantiation only if the amount spent exceeds a certain IRS-defined dollar amount. By creating well-defined substantiation rules, BMA reduces the substantiation efforts required from the member, making flexible spending utilization easy and smooth.

Fast, Automated Substantiation Processes

BMA takes the member FSA benefit experience a step further by automating the processes for substantiating a flexible spending claim. Firstly, we use the IRS-regulated Inventory Information Approval System (IIAS) to code covered purchases. This takes away the guesswork for employees figuring out what FSA purchases are covered or not.Secondly, based on IRS regulations, BMA can automatically substantiate flex transactions depending on employer specifications based on:

1. Copay Matching: expenses that exactly match the employer’s insurance benefit copay dollar amount (or up to 5 times the amount)
2. Recurring Claims: expenses that exactly match a previously substantiated transaction (exact match for provider and dollar amount)
3. Exact Claims Feed Match: expenses that exactly match with an integrated claims feed from the employer’s insurance benefit plan or pharmacy benefit manager

If, after these automated processes, substantiation is still required, the requests are sent automatically to the member, prompting immediate action. Through these efforts, BMA makes FSA use faster and more streamlined for the member.

Convenient Management of Flex Benefits

BMA members also benefit from online tools that help them manage and use their flexible spending benefits. Whether it’s substantiation requests, submission of flex claims, or tracking personal FSA spending, all these tasks can be managed in the BMA portal or from the member’s mobile device. By making the management of flex benefits convenient and comfortable for the member, BMA drives greater benefit utilization for the member and the employer.

Through technology and strategic benefits structuring, BMA makes it easy, fast, and convenient for members to use and enjoy their flexible spending benefits, creating a greater benefit ROI for the employer and a happier, healthier employee base.

To learn more about our flexible spending plans and how we service our flexible spending members, contact us.