One Hundred Fifty Dollars Keeps the HSA Open

Congress did not invent Direct Primary Care. It finally stopped punishing people for buying it with an HSA.

Under the new rules, a qualifying DPC membership stays compatible with HSA contributions if the fee stays at or under one hundred fifty dollars a month for one person, or three hundred for more than one. Go over that line and you can still pay the fee from the account. You just cannot keep feeding the account while you are enrolled. Most adult DPC memberships already sit between fifty and one hundred fifty. The ceiling is not a price. It is a permission slip.

Source: www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-26-05.pdf

I am not shocked. For years the tax code treated a flat primary-care fee like "other coverage," as if texting your doctor was a policy. Patients chose between the membership and the savings account. That was a paperwork tax on common sense.

I am not anti-insurance. Keep a policy for the wreck. I am anti a rule that made the cheap, monthly door the expensive one. We take care of patients for a flat monthly fee. No claim. No network. The number on the door is the number you pay, and now the HSA can help pay it.

One hundred fifty is a line. Stay under it and the savings account keeps working.