A Flexible Spending Account (FSA) is a special bank account for your healthcare and dependent care expenses. Every dollar contributed to an FSA is not taxed, which means that you keep the 25 to 40% that is usually withheld on that money.There are two kinds of Flexible Spending Accounts: The Medical FSA and the Dependent Care FSA. You may choose to participate in one or both of these programs.

Want to see the tax benefit in action? Check out the example below, in which a participant sets aside $3,000 to contribute to his FSA:

	Without FSA	With FSA
Annual Salary	$30,000	$30,000
Expenses Paid by FSA	N/A	$3,000
Taxable Salary	$30,000	$27,000
Taxes (25%)	$7,500	$6,750
Expenses not paid by FSA	$3,000	N/A
Take-Home Pay	$19,500	$20,550
Savings with FSA	N/A	$750

NSHE has a new vendor for the FSA plan this year - ASI. ASI offers several enhancements to our FSA plan including debit cards, faster claim processing, direct deposit, on-line forms, and on-line account access. All these services makes it even easier for employees to access and monitor their FSA accounts.

Participating is simple; you make contributions through convenient payroll deductions spread evenly across the year. And then use your FSA money to pay for any healthcare or dependent care expenses not covered by your insurance plan.

Using your FSA money is also easy with the ASI card that works just like a typical bank card. Old-fashioned FSAs require that you pay for eligible expenses out of pocket, submit claim forms with all receipts, and then wait for reimbursement checks written from your FSAs which can take between 10 to 15 days. The days of this kind of hassle are over with the ASI Card. Just present the card anywhere MasterCard is accepted and the amount is automatically deducted from your FSA. You can pay for your co-pay, co-insurance, prescriptions, and certain over the counter medications using this card.

You can also monitor your account via secure access at www.asiflex.com. You will need the PIN number that ASI provided to you when you first enrolled in order to access you account on-line. You can log on and review your entire transaction history, report a lost or stolen card, and print a statement at any time.

ASI also offers direct deposit to your bank to further expedite receiving your reimbursement. Click here to download the form and submit the form directly to ASI.

And this easy savings tool only costs $4 per month to use. Your tax savings will easily outnumber this low fee!

If you are a new employee, you will need to enroll in the plan within sixty days of hire. Existing employees can elect to participate in the plan during Open Enrollment which is held in May and June of each year. Participants will need to re-enroll each plan year. Enrolling is easy, just print out the enrollment form and submit it to Human Resources.