Surgery with a High Deductible Plan

We got the word yesterday that Daughter Person will be getting tubes in her ears.  The estimated cost to us out of pocket (including the followup appointment) is $2600.  Most of that is the hospital and anesthesiologist, not the doctor doing the surgery.

We’re still way under our deductible ($7500 for the family), so we’ll be paying all of it out of pocket (well, out of the HSA anyway).  Not planned, but not a huge emergency since we have about 4k in our HSA.  I would have to pull it out of investments and into the “cash” part of the HSA to use it, so I might get to play timing the market.  The surgery is on July 10, I figure we have until the end of July before the paperwork even gets through to the insurance company and we see a bill, so I’m going to try to save enough and pay it out of pocket in August without decimating our mini e-fund.  The doctor takes credit cards, so hopefully I can use this opportunity to earn some points and miles as well, and it lets me float the payment to the following month/cycle to give me more time to come up with the cash.  I’ll post an update once we have the final value.

I am grateful that we have the money available to pay for her surgery, even if it’s not in the most ideal places to pull it from.

3 thoughts on “Surgery with a High Deductible Plan

  1. donebyforty

    Sorry about the need for the surgery, but very happy that you have an HSA to help out with the expense.

    Something I didn’t realize the first few years I had an HSA was the ability to pay for the entire procedure on a credit card (and get some miles as you noted), then to be reimbursed out of the HSA. I had been paying for things on the HSA debit card/check, and receiving no rewards. 🙁

    Best of luck with the procedure…I hope everything goes well.

    Reply
    1. Mom Post author

      We’re planning on paying for it with our cash back card, then possibly pulling the money out of the HSA if we actually need to – it might just get on the list of “we paid for it, but haven’t withdrawn the money yet”. I think we’ll be able to cover it all outside of the HSA though.

      Reply
  2. Pingback: Surgery with a High Deductible Plan – Part 2 | Three is Plenty

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