The OTHER Christmas Rush

 A few years ago, my nephew was on a chaperoned, summertime, outdoor adventure with a group of other teenagers. It included some hiking, camping in various locations, and outdoor cooking–a real rugged experience. On the first day of mountaineering, someone in the group ahead of my nephew moved a tree branch out of the way only to have it snap back and hit him in the eye, cutting it deeply. Needless to say, his outdoor adventure was short-lived. My sister, his mother, a nurse, and our own health-blogger, had to retrieve him and rush him to some very expensive eye-care clinics.

After quite a bit of time, many sleepless nights of 24-hour medical care, intense treatment by very capable professionals, and prayers, my nephew was able to keep his eye with very little side effects, although he came within a millimeter of losing it. You can read more of her story here.

At one point during this escapade, my sister, ever the optimist, told my nephew (and here is the intro take-away for today’s post), “Thank you for helping us meet this year’s medical deductible.”

If you have medical insurance (and everybody should have at least some form of major-medical insurance to cover a potentially catastrophic event–to learn more, see my blog post “May the Odds Be In Your Favor” from October 30, 2019.), you are probably going to have a deductible (which is defined as the amount you pay for covered health care services before your insurance plan starts to pay). If you’ve had a lot of medical “stuff” this year, you just might have met that deductible.

So, why is this important? Because everything you have between now and the end of the year will be covered and you won’t have to pay anything. Right now is the time to schedule stuff because everybody else is trying to do what I’m encouraging you to do, thus the RUSH I mentioned in the title of my blog.

Another thing you might want to check on is the balance of your Flexible Spending Account (aka Flexible Spending Arrangement, FSA), if you have one. What is this, you ask? It is a special account you put money into that you use to pay for certain out-of-pocket health care costs. Typically, if you do not use this money within the calendar year, you lose it (not true for every FSA, but check with your employer).

If you don’t need any medical procedures or you’ve already met your out-of-pocket deductible, then consider getting contacts, glasses, over-the-counter meds, renewing prescriptions early, moving up other appointments, even getting into the dentist (watch your cleaning time-frame because that could be a problem if you have dental insurance) in order to use whatever is left in your FSA.

Make a plan to use up everything you’ve got and take advantage when you can. Nobody wants to leave money on the table.