Employers are getting ready to start open enrollment for their employees. Often, I see patients misunderstand how LASIK can be covered by their medical FLEX dollars.

If you are not familiar with how it works; read on…..

If you want to save even more off your LASIK surgery, ask your employer if you have a medical FLEX plan. If you do, come on in for an evaluation first to make sure you are a candidate. Then during your open enrollment period, pledge the surgery amount into your FLEX plan. (This is done through your employer, not your health insurance company.) On the day of surgery, you are given a receipt showing proof of surgery. You would then submit this receipt to your employer. Your employer will reimburse you the full pledged amount within ten days even though it might not yet have accumulated out of your pay. Over the course of the year, the pledged amount is then pro-rated and removed pre-tax from your income. So you don’t have to wait to accumulate the amount out of your pay before you have the surgery. The savings comes from dollar amount pledged into your FLEX account is not taxed income! Currently, some employers allow up to $5,000 to be pledged. With the ever-changing health care and tax laws this is a great time to get it covered; as next year these amounts are scheduled to change!