Services Overview
Your company may have had some experience with a Consumer Driven Health Plan (CDHP) in the past, by using a Health Reimbursement Arrangement or Flexible Spending Account. Depending on the setup of your plans and the administrator you used, this process may not have been as enjoyable or beneficial as it could have been – particularly if your employees were required to file cumbersome claim forms and send in hard-to-understand documentation just to receive their reimbursement.
Well, we have a different way of doing things at RT Benefit Administrators, which is why we offer a benefit debit card, called the Benny™ Card which can be paired with any HRA or FSA for convenient access to employee reimbursement accounts in real-time!
Employees no longer have to suffer through the pain of filing for reimbursement when employers implement the Benny™ Card option with their FSA or HRA!
The Premise
Employers establish an HRA or FSA plan (or both) where employees have access to additional, tax free funds to pay for their qualified out-of-pocket health care expenses (see “HRA | FSA” section for more details on HRA and FSA plans). Then add the Benny™ Card benefits debit card to their account, so employees have access to those funds in real-time, without the need for cumbersome reimbursement claim forms and hard-to-understand documentation!
Here are some Frequently Asked Questions and answers to help you understand how the Benny™ Card can benefit both employees and employers:
Will the Benny™ Card work anywhere?
The Benny™ Card will work at any healthcare related merchant who is setup with the national IIAS Merchant Network (which millions of providers are, nationwide). Based on the design of your reimbursement plan, the Benny™ Card can be set to more or less strict parameters, giving employers the ability to customize how and where the employee’s Benny™ Card can be used.
The Benny™ Card will never work at a non-healthcare merchant, like Best Buy or Regal Movie Theaters for example, and will only allow qualified healthcare products and services at merchants who offer both healthcare and non-healthcare products or services, like Target or RiteAid.
How does the Benny™ Card know what to allow and what to deny?
The Benny™ Card uses two filtering methods when determining what is an acceptable purchase:
- At the Merchant level – only merchants who have registered as a healthcare product/service provider with IIAS are allowed to take payments from a Benny™ Card, this includes most Hospitals; Doctors; Labs; Medical, Dental and Vision providers; and Pharmacies.
- At the Product level – Once the Benny™ Card has determined the Merchant is an approved merchant, it then looks at the UPC of the products or services being purchased. IIAS merchants must properly categorize their products and services into healthcare and non-healthcare categories. The Benny™ Card will only allow products and services that fall in the healthcare categories.
Can an employer exclude certain merchants or product UPCs?
Yes, by category. Employers have the ability to customize what the Benny™ Card can be used for, by category only, but cannot specifically include or exclude a merchant or UPC individually. Employers have the ability to select what merchant categories they would like to allow the Benny™ Card to authorize and have control over the Over-The-Counter and Prescription (Rx) categories as well.
For example, employers may desire to only allow Medical and Pharmacy expenses, while excluding Dental and Vision expenses. RT Benefit Administrators can tell the Benny™ Card to only allow Medical and Pharmacy merchant categories and no others.
Or an employer may wish to exclude Over-The-Counter medication, but allow Prescription (Rx) medication, so RT Benefit Administrators would setup the Benny™ Card to only allow for medications which require a doctor’s prescription (Rx) while excluding medications which are categorized as “OTC” and do not require a prescription (Rx).
Who pays for the Benny™ Card?
This depends on the type of account the Benny™ Card is connected to. If an employer established a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), the HRA account only allows for employer money to be contributed. If the Benny™ Card is connected to a Flexible Spending Account (FSA), this account may have either employee funds OR employer funds, or both.
In either circumstance (HRA or FSA), the employer is responsible for funding the aggregate total of employee transactions each week, paid directly to the Benny™ Card issuing bank (Bancorp Bank) each week. For FSA accounts where employees have contributed funds, employers will still be required to “front” the funds, but will receive these funds back from employees by way of payroll deductions.
Are there additional fees for adding a Benny™ Card to my HRA or FSA?
No. RT Benefit Administrators strives for convenience and employee satisfaction, which is why we offer the Benny™ Card option at no additional charge.
Employers are required to make a deposit to open the Benny™ Card funding account at the startup of the plan (usually between 3% and 7% of your company’s total HRA or FSA exposure, depending on your preferred funding method). This deposit is returned if/when you close your Benny™ Card account.
Can the Benny™ Card be used as a debit card with a PIN?
Yes! Some merchants only allow PIN-based transactions in lieu of “credit card” transactions. In these cases, employees can setup a PIN for their Benny™ Card, so they are not restricted when paying one of these merchants.
Can employees use the Benny™ Card at an ATM or receive “cash back”?
No. Plain and simple, the Benny™ Card will only allow transactions at approved IIAS healthcare merchants and only for approved IIAS healthcare expenses. Employees will never be able to receive cash back or withdraw cash at an ATM.
Are benefit debit cards like the Benny™ Card common? Will my doctor know how to accept payment from a Benny™ Card?
Yes! Quite common, actually. Benefit debit cards are nationally recognized by millions of merchants nationwide, as well as governed by federal law. It looks and acts just like a debit or credit card – and employees can complete their transactions just like they would a normal debit or credit card, be it PIN based or “swipe and sign”.
Can employers monitor activity of the employee’s Benny™ Card?
Absolutely – it’s the employer’s plan and the employer’s responsibility to ensure the plan funds are being used appropriately. BUT, we don’t expect employers to be scrutinizing Benny™ Card transactions every day – that’s what RT Benefit Administrators is for! Our Benny™ Card service includes daily monitoring of employee Benny™ Card activity to ensure compliance with plan rules and IRS guidelines. We periodically audit transactions and request substantiating documentation from employees, to verify expenses are eligible and for the correct amounts as well as personally and electronically review all Benny™ Card transactions on a daily basis to identify suspicious activity.
The Benny™ Card makes HRA and FSA access fun and simple, which adds to the strength of any employee benefits reimbursement account!