It is estimated that every year, $4 billion is lost from flexible spending accounts when the “use it or lose it” feature goes into effect. This is something that affects both consumers and the healthcare industry, with patients rushing to determine what is eligible as they work to allocate their monies to pay for healthcare expenses.
In addition to the last-minute rush, the confusion also increases at the register, where patients must ensure their healthcare spending is well allocated between their credit and debit cards and their flexible spending accounts.
In a recent interview, Alpesh Chokshi of Banyan revealed that a new partnership between Walgreens and Bilt Rewards could help reduce the waste and friction surrounding healthcare saving and flexible spending accounts (FSA). The positives include consumers getting greater savings on healthcare-related items they may need while Walgreens bolsters customer experiences and sales and Bilt cards earn increased spend engagement. To help reduce friction and confusion that comes up when consumers are juggling separate healthcare saving accounts (HSA) and flexible spending accounts, Bilt collaborated with Walgreens to expand its loyalty rewards program and help maximize wellness benefits.
Bilt members, through this joint effort, now have exclusive access to Automatic Healthcare Savings. This allows them to easily apply HSA and FSA benefits when shopping at Walgreens, simply by using a card linked to their account. Reward members get rewarded automatically on every purchase, getting twice the number of points when they purchase brands under Walgreens.
With regard to mechanics, Bilt members earn points on spending every time they shop at Walgreens and pay for items using a card linked to their account.
In three days, Bilt informs the member of any eligible HAS or FSA items and allows them to choose to apply their HAS or FSA funds to those items in their Bilt account. Once this is done, the company then credits the original payment method and charges the HAS or FSA card for the amount.
Chokshi explained that this was an automated way to access funds in healthcare spending accounts.
The collaboration also provides rewards for prescriptions, which makes it even more alluring to consumers. Chokshi notes that the platform afforded Walgreens as well as other issuers and merchants the freedom they needed to monetize products of higher margins and different commerce experiences.
This spending partnership is expected to give rise to more opportunities for data-powered, item-level use cases, with Banyan already focused on a new launch that could see it provide more customized rewards for even more spending.
Many more companies such as HealthLynked Corp. (OTCQB: HLYK) are offering other solutions based on health data. As more of these are taken up by various actors in the industry, patients, customers and other stakeholders could notice major savings on their healthcare budgets.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to HealthLynked Corp. (OTCQB: HLYK) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/HLYK
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