An Introduction to Health Savings Accounts (IHS2)

Health savings accounts (HSAs) are a growing phenomenon in financing for health care, with more than one-third of Americans with private health insurance covered by an HSA. Although HSAs have been around since 2004, many people still confuse them with other similar health benefit accounts, such as health flexible spending accounts (FSAs). In this two-hour program, we will provide an introduction to HSAs to help you understand the important fundamentals of who can participate in an HSA, how much they can contribute to their HSA each year, and how they can use their HSA to pay for health care expenses while saving money on their income taxes. In this course, we will provide an overview of the HSA market and how it has evolved since 2004. Then, we will discuss how individuals become eligible to contribute to an HSA and how much they can contribute to an HSA each year. Finally, we will describe what HSA funds can be used for, and how both contributions and withdrawals are reported on the individual’s personal income tax return.