Open Enrollment - Spending Accounts

[Auto-generated.] All right. Good afternoon everyone. This is Melanie Bridges. I am a director at Inspira Financial. And I'm here today to talk about the benefits that we offer. For you as employees of Cornell University, as a leading national well-being company, we are committed to supporting everyone's unique journey. And as we go through the slide, information will provide a lot of information about the benefits, that support that statement. First, a little bit about the agenda. We're going to go through the open enrollment 2026 reminders. We'll do a bit of a product overview and today we're going to talk about the health medical care spending account as well as the dependent Care Spending account. We'll have some information about the member website, the Inspira debit card, the mobile app capabilities, and then we'll finish up with some tools and resources. So let's get started first with open enrollment reminders.

Cornell University's open enrollment for 2026 runs Monday, October 27th through Friday, November 14th, and this is all for coverage effective January 1st, 2026. There is action required. So to participate in any of the 2026 FSA programs, you must enroll during your open enrollment. Your 2025 election does not automatically reenroll you outside of open enrollment. Changes to your election can only be made with a qualifying life event during the plan year. To enroll, you enroll through Cornell's work site Workday Site by 4 p.m. Eastern on November 14th. So now we're going to begin by reviewing the Flexible Spending Account health medical care option available to you.

Health medical care flexible spending accounts are available to help you offset the financial cost of your eligible medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug expenses during the plan year. Also allowed are certain over-the-counter purchases as well. For 2026, you can contribute up to $3,400, which is an increase from the 2025 plan year, per the IRS guidelines. As an FSA is a lose it or use it program, it means that you must use the total amount selected for the plan year, or you will forfeit any remaining balance by the end of the plan year. Now there is an exception to this rule, and it's called a carryover provision. Cornell does offer a carryover provision that allows you to carry over up to $660 from this plan year 2025 into the following year. If you're unable to use your elected amounts during the 25 plan year, and for 2026 plan elections, the carryover increases to $680 each year. You have until April 30th to submit for reimbursement any incurred claims from the prior plan year. This means any claims incurred and eligible from your 2026 plan. Your election can still be submitted for payment up until April 30th, 2027. Just a quick reminder if you are participating in the FDP plan with an open HSA account, you are unable to participate in this spending account. let me explain how a health medical care account works. You would determine the amount of money that you'd like to set aside on an annual basis to have taken out of your paychecks, and this is done in equal increments throughout the entire plan year. I typically recommend that you review your medical, dental, vision, and pharmacy expenses over the last few years to determine the amount that is best based on you and your family needs. For a health medical care account, all of your annual contributions will be available on that very first day of the plan. Year. Even if you have not had all the funds taken out of your paycheck, because that is how the IRS rules these plans. So, as mentioned, Cornell's carryover provision also allows for up to $680 to be carried over from your new 2026 plan year election into the following plan year. If you're unable to use your full amount that you elected, any eligible health care expense would be covered under your account, but the care must be medically necessary to be considered an eligible expense. If you ever have any questions about what is covered, the Inspira website and mobile app both provide ways to determine coverage as well, as you can always contact the Inspira Call center for assistance.

We're now going to discuss the Dependent Care Spending Account program. Dependent care funds may be used for child care for children aged 12 and under, so up to the age of 13, as well as elder or adult care for child care, you and your spouse must be working full time or seeking full time employment in order to qualify for the child care claims. The purpose of the child care, cannot be for primary educational purposes, but it can be a daycare or camp that provides an educational component. Eligible services such as preschool, summer day camp, and before and after school programs are all considered eligible. In the situation of elder adult care, the dependent must be claimed on your taxes and reside with you more than 50% of the time to be considered eligible for dependent care, expenses need to take place or be incurred during the plan year 2026. However, Cornell also has a grace period provision that allows you to continue to incur expenses through March 15, 2027 that will still apply to your 2026 plan election. So this means you have, from January 1st, 2026 through March 15th, 2027 to use your Dependent Care Account election elections for the 2026 plan year. Please note that you also have until April 30th to submit any claims for the 2026 plan. Year. The Dependent Care works very differently than the Medical Health care account, as the funds must be available in your Inspira dependent care account in order to be available for payment to your daycare provider. Your maximum contribution for 2026 is $7,500 per plan year, and this is an increase from the previous year's maximum amount of $5,000. Depending on your tax bracket, you could potentially save up to 30% on daycare expenses based on these pretax savings. Again, the purpose of the dependent Care program is for you and your spouse to have the ability to work while your dependents are being taken care of. Just a note any grant and dependent care amount contributions cannot exceed. In total, the $7,500 annual maximum.

So now we're going to go over some of the tools and resources available to you as an Inspira member. And we're going to start with our member website. Our website really makes it easy for you to do a number of things like managing your account, accessing important information as well as reaching our customer service team. Some of the benefits are submitting. You could submit eligible claims. You could pay yourself back for expenses, and you can also view purchases and verify any card transactions. After you log in, you'll see your account dashboard. This is where you'll find everything you need to make the most of your account. Election help and support is right at the top navigation under the dashboard, and that's always available for you during business hours. To chat with an online agent, they can do things like screen share and assist you, supporting any questions you may have. There's things like frequently asked questions as well as other important resources. Account settings are also something available where you could set up personal notifications, alert settings, and you could do things like link your bank account, as well as editing security settings that we have under your account. Again, this main page provides you with high level information about your election for the year, any available funds as well as key dates like last Day to Spend and last day to file claims. This is what we call your account detail page and this you can get into further detail by accessing your claim history to do. Items will come up as well as very specific transactions. Your transaction information may provide deposits, claim payments as well as card transactions. Under account settings as previously mentioned, you can manage notifications such as going paperless, setting up alerts, text online capabilities, and again, you can also link your bank account in order to receive any funds more quickly.

If you enroll in the Health Medical Care Spending Account, you'll also receive an Inspira Debit Card. If you are a brand new member to one of our programs, you will, receive an Inspira Card in the mail, and it's very important to, activate that card as soon as you receive it. The Inspira card is valid through the expiration date, which is a five year time period, or until the eligibility period ends. Also note that if you currently have a Pay Flex debit card, that card continues to be your card utilized, for your programs again, all the way through that five year expiration date. The Inspira Debit card is a way for you to pay for your eligible out-of-pocket expenses, including things like co-pays, deductibles, pharmacy, dental, vision, out-of-pocket cost. If you do use the card, there are certain IRS requirements around the use of the card, and in some instances, you may be asked to provide supporting documentation to verify your card expense. Inspira does work behind the scenes to verify what we're able to, but it's really important to keep all receipts associated with your card. Use any of that you're asked to provide verification. You'll always receive a written request when information is being requested. In some instances, if verification is not provided, your card could be temporarily and activated until documentation has been provided. Please be sure you're always reviewing any requests from Inspira, and for any details or questions, you can review the information on your account directly on your website or calling us for any assistance. And we're going to get into a little more detail on this topic in the next few slides.

So as previously mentioned, part of the IRS guidelines for this program and the use of a debit card is we may we may ask you for some additional information. So it's really important to save all of your detailed receipts, itemized statements and really explanation of benefits. Those are the best way to provide, supporting documentation. The IRS does require that we verify all card purchases, and as a result, we may ask you to send documentation to verify if something is truly eligible under the guidelines. If you do need to verify an expense, you'll see this directly on the website under your members site, and you'll also get a letter a request for documentation. In addition, you can go in to your notifications and you can set yourself up to receive debit card alerts. Key here to help prevent requests for documentation is use your card for payment if you can. After your insurance confirms the final amount you have to pay, don't use the card for estimated or pending amounts. When you do get a request for documentation, the best form of documentation to send to us is an explanation of benefits from your insurance provider or health plan. You can also send us detailed receipts or an itemized statement. But things like, data service provider, the description and the final amount that you are that you have to pay is needed on that itemized statement. While documentation for most prescriptions is not required in the event that you do need to verify, again, similar, to the previous receipt information for medical, we would just need specific information around, the name of the drug, the date field, and the amount that you had to pay. Keep in mind, we can accept documents with a pending or an estimated amount due, even if the the we've already paid to the provider.

In order to assist you with your debit card verification request, all the information can be found on the Inspire Remember website. After you log in, you'll see your account dashboard and you'll find out if you have any card transactions that need verification by selecting View Account Details. When you have card transactions that need to be verified as eligible, you'll then see a tile that says Verify Card Purchases. So you'll just want to select that box. And then this page will show a list of your unverified card purchases. To resolve, you simply select the description or view for the card, and this will take you right to the detail page, where you can easily verify that card purchase. In the gray box, you'll see your options to resolve the unverified card purchase and the button for verify. So you just click on that to get started. You can click on Upload Documents, and then you can choose to fax documents as well as if you are participating member in the Cornell Aetna Medical Plan. You can apply a health plan claim by choosing a connected claim on file with us for verification. Needs.

Now we're going to spend just a couple minutes on the Inspira mobile app. our app is available for both Android and Apple platforms. You simply want to go ahead and download the app from your mobile device store, and then you log in using the same username and password you use to access our website. very, very similar to the website you can manage your funds, you can pay providers directly back. You can actually take pictures of documentation and pay yourself back that way, which is a really good tool for things like dependent care, eligible claims submission. And you can also view your purchases and verify card transactions that way. From this screen, flexible spending account members can easily see on their mobile app how much they've spent. How much is remaining, and there's available funds in a very visual graph. So it always gives you a very, good view of where you are throughout the year. Important reminders will also help you stay in the know, including when dollars must be used, as well as, any funds that potentially are available for the rest of the year. The mobile app also makes filing a claim, easy with just a few steps. You can go in and upload supporting documentation or take a picture, and it's an easy and efficient way to provide the information needed. Again, especially for folks that may be submitting, dependent care claims. Simply upload your claim document to submit. Include taking a picture of the information for a really quick and easy submission. You can also use the mobile app for verifying a card purchase. It's also important again to save all those detailed receipts, but if you do need to verify an expense, you can use the Inspira mobile app to resolve it. Similar to what you could do on the member website, whether in a store or at home. Inspira members also enjoy the ease of scanning product barcodes to determine which healthcare item might be eligible under the plan, so you can simply take the barcode. Walking through a pharmacy, scan it, and see if it's an eligible product. Under the IRS guidelines.

Finally, we're just going to review some of the additional tools and resources available to you as Inspira members. As I mentioned, help and support provides access to things like frequently asked questions, a resource center with additional information, as well as a very quick and easy way to get to our customer service center by using either our chat or email feature, agents can co browse with you as well to assist with navigating our site, and that means they can go in and ask you to share your screen on the website and they can, virtually walk you through different criteria or different places to go on the website. If you have questions on what might be a covered expense under the spending accounts, under Help and Support, you'll find the Explore Common Eligible Expense tool, and you can just utilize that directly from there specific to eligible expenses. Once you click into the tab, you can search and sort to find your answers, including any additional information that might be required for an expense to be considered covered under the plan. In summary, you can use the Inspira website or mobile app at any time, along with having the ability to contact the Inspira service team for anything else you may need. Our call center is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. eastern, and on Saturdays 10 to 3. I want to thank you for your time today to review the Inspira products offering available to you for this open enrollment season.