Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)
Employer-Funded Accounts for Medical Reimbursement
• Health Reimbursement Arrangement or HRAs are employer-funded accounts that employees can draw upon to pay qualified medical expenses. They are usually offered as part of consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs), a fast-growing marketplace solution to rising health care costs.
• HRA-based health plans provide employers with an important new benefits option, one that helps raise consumer awareness of the real costs of health care while empowering consumers with greater decision-making control over their health care spending.
• HRA health plans usually include a high deductible, and research shows that total health spending is reduced when consumers bear more responsibility for their health care expenses.
• Members of an HRA plan who do not use all of their fund or account in one year can roll over unused funds for use at a later time for medical expenses, COBRA benefits, long-term care or Medicare premiums.
• HRA-based plans facilitate access to quality care because preventive care, such as routine physicals and child immunizations, typically is covered 100 percent and is not charged against the employee's fund.
• An HRA must be paid solely with employer dollars. It cannot be paid for, directly or indirectly, through employee salary reduction elections, and it cannot be provided through the employer’s cafeteria plan.
• HRAs are partially self-funded medical insurance plans with special tax advantages
