A growing number of wellness retailers are vying for health care funds that expire at the end of the year.. Have a flexible spending account? Amazon has a page for you. There you’ll find “surprisingly eligible” items you can use that money for: tampons, pimple patches, laxatives, sunscreens.. The website for Oura, which is currently running a $249 sale on its sleep-tracking rings, also notes that you can pay with F.S.A. dollars.. Even a company called Premier Bidets advertises a way for customers to use their F.S.A. dollars to purchase “high-quality bidet products.”. F.S.A.s allow people to set aside money from their paychecks, pretax, that they can use for approved medical expenses. The accounts are a common workplace perk, and employers are increasingly offering them to workers. You can use an F.S.A. card directly for health-related expenses like hearing aids or contact lenses. But more and more wellness retailers are appealing straight to consumers — and hoping they’ll spend their F.S.A. dollars on a growing list of products and services that go beyond traditional health expenses.. Generally speaking, the Internal Revenue Service says that medical expenses include the cost you spend trying to treat, diagnose or prevent a disease. But that definition is broad enough that companies have seized on the opportunity to insert themselves.. “There’s not this clear delineation between your health-related consumption and your consumption of other goods,” said Robert Huckman, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.. Thank you for your patience while we verify access.. Already a subscriber? Log in.. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
