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Use It or Lose It: Your Guide to Year-End Eye Care Benefits

Berkeley Heights Eye Group Blog Use It or Lose It: Your Guide to Year-End Eye Care Benefits
Use It or Lose It: Your Guide to Year-End Eye Care Benefits

Imagine someone gave you a gift certificate for Christmas, but with a condition: You have to use it within the next year, or it expires. You’d make sure to use it, right? You wouldn’t want to miss out on the benefit.

Eye care benefits work the same way. (Okay, you do have to pay for the insurance, but the principle still applies.) The clock is winding down in 2025, and you may still have unused vision benefits waiting for you.

At Berkeley Heights Eye Group in New Providence, New Jersey, we don’t want you to miss out on what’s owed to you. Here’s our guide to maximizing your year-end eye care benefits.

What does use-it-or-lose-it mean?

Many vision plans and health savings accounts or flexible savings accounts operate on a calendar-year basis, meaning your benefits reset every Jan. 1. And that means any unused 2025 benefits are gone with the wind the moment the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

That may include your annual eye exam and the allowance your insurance provides for glasses or contacts. It also consists of any funds you deposited in your HSA or FSA throughout the year. 

How to take advantage of your benefits

To avoid this situation, schedule your eye exam at Berkeley Heights Eye Group before the end of December. You should do this every year, even if you don’t notice any changes in your vision.

An exam not only determines whether you need corrective lenses or an update to your prescription, but it also allows us to check for early signs of more serious vision and health issues such as glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Your HSA or FSA comes into play for whatever charges your insurance doesn’t cover, including eye exam co-pays, glasses, contact lenses, prescription sunglasses, and dry eye treatments. If you don’t apply these funds to health-related charges, you lose them, so don’t miss out.

Some people like to order designer eyewear that costs a little more than traditional lenses. Your HSA/FSA funds can also help cover those costs.

If you need an expert to help walk you through how your vision plan works, or if it’s time to get that eye exam in, our team at Berkeley Heights Eye Group is here to help. 

Appointments fill up quickly, so call our office today or use our online form to schedule a time.

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