[Sohcahtoa82]

Wow what a pain in the ass.

The last FSA I had was the exact opposite. They put my FSA on a Visa card, then I went to the optometrist and forgot to use it and paid on my own credit card. A week later, I got a check in the mail from my FSA with a note basically saying "Hey, you could have used your FSA for that, so here's an automatic reimbursement."

EDIT: It may have been an HSA, not an FSA. I don't remember.

[fatnoah]

Oh, that's the best part. I did have the Visa, but for whatever reason they hospital never coded things properly, so I had to fall back to the manual reimbursement.

[notreallyserio]

How did the FSA operator (or whatever they are called) know about the transaction, and so quickly?

[fatnoah]

Since it's on a card issued by the FSA provider (I also don't know the correct word), they see the transactions in real time. Data that accompanies the transaction lets them know that it's reimbursable medical care.