Reducing Healthcare Expenses
This blog post has been slightly modified from the original content in the Quarter 3 2025 UAEA Newsletter.
Saving Money on Healthcare
It’s no secret that Healthcare is expensive - what may be a secret however are all the ways Tempe employees can save money on their healthcare costs.
Flexible Spending Accounts: Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) are places you can put money for future medical expenses. While signing up for health insurance each year employees can elect to have Tempe automatically deduct money from their paychecks to go into a FSA (up to $3300/year). The money that goes into these accounts is not taxed like the rest of your wages - if you’re normally taxed at 30%, for instance, putting $3300 into a FSA would “save” you $990 that would otherwise go to the government. This means you would have $3,300 to spend on your family’s medical bills, not $2,310 (after taxes). Money can be redeemed either with a FSA credit card (that can be used for payment at your doctor’s office or pharmacy) or by submitting reimbursement paperwork. There is one big caveat though - this money is “use-it-or-lose-it” and only $660 can be carried over from year to year, so make sure you prioritize using these funds.
Mediflex: Can’t afford to put money into a HSA or FSA? Good news - City of Tempe puts money into a very similar account called Mediflex. As of July 1st, Tempe now puts $61.16/month ($733.95/year) into an account for every employee. Unused funds are maintained from year-to-year. If you want to check how much you have, the amount you have right now is listed under “Employer Paid Benefits” on your paycheck. Employees can request reimbursement for a wide range of medical-related costs, including doctor visits, medication, and procedures - to do so you’ll have to print out a form from the Bridge and submit it to hrbenefits@tempe.gov. Please note you cannot get reimbursement from both a FSA and Mediflex for the same thing - trying to do may lead to discipline.
Optavise: Trying to get a specific medical procedure? Optavise is a service that will do the research for you to find doctors in your area that offer the procedure and what they charge. They will recommend 1 or 2 options that are the cheapest and if you choose one of those options they will give you a percentage of the cost savings of choosing that provider over more expensive options. Even if you don’t want to choose the “cheap” option, Optavise can also save you a lot of time just by doing the medical billing research for you. Get started by emailing advocate@optavise.com or by calling 1-866-253-2273.
Express Scripts: Express Scripts is not the only online pharmacy out there, but they do have a direct partnership with Tempe’s health insurance. They can fulfill nearly any prescription at a lower price than generic drugstores and orders ship directly to your home, saving the time of waiting for pickups in a drive thru. If you have medicine for an ongoing condition I strongly suggest you check the pricing at pharmacies like Express Scripts - my family has personally saved hundreds of dollars using online stores.
Healthy Me in Tempe: I cannot stress this enough - every UAEA member using Tempe insurance should participate in the annual Healthy Me in Tempe points program. Depending on how you choose to earn points, you can potentially qualify for the 100 points needed for the insurance discount with less than 4 hours of work. This now gets you a discount of $700 (before tax) on your insurance costs throughout the year, money which goes directly to your total take-home pay. Participating in this program is one of the easiest ways to save money on healthcare costs - start recording points today so you qualify for this coming year by the April 30th, 2026 deadline!