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More than half of the 3.2 million flexible spending accounts (FSA) forfeit funds due to nonuse, and the average amount of money wasted racks up to $441 per person according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. However, a new partnership between Bilt Rewards and Walgreens (WBA) can help you load your FSAs and HSAs (health savings accounts) to automatically pay for eligible items and rack up points.
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Bilt Rewards Founder and CEO Ankur Jain sits down with Brad Smith and Anjalee Khemlani to discuss the partnership and how it can help Americans save money as the cost of living remains a significant stressor.
"When we started Bilt as the neighborhood loyalty program, we said how do we reward people for housing? And created the first program that lets you earn points on rent. But, healthcare is also a huge expense for Americans, and it's only growing. And so we said, look, when you go to your neighborhood pharmacy, and you're buying these everyday items, how can we help you save money in an easier way, just like we did for rent?" Jain explains.
If you don't use the cash pile you put into flexible accounts, you'll lose it. Over half of the 3.2 million flexible spending accounts forfeit funds due to non-use, and the average amount of money wasted is $441 per person, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. But, a new partnership might help you use all of your HSA and FSA funds with ease. Built teaming up with Walgreens. So, that you can load your FSAs and your HSAs to your account, and then have it automatically pay for eligible items, doesn't end there. You can rack up some built points. All right, so, for more on this, let's just bring in the man himself, Ankur Jain, who is the founder of Built, here with us. Ankur, great to have you here. We've also got our own, Angeli Kemlani. Ange, great to have you here for the discussion. All right, so, let let's start on the partnership first, because this is a new element, you've got some other partnerships we'll get to later on, but Walgreens here. What made this make sense for them?
So, let's start with, you know, when we started the business, we said, "Cost of living is rising in this country faster than income, faster than wages." And that's a huge problem. I mean, you're seeing it's the top focus of the election conversation right now. When we started built, as the neighborhood loyalty program, we said, "How do we reward people for housing?" and created the first program that lets you earn points on rent, right? But healthcare is also a huge expense for Americans, and it's only growing. And so, we said, "Look, when you go to your neighborhood pharmacy, and you're buying these everyday items, how can we help you save money in an easier way, just like we did for rent?" right? And what we realized was so many items by not just prescriptions. I mean, sunscreen, toothpaste, cough drops. There are countless items that are eligible for this savings program, where you can save up to 40% on everyday healthcare products, but it is so hard to use the FSA, HSA today that over $4 billion are being lost every single year. And so, with this new program, you can now walk into a neighborhood Walgreens, as a built member you can spend with any American Express, any Visa, any Mastercard, just like you normally would. You get your built points, but now we can automatically identify any of the items that are eligible for the savings, and with one click apply those for you, so you don't have to worry about it anymore.
How does this differ from, I mean, I I understand the automatic points being a big part of it. Because right now you could easily just identify them, pay for it separately, etcetera, right? It's a very multistep. It's a multistep process, easy in the sense that, um, you know, you can at least, I, you do have an online way of doing it. But
Yes.
Did you say easily?
If you're in store, you don't. You're often going in, you're having to check out. Then you have to ask after the fact. Then you have to go back to the counter, return it, change the transaction, pay for it with your FSA card. I mean,
And this is something people often don't know as part of the program. And so, when you're applying these automatic, uh, deductions, talk to me about why Walgreens first and and what potential you have to expand beyond? Because not everyone shops at Walgreens.
Right.
Yes. So, this is this is really exciting. I mean, we call this the automatic healthcare savings benefit. It's part of being a Built member again in your neighborhood. When you look at neighborhood pharmacies, I mean, Walgreens has national presence in all of our neighborhoods where we provide this neighborhood loyalty program. And of course, we're continuing to now scale that out with all the exciting local pharmacies as well, right? But there is such an opportunity to help people save. Well, not just on the everyday healthcare costs at your local pharmacy, but we envision this type of program being able to help you save automatically on your doctor visits, maybe your grocery store. I mean, people don't realize you can use FSA, HSA benefits, even at the grocery store, on a ton of items. And so, I just keep thinking, you know, the first step to fixing some of these healthcare costs is take the billions and billions of dollars that are sitting there unused for Americans and make it easy for them to access it, right? You shouldn't have to study a textbook and read up on what's eligible, and what all these things mean just to save some money on everyday healthcare costs, right?
And to be fair, uh, e-shopping is a lot easier because the companies do identify the eligible items. Um, and then to your point, that's interesting about getting into the doctor's space. Uh, I'm curious about that because I wonder if you have thought about also like the telehealth platforms and the like. Talk to me about about where you see this going.
Yes.
Yes. There's so much that you can do with this, right? And I think that's the key. And by the way, it's not just healthcare. We talk about housing, we're talking about healthcare. There are these government programs, there are these private programs for people to save money on everyday expenses across the board. FSA, HSA is one of them. You see the same thing, by the way, on student loans. I mean, the amount of student loans that are not covered today that you could have access to different deductions or credits for, is also complicated. So, we like to look at that. Groceries, same thing. There's a lot of these credits out there for healthy eating that are very hard to tap into today. So, if we can just remove friction, create value, and also have the benefit of rewarding you with points and miles along the way, I think that's a win for consumers across the country. And that is really how we're thinking about category by category.
He notes that so many items aside from prescription drugs can be purchased with an HSA or FSA, and with the new partnership, Bilt can "automatically identify any of the items that are eligible for the savings, and with one click, apply those for you so you don't have to worry about it anymore." He is particularly excited about the partnership with Walgreens because it has a "national presence" and explains that Bilt is now focused on scaling with local pharmacies.
"We envision this type of program being able to help you save automatically on your doctor visits, maybe at your grocery store. I mean, people don't realize you can use FSA, HSA benefits even at the grocery store on a ton of items. And so I just keep thinking, the first step to fixing some of these healthcare costs is take the billions and billions of dollars that are sitting there unused for Americans, and make it easy for them to access it," Jain adds.
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This post was written by Melanie Riehl