Now a decade after the initial offering of health savings accounts, we thought the time had come to dust off our proverbial crystal ball and take a look at what we can expect, hope and anticipate for HSAs in the next decade. Over the next several months we will touch on the emerging trends, tools and offerings in the HSA space and how those impact employers and employees, as well as brokers and agents.

The first two parts of our series focused on reporting. Now that we have covered the importance of understanding reporting data and taking action with those analytics, we would like to discuss another critical topic for the future success of these plans — shifting the mindset of accountholders from spending to saving.

Today, many accountholders continue to use their HSA the same way they use their flexible spending account — using available funds for current expenses, leaving little to rollover from year-to-year. While that is an option with HSAs, it is not a requirement and employees could be missing out on the benefit of growing their balances over the long-term. It is easy to understand where the confusion comes from as HSAs are still new to many consumers and are often overlooked in benefits education and communication.