Health and Fitness Products You Can Buy With HSA Funds: A Comprehensive Guide
Are you looking to maximize your Health Savings Account (HSA) funds for fitness purchases? You're in luck! This guide will walk you through the process of using your HSA funds to buy health and fitness products, including wearables, home gym equipment, and more. We'll also provide a list of specific products that are HSA/FSA eligible, so you can start shopping with confidence.
How HSA/FSA Funds Work
In theory, you can use your HSA or FSA funds to purchase health and fitness products, but it's not always as straightforward as it seems. While you won't be able to cover the entire purchase, you can save an average of 30% on eligible health purchases. The key is proving that the device is necessary for treating or monitoring a specific medical condition, not just general wellness.
To do this, you'll need to obtain a Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) from a doctor. This document is required to classify certain purchases as qualified medical expenses under IRS guidelines, proving that the device will be used to treat a legitimate medical condition, such as obesity or a heart condition.
How to Get an LMN
The process of securing an LMN can be made easier with the help of third-party players like Truemed. When browsing sites like Coros, Amazfit, and others, you'll see the option to "Pay With Truemed" at checkout. From there, you'll be asked a few questions about your health circumstances, and you'll be matched with a provider to determine your eligibility.
Truemed claims that 90% of LMNs are issued within 7 hours, and the process is surprisingly straightforward. You're not submitting a stack of medical records; you're answering a simple intake form about your health history, and a licensed clinician uses that, plus their own judgment, to decide whether a given product is appropriate for you.
HSA/FSA Eligible Products
Now that you know how to get an LMN, let's take a look at some specific products that are HSA/FSA eligible:
Wearables
- Recovery-focused wearables: Screenless recovery trackers like Whoop, Amazfit Helio Strap, and the Oura Ring can usually be justified as HSA/FSA eligible around sleep quality, HRV-based stress monitoring, or recovery tracking tied to a chronic condition.
- Smartwatches and heart rate monitors: If cardiovascular monitoring, training load tracking, or heart rate accuracy is relevant to a documented health concern, these watches can qualify the same way a basic tracker does.
Home Fitness Equipment
- Adjustable dumbbells, rowing machines, and connected bikes: If a clinician is willing to attest that structured exercise is part of your treatment plan, equipment that enables that can qualify.
Tips for Maximizing Your HSA/FSA Funds
Remember, the product itself doesn't determine eligibility; your health history does. A Whoop band might be an easy approval for someone managing a cardiac condition, but it'll get more pushback for someone with no relevant health history at all.
If you're curious whether something on your wish list might qualify, it's worth filling out the intake process just to see how creatively you can spend those pre-tax health dollars.
