Quick Answer: Crates Health helps you unlock HSA/FSA savings on wellness products in 4 simple steps: check eligibility, get your medical documentation, shop normally, and get reimbursed. The whole process starts with a 2-minute health assessment.
The 4-Step Process
Step 1: Check Your Eligibility
Start at https://app.crateshealth.com/onboarding/welcome. The heading is Let's unlock your savings. The button is Choose my products. It takes about 2 minutes.
You pick products first. Then you create an account and answer health questions: family history, conditions to prevent, and conditions to manage or reverse.
Checking your eligibility shows for 3 seconds. It is skipped if your device asks for reduced motion. The pause is not a clinician, and it does not issue a letter.
If you are eligible, you see you're eligible, plus a letter count or a savings figure. Letters are not issued on that screen. If we can't write letters from these answers, your products stay saved and you can choose Recheck eligibility. Plans are not on that screen.
Step 2: Get Your Medical Documentation
Our licensed healthcare providers review your health information and issue Letters of Medical Necessity (LMNs) for your eligible products.
An LMN is a document from a licensed healthcare provider (MD, DO, PA, NP) that connects your wellness purchase to a specific health need. It's what makes the product HSA/FSA eligible under IRS rules. Each product needs its own letter.
You don't need to: - Visit a doctor's office - Schedule a telehealth appointment - Wait weeks for paperwork
Many LMNs for catalog products are issued within minutes of sign-up. For custom or non-catalog product requests, it typically takes 24-48 hours.
A confirmed catalog product shows Letter issues right away. A custom product shows Further review required.
Step 3: Shop and Pay As You Normally Do
Here's something important: you don't shop through Crates. You buy your products exactly where you normally would - Amazon, your gym's front desk, the brand's website, wherever.
Use your regular credit or debit card to make the purchase, then save your itemized receipt (showing product name, date, amount, and merchant).
Why not use your HSA/FSA card directly? Most wellness retailers (gyms, Amazon, supplement brands) aren't set up to accept HSA/FSA cards at checkout. Their merchant category codes don't match what your card processor expects. That's totally normal - reimbursement is the standard path for these purchases.
Step 4: Get Reimbursed
After your purchase:
Open Letters and reimbursements
Switch to Receipts and reimbursements (on a phone, Receipts)
Add a receipt for the product. Files can be JPEG, PNG, GIF, or PDF, up to 4 MB each
When you are ready, the receipt shows Continue reimbursement
Crates fills and sends the claim for Bank of America, Fidelity, FSAFEDS (FSA only), HealthEquity, HSA Bank, Navia, Optum, and WEX, when the account type matches. Our in-house claims team reviews and submits the documentation directly.
For any other administrator, download the letter and the receipt and submit both yourself. Both stay available to download.
The administrator decides the payout and timing. Crates does not pay the reimbursement.
Important Things to Know
Get your LMN before you buy. Your LMN needs to be dated on or before your purchase date. Purchases made before your LMN is issued may not be eligible for reimbursement. In the app, the purchase date has to fall on a day a letter covers. A date no letter covers is refused.
Keep your itemized receipts. The IRS can audit you up to 10 years after a transaction, and you'll need proof that your purchase was a qualified medical expense. Letters stay on Letters and reimbursements. You can store a receipt with a paid plan, or while an issued letter is still unexpired. The app does not say the files were erased.
You can name any HSA/FSA administrator. Choose the administrator, or My administrator isn't listed and type the name. No SSN or account number. Crates fills and sends the claim only for Bank of America, Fidelity, FSAFEDS (FSA only), HealthEquity, HSA Bank, Navia, Optum, and WEX, when the account type matches. For every other administrator, you submit the letter and the receipt yourself.
Your membership fee is HSA/FSA eligible too. You can use pre-tax dollars to pay for your Crates subscription.
How Much Can I Save?
When you use pre-tax HSA/FSA dollars, you save your marginal tax rate, typically 30-40% depending on your tax bracket. That means:
A $200/month gym membership → save ~$720-960/year
A $399 Apple Watch → save ~$120-160
$100/month in supplements → save ~$360-480/year
The savings figure during sign-up is 30% of modeled spend. It is a modeled tax benefit, not a balance or a reimbursement. Actual savings depend on your tax rate and what you spend.
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