Flex Spending Accounts May Be Just the Cure

In “Chew on This” (Personal Finance, Sept. 28), Kathy M. Kristof wrote about using “health-care spending accounts” or “flexible spending accounts” as a means of paying for predictable medical expenses with pretax dollars.

I was particularly interested in the article because, over the years, my own psychotherapy patients have become increasingly disillusioned with the meager reimbursements they receive from most managed health-care programs for mental health services. As patients discover that they must fight to obtain their benefits, that they are allowed only a paltry amount for each session and that they are limited in the number of sessions covered, more and more of them have chosen to pay their own fees.

With proper use of these tax-favored accounts, it would be possible for many people to handle all their foreseeable medical expenses and be able to replace managed-care with large deductible catastrophic indemnity insurance.

Perhaps these programs may be the beginning of a way out of the managed health-care thicket.

MARVIN KAPHAN

Valley Village