HMSA Extra Benefits

[ChunksterK]

Update: We took our friend shopping at Walmart last week, and several routinely purchased items that were always covered by her HMSA card in the past were rejected. One of the ladies manning the self checkouts said this has been happening often since the first of the month and cheerfully offered to remove the items from the bill and send them to restock. YMMV, but it sounds like HMSA needs to do a lot of work on this.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Thanks Chunkster.
I’ve recently received another summary of my “grievance” which included:

* a quote, supposedly from me, of something I never said
* they were happy I received the product list, but they never sent it
* even though the scanner feature doesn’t work, sometimes the products scanned (if it worked) will incorrectly show whether they are approved or not.  So… I’m not missing much?

I of course called the number on the letter to speak with the “grievance” handler and:

* she offered to send the product list, again.  She didn’t.  I can only imagine that they are actually pushing “Send” on their keyboard, but then like the scanner it doesn’t work?
* she was happy to inform me that she just received an email the previous day at 5 PM from Medline that they are aware of the scanner problem.  I asked how this was different from the other times they’ve been made aware of the problem over the past year (at least four times by me) but she didn’t know

My doctors are good, and competent, so why is it we need a middleman?  Who can’t even send an email?  Or return a phone call when they’ve repeatedly said they would?  
They do take my money every month.
That works.

[ChunksterK]

Somehow the taking the money part always works. As I said earlier, HMSA is a typical Hawaii bureaucratic quagmire with no consequences for poor performance.

[kalianna]

iʻve had this card for quite awhile. Havenʻt needed it until now so activated it last night. No problem. Expiration date is 12/27. Today I went to Longʻs and bought $50 worth of stuff. Tried checking out at self-checkout and the card was "not valid". They told me to go to the cashier. Waited in the very long line and again the card was refused as "not valid". They didnʻt know why. They said call HMSA so I did. Waited, got shuffled around a couple times and was finally told that they had stopped this benefit as of 1/1/27. So now that weʻre paying $20 per month more for each of us, we have less benefits. Thatʻs progress.

[HiloJulie]

Trying to be helpful here, but there is either a typo or confusion as to the date you mentioned. You state HMSA told you the program stopped this benefit as of 1/1/27. Considering it is March, 2026.

I have several neighbors who have and use this card. To say getting it set up and functional with HMSA is anything but having multiple root canals without anesthesia is putting it mildly.

But once in place and working - it does work. The program has not been discontinued. At least as of today. 

Having said that, extreme care must be made and where it can get very confusing is, for example, the card may cover the WalMart brand of 50 count 100mg aspirin. ANY deviation, like gels tabs versus pills - will get rejected. It is a literal as "the exact same size square peg fitting into the exact same size square hole." 

And be persistent and non relenting with HMSA. It will eventually work! It is YOUR damned money after all!

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

kalianna, 
Last year I switched to buying Extra Benefit Card items exclusively to Walmart.  The scanning app works at Walmart, never has at Long’s, and no list exists for specific items available at Long’s.

This year I switched from HMSA to Devoted.  There is no $20 monthly fee, and they take less money out of your social security.  

Try your card at Walmart, after all it’s your money extracted from your social security.  If you don’t spend it HMSA keeps it.

[ChunksterK]

Unless you have HMSA's Dual Care (Medicare Advantage and Medicaid) plan, the extra benefits plan was terminated at the end of 2025.