Health Savings Accounts now allow a $500 carryover

In the past, if you had a Health Savings Account with a balance at the end of the year, you surrendered the balance.  The IRS issued Notice 2013-71, which permits companies to amend their Sec. 125 cafeteria plans to allow participants in health flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) who do not use all of the money in a plan year to use up to $500 in the next plan year, in addition to the regular $2,500 limit during the succeeding year. Employers may amend their cafeteria plans to adopt the carryover provision for the current cafeteria plan year or any subsequent plan year.

The new carryover rule offers an alternative to the current grace period rule, and companies that adopt this new carryover rule are not permitted to also offer the grace period. Under the grace period rule, introduced in 2005, a cafeteria plan can allow participants to spend unused amounts in the first two months and fifteen days after the beginning of the next plan year.
Health FSAs in cafeteria plans permit employees to pay for qualified medical expenses such as co-pays and deductibles, eyeglasses, and hearing aids on a pretax basis. Once the plan year ends, employees lose any money left in the accounts under the use-it-or-lose-it rule (unless the employer offers the grace period). This new carryover rule helps employees by allowing them to make the election without worrying they will forfeit some of their money and to lessen the incentive to make wasteful purchases (such as for a third pair of eyeglasses) at the end of a year to exhaust the funds.
Employers are not required to allow the $500 carryover (and can also set a lower limit) or the grace period, but to participate, employers must amend their plans on or before the last day of the plan year for which amounts may be carried over, and may be effective retroactively, provided certain requirements are met.