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Merchant Resources

Best HSA FSA Payment Solutions for Yoga Studios in 2026

Yulia Derdemezis Flex Head of Marketing

Yulia Derdemezis

Head of Marketing at Flex

Flex’s IIAS for Merchants Explained with IRS Rules

🚀 Fast Facts: HSA/FSA payments for yoga studios

  • HSA/FSA payments requires using a compliant payment provider

  • You need to confirm your eligibility before setting up HSA/FSA payments

  • 2 of the most important features for yoga studios are subscription and membership models, and integrated LMN consultations

As a yoga studio, you could be looking at a large source of missed revenue by not having Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) payments enabled on your ecommerce platform. To do this, you need to confirm your eligibility to accept HSA/FSA payments per IRS rules and guidelines, and you need to ensure the HSA/FSA payment provider you choose has the features that a yoga studio needs.

To help you get set up, we’ll cover the process from start to finish with everything you need to know about HSA/FSA payment compliance for yoga studios, including: 

Let’s start by covering key things you need to know before setting up HSA and FSA payments for your yoga services.

HSA/FSA payment compliance for yoga studios: 5 things to know first

Before you put an HSA/FSA payment provider in place, the following things are important for yoga studios to know, as well as businesses and merchants that sell yoga-related products and services.

1. You need to use an IRS compliant payment processing tool

For HSA/FSA payments to go through, a payment provider needs to be able to confirm a product is eligible under IRS rules & regulations for HSAs & FSAs. First and foremost, you need to use a compliant HSA/FSA payment processing system that is set up to properly substantiate HSA and FSA payments. 

The payment processor needs to be capable of verifying that products are eligible to be paid for by customers using HSA/FSA funds, and automatically substantiate that purchase at checkout to ensure the payment goes through.

Ultimately, you want a solution that will meet IRS eligibility requirements, so you can simply add this as a payment option without any worries.

2. You need to confirm that your products and services are HSA/FSA eligible

For customers to buy products with their HSA or FSA, the product or service has to be for a medical condition (according to IRS rules). To help your customers ensure their purchases qualify, you’ll want to make sure any medically beneficial products you sell are clearly marketed as a medical product or service.

Most yoga classes and services (including studio memberships) are HSA/FSA eligible when used as part of a medical treatment plan, and confirmed as medically necessary in a Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) from a licensed healthcare practitioner.

By clearly defining the medical benefits linked to your service, you make it easier for customers to justify your product or service as a medical expense, and minimize the resistance they would get from expensing your services using their HSA/FSA plan.

We have a full guide for consumers on when yoga classes and services are HSA/FSA eligible. Check it out for a detailed explanation of whether your products and services would be eligible for HSA/FSA payments.

3. You must provide itemized receipts & records to your customers

HSA and FSA providers, and the IRS if performing an audit, may request itemized receipts to authenticate these HSA/FSA purchases when customers submit a claim for reimbursement. 

Even when customers pay at checkout using an HSA or FSA card, the IRS can request records to prove the medical expense was justified. So you’ll still need to provide your customer a record of the purchase, ideally one that makes it clear what product or services they acquired, so they’re able to qualify it as a medical expense and keep a record just in case.

4. You should help your customers assess eligibility on your website

Indicators of HSA/FSA eligibility on a website

It doesn’t do you a lot of good to have a client make a purchase thinking that your product is eligible just to find out later it’s not. They’ll be left paying for this out-of-pocket, which will also give them a bad first impression of your brand. While you’re more likely to convert on a single purchase, this can actually harm your brand reputation in the long term.

While it’s not exactly your responsibility, it’s a good practice to help your customers assess product eligibility before they make a purchase. This will give your customers more confidence when buying from you, and increase brand retention. After confirming your yoga products and services are HSA/FSA eligible, indicate this on your website, or even offer an HSA/FSA guide to your products and services, clearly outlining why customers would be eligible to pay with their HSA/FSA funds.

5. To reduce cart abandonment, you should facilitate Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) consultations

Flex’s online LMN consultation for a yoga studio

In most cases, an HSA or FSA provider will require a Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) to qualify a yoga studio as an eligible purchase. To facilitate convenient and expedient HSA or FSA payments, you’ll want to have an integrated LMN service that connects the client with a medical practitioner that can assess their case and issue an LMN right from your website or at checkout (when appropriate). 

This helps with checkout conversions, as customers can be confident they qualify before making the purchase. It also provides them a lot of convenience, as they don’t have to schedule an appointment with their doctor, delaying their purchase.

5 key HSA/FSA payments tool features that are most important for yoga businesses

There are a few different ways to enable HSA/FSA payments, but as a yoga business, you face unique challenges that require specific features in your HSA/FSA payments solution. Without these features, the provider may not be the right fit for a yoga studio:

1. Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) consultations

Because a Letter of Medical Necessity is generally essential for a customer to be eligible to expense yoga services to their HSA/FSA, providing this option to your customers is a must for yoga studios. Ideally, the payment provider is set up to offer an LMN consultation with a licensed telehealth medical practitioner, who can go through the necessary questions to determine eligibility for your customers. The LMN is then sent by email shortly after the consultation, so your customers have it to make their purchase eligible.

Without this option on your website or at checkout, you’ll see significant dropoffs in conversions and more checkout abandonment, as your customers:

  • Won’t be sure they are eligible to make the purchase using HSA/FSA funds

  • Will halt the purchase (for sometimes weeks) because they need an appointment with their doctor

  • Will be unsure if they can sign up without obtaining their letter first

  • Won’t want to commit to a membership pricing model without already having their letter

Having a seamless way of administering an LMN is essential for any yoga studios looking to enable HSA/FSA payments.

2. Supports membership and subscription pricing models

Recurring monthly memberships and ongoing subscriptions are key revenue drivers for yoga studios, so your HSA/FSA payment provider should be set up to work with a diverse range of pricing models. Make sure your provider works with membership and subscription models, and be sure to focus on this question and how it would work on their platform when doing a product demo.

3. Can auto-substantiate purchases right at checkout so customers can use HSA/FSA cards directly

Your customers can obtain an LMN from their own doctor, pay for their membership in person, and then expense the purchase to their HSA/FSA account later, but this method means they need to pay out of pocket, and wait for reimbursement later.

By offering customers the ability to pay directly on your website, they can use their HSA/FSA cards, and instantly know whether the purchase qualifies. They also don’t need to pay out of pocket, which leads to less friction in the checkout process.

4. Offers a split-cart payment option

Split payment card option in a Flex-powered checkout

When the entire purchase isn’t HSA/FSA eligible, customers want a way to split their payment between their HSA/FSA account and another payment method like a debit or credit card. This allows them to still pay for things that are eligible — like a monthly studio membership — with their HSA/FSA card, but pay for other things that aren’t eligible — like a hot room towel rental or your merch — with another payment card, but all in one transaction.

5. Supports coupons and promo codes

Just because your customers are paying using their HSA or FSA funds doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to take advantage of promotional offers. Allowing customers to use coupons and promo codes when purchasing with their HSA/FSA funds encourages more people to buy, and leads to less dropoff when you’ve attracted new customers to your website through coupons and promotions.

5 best HSA/FSA compliant payment solutions for yoga studios

Let’s look at some of the top HSA/FSA payment providers that are ideally suited for yoga studios:

1. Flex HSA/FSA payments

Flex online consultation during checkout

Flex makes it incredibly simple for businesses and merchants to enable and support HSA and FSA payments. We integrate seamlessly with your existing ecommerce tech stack and into your custom checkout, providing a payment overlay that lets customers easily choose Flex as an available payment option at checkout, and then fill in their HSA/FSA card information, just like a credit or debit card.

With this set up, your customers can effortlessly buy your products and services with their HSA and FSA funds. Our integrated LMN capabilities are ideal for yoga-related products, offering a Letter of Medical Necessity consultation right at checkout. 

You can even get the LMN consultation set up on your website, even if you don’t want to accept HSA/FSA payments directly at checkout. Your customers can still complete an LMN consultation for your services, obtain their letter, and then pay in person in your studio and submit their purchase for reimbursement later.

Flex is the ideal HSA/FSA payment solution for yoga studios because of how flexibly it integrates with your existing ecommerce stack. Below are some useful systems you may use alongside Flex, that all support HSA/FSA payments.

Note: None of these ecommerce solutions below automatically accept HSA/FSA payments. You need to enable them on your ecommerce platform, and then add an HSA/FSA payment provider like Flex to substantiate the purchases at checkout. Think of it like this: to accept HSA/FSA payments as a yoga studio, you need an ecommerce platform (your website) where you already sell your services, and then an HSA/FSA payment provider that can integrate with your website.

2. Shopify

Shopify doesn’t automatically allow HSA/FSA payments, but you can enable them if you request it. You just need to meet a few basic requirements: your store needs to be currently active and needs to be publicly accessible, at least 90% of sales need to be attributed to medical goods and services, and your medical products must belong to a category approved by the IRS.

If you don’t meet those criteria, you can get set up with Flex, which can help confirm which products you sell are eligible. Once approved, you’ll be able to accept HSA/FSA payments through Shopify, making this relatively easy to add to your Shopify store.

See how Flex works with Shopify stores, empowering merchants to easily and conveniently process payments for HSA/FSA-eligible products.

3. Stripe

With Stripe, HSA and FSA payments aren’t automatically set up, but they can be enabled. As an approved acquirer for merchants, brands can set up payments directly from their HSA/FSA funds. You’ll just need to use one of the HSA/FSA-eligible merchant category codes or attest that 90% of your sales come from HSA/FSA goods and services. 

Alternatively, you can get IIAS certification, which Stripe makes it incredibly easy to qualify for and integrate.

Flex is designed to integrate seamlessly with the Stripe checkout as well, so merchants can easily integrate it as a payment option.

4. WooCommerce

WooCommerce’s simplified payment system, WooPayments, is equipped to handle HSA and FSA payments when set up, you’ll just need to have an eligible MCC. This makes it easy for you to accept payments on eligible items without hassle.

Notably, WooPayments doesn’t support HSA or FSA payments for businesses with MCC 5912 (Drug Stores and Pharmacies) and MCC 7298 (Health and Beauty Spas).

5. RevenueCat

RevenueCat helps teams manage in-app subscriptions and purchases, helping you optimize workflows and processes to maximize revenue. Through their partnership with Flex, RevenueCat is able to process HSA/FSA-eligible payments for in-app subscriptions, enabling customers to get more from their HSA and FSA funds.

How to get HSA/FSA payments set up for your yoga studio

You want to make sure you get this right so you remain compliant and have HSA/FSA payment processing set up correctly. This is a high-level of the main steps any brand would need to go through, though the specifics of each step will vary depending on your ecommerce website and HSA/FSA payments provider.

1. Confirm eligibility with your payment provider

Before you start designing winning payment flows, you’ll want to make sure you’re eligible to accept HSA and FSA payments. Check with your payment provider to ensure the products you want to accept payment for are IRS-compliant, and that you’re eligible to set payments up on your website. Make sure you understand any internal rules or guidelines they have as well.

2. Onboard with the HSA/FSA payment provider

You’ll need to onboard with the payment provider, which will likely involve creating an account and submitting your payment information. You will likely need to provide and verify information like your personal, business, and banking details.

This should be pretty straightforward, as you’ll simply be onboarding to the system. In some cases, this will involve some high-level onboarding training to acquaint yourself with the dashboard and the system itself.

For a more detailed example, this is how we onboard merchants at Flex.

3. Build your custom checkout flow that now includes HSA/FSA payments

Forme’s checkout with Flex

Using your ecommerce platform, you can design and build custom checkout flows that include the option to pay for eligible items using your HSA/FSA card. You can customize and streamline your checkout so it’s easy for customers to choose this payment option, process their payment, and get an LMN when needed.

4. Advertise that you accept HSA/FSA payments

Forme’s product page with an eligibility label

Advertise clearly on your website — and anywhere else you sell your product — that you accept HSA and FSA payments on eligible products and services. Use a sticker or label that stands out and makes it clear which products qualify, so your customers can shop with absolute confidence.

3 FAQs for yoga studios that want to accept HSA/FSA payments

Yoga studios sit in a unique position. Their services are certainly medically beneficial, but typically aren’t automatically eligible as a medical expense unless it’s for a qualifying treatment. Below, we cover some essential HSA/FSA payment FAQs that yoga studios should know.

1. Which yoga products and services can you sell that are HSA/FSA eligible?

A variety of yoga-related products and services can be eligible for purchase through an HSA/FSA, as long as they qualify as a medical expense under IRS guidelines. In almost all cases, an LMN will be required to justify why the purchase is needed for treatment. 

When your customers have an LMN, the following yoga products and services can be eligible for purchase with your HSA or FSA funds:

  • Yoga studio membership or subscription

  • Structured yoga classes

  • Online yoga sessions

  • Yoga mats, blocks, and props

  • Yoga straps, bolsters, and meditation cushions

  • Yoga towels and other accessories

We have a guide to yoga HSA and FSA eligibility you can review for more detailed information about which of your products or services your customers can pay for using their HSAs/FSAs.

2. How do I choose an HSA/FSA payment provider?

To choose the right HSA/FSA payment provider for you, you need to evaluate the features that are most important to you, and ensure the tool you choose is set up with those features that are necessary for yoga studios.

For yoga studios, one of the the most important features to focus on is making sure you enable Letter of Medical Necessity consultations at checkout, as your customers will likely be required to have one to be eligible to make their purchase at your studio.

The other most important feature for yoga studios is an HSA/FSA payment provider that supports memberships and subscription models at checkout, as this type of recurring revenue is very important to yoga studios.

3. How does an HSA/FSA payment provider actually work for a yoga studio?

An HSA and FSA payment processing tool helps yoga businesses accept HSA/FSA payments while handling the eligibility and compliance aspect during checkout (so you don’t have to).

When a customer selects HSA/FSA as their payment option at checkout, the HSA/FSA payments provider will confirm whether the purchase is eligible based on the applicable guidelines. If additional documentation is required, the customer may be guided through an LMN consultation to determine their eligibility. 

Once complete, the customer enters their HSA/FSA card details just like they would with a credit card, and the HSA/FSA payment provider processes the payment.

HSA/FSA payment providers need to adhere to strict IRS eligibility guidelines and applicable compliance requirements to support these kinds of transactions on your website, so they should work with your team to review product eligibility before integrating HSA/FSA payments into your checkout flow.

In Summary

Yoga studios need to make sure they rigidly follow IRS compliance when setting up HSA/FSA payments, as yoga services and products typically only qualify as HSA/FSA eligible when customers have a Letter of Medical Necessity (LMN) to confirm their eligibility.

Since most studios use a membership subscription model, the HSA/FSA payment provider needs to be able to facilitate this. On top of this, since an LMN is almost always a necessity, yoga studios and merchants that sell yoga-related products need to have an HSA/FSA payment solution that makes it easy for customers to get an LMN at checkout.

Flex has a fully integrated Letter of Medical Necessity process that confirms eligibility and gets your customers an LMN for their records. Customers can still checkout and pay with their HSA/FSA funds directly at checkout without any holdups. Contact the HSA/FSA experts at Flex today to find out how we can help you start accepting HSA and FSA payments for eligible yoga products and services today.

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