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FSA Accounts and Merchant Category Codes

As many of you know, Massage Therapy is usually covered under Medical Flex Spending Accounts. Visa has worked out a program with the administrators of these accounts to issue Visa FSA account cards so that it is easier for people to use thier money on health services and products. They no longer have to submit paperwork to get reimbursed, it just comes out of the account. To combat fraud, the accounts now look at your MCC (merchant category code) that was assigned to you if you accept credit cards. If you don't have a health care code, people won't be able to use the cards at your place. I've talked to a few people and they have no idea what code they were assigned. Worse, if they were asigned the code 7297- Massage Parlors, then credit issuers downgrade peoples credit because they think they have a "bad lifestyle".
Does anyone have any experience with this? What category are you listed under?

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Permalink Reply by Laura Allen on January 29, 2010 at 12:35pm

Yes, I have had that exact experience. It took me throwing an old-fashioned Southern Hissy Fit to get them to change my code to a health care provider--8099, Medical Services--which I was able to do due to having a chiropractor, a naturopath, and an acupuncturist on my staff.

There is also 7298, Health and Beauty Spas.

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Permalink Reply by Noel Norwick on February 24, 2010 at 12:05pm

Hi Rick: Thank you for this link! FYI - I found the "Health Practitioners, Medical Services—Not Elsewhere Classified" MCC code 8099 on the Visa document page #244, while my Adobe reader showed it to be page #254 of 302 total pages.

Rick Morgan said:

In case anyone else has to do the "Southern Hissy Fit" about having your MCC changed to 8099, I found the Compliance Rules that Visa issued Nov 2008 which specifically labeled "Massage-Therapeutic" in the MCC code of 8099.
Here is the link to the full document
http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/visa-usa-operating-regulatio...
skip to page 249 for the listing.