Sam O'Keefe - Unlocking the $150 Billion HSA/FSA Opportunity

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now on to the show. Empower your staff, engage your members, and unlock your next chapter of growth with software design for you. For a limited time, get a very generous 50% off your first month. To redeem the offer, simply contact the teamup sales team and use the promo code the Future of Fitness.com. That is G-O-T-E-A-M-U-P dot com. Hey friends, this is Eric Balzone, and this episode of the Future of Fitness is brought to you by the Podcast Collective. Since our inception in 2023, we have emerged as the fitness, health, and wellness industry's premier podcast placement agency. We're honored to work with many of the industry's most prominent technologists, thought leaders, startup founders, and business executives. Why? Because they recognize that being on podcasts is the most effective way to authentically connect with their specific target audiences and rapidly grow a lucrative professional network. From podcast placements to speaking engagements, go-to-market strategies to investor relations, and media kits to press releases, the podcast collective brings a level of professionalism and deep industry expertise that can only be achieved by spending decades in the trenches. If you are a startup founder, business executive, emerging thought leader, or simply a savvy operator that understands the power of authentic media, learn more at podcastcollective.io and feel free to book a 30-minute strategy session with yours truly. Traditional media is dying on the vine. Podcasts are rising quickly to fill the void. Do not miss the boat. That's podcastcollective.io. All right, we're live. Sam O'Keeffe, welcome to the future of fitness.

Thanks for having me, Eric. Glad to be here.

Yeah, there's uh you, my friend, have found yourself at a very interesting time at a very interesting intersection of fitness, health, insurance, new monetary opportunities. And I've got the chance to talk to you at a couple events already this year, right? So Connected Health and Fitness, uh, HitchFay, which was last week, uh to kind of date our recording here. But uh I've enjoyed our conversations. You guys have definitely been garnering a lot of interest from the industry, not just fitness, but you know, wellness in a lot of different categories. We'll talk about that. So I'm excited to have the opportunity to maybe inform people about the opportunity, maybe dispel some of the confusions around HSA FSA access. So we're gonna get into all that. So stay tuned here, people buckle up. But Sam, let's start with this. Let's start with your background. It's an unusual background into our industry, and we'll start with that because that'll set the table.

Yeah, absolutely. I often get told that my background is, quote, interesting because I've I have worn a lot of different hats in my career to bring it to flex and why I'm so excited to be able to go to events like Connected Health and Fitness and HFA. It really stems from my background and my passion for sports and and for exercise. I grew up playing everything under the sun. I played three sports in college. As an adult, you know, I'm a CrossFitter, I ski, I hike, I do all the things. It's such a huge part of my identity. And I've never had an opportunity before to really bring that into my professional life. And so I think when you look at my resume, there's a question like, okay, well, this seems like maybe a hard pivot or like a really net new thing. And I just, I just love the fact that finally now kind of these this kind of personal interests and and passion I'm able to bring into my work and have that be something I I live and breathe every day. Yeah, that's some context. You know, before starting Flex, I was most recently, you know, at a fintech company along with my co-founder. We were building AML and fraud software. So we we kind of had our foot in the door there. You know, I've had students at places like Google, where I was a chief of staff, to Diane Green, who was the CEO of the cloud business over there. So I've done kind of like cloud and and developer engagement. I've been at uh TechCrunch, a media company working with a ton of startups. And so yeah, really glad to be at a point to take all that experience and actually combine it with my my personal interest here.

Yeah, amazing. So you started this almost two years ago, right, Flex?

We're coming up on two years, yeah, which is crazy in June officially.

So, how did you identify this? Like, where was where was the moment you're like, okay, I I can build a significant business around this? What was what was that aha moment?

Yeah, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to be able to say, like, I saw this huge opportunity off the bat. And the reality is it really stemmed from, you know, a personal interest and personal pain that I had. As I mentioned, you know, exercise, fitness, big part of my life. Always have known that that's what, you know, keeps me healthy physically, mentally. And also, you know, seeing my parents and my in-laws kind of aging, uh, how they're able to engage with my with my young kids is really quite different. And when I look at what's different about their lifestyles, a lot of it is exercise and and is movement. You know, my my mother-in-law is like a CrossFit Games athlete, which is like amazing. And I just try to keep up with her. And it's clear to me that all the time and things that she and and my father-in-law have put into exercise is really extending their health span and is able to give them this opportunity to do all of these things as they age. And so when I thought about starting a business, uh, I knew that I wanted to do something in this ecosystem. I wanted to connect health, which for me really was, you know, that fitness and exercise, with originally healthcare. I started, you know, in the spring of 2023 now, exploring what would it take to get health insurance coverage for exercise specifically. And then what would it take to get health insurance coverage for other wellness interventions? And I learned a lot in that exploration. There are some great companies working in that space. But when it came down to it, it felt like maybe I wasn't the best suited to solve that particular problem. And I still really wanted to be in this area. So I kept digging and came across, you know, HSAs and FSAs. And I think, like most people, I had heard of them. I had actually had an HSA for a lot of years, kind of put it on the shelf, wasn't utilizing it. And when I actually did the research and figured out where and how this can be used, what are the exceptions, why don't people use this more? It really came down to, you know, education. And then from a product perspective, it came down to infrastructure. Like the process to using these funds today was really onerous. You know, for most people, that meant paying out of pocket, knowing something was eligible and filing for reimbursement, or in some cases, actually having an appointment with their doctor to get, you know, uh, well, I'm sure we're gonna talk about letters of medical necessity, you know, getting that letter and submitting it for reimbursement. And oh, by the way, a lot of doctors aren't familiar with this, right? They've maybe submitted, you know, an insurance authorization, but they haven't done this letter of medical necessity. It's not widely used. And so the process is just so much friction there and barriers to people actually being able to use these funds on things that drive health. And so once I kind of understood that problem, from there, the the you know, the business opportunity was really clear. Okay, here's a problem we need to solve. I'll say the market opportunity is something that I continue to be really like uh kind of impressed by, to be honest, that the longer I'm in this business, the more opportunity I see and the bigger that market, because wellness is a huge consumer trend. It's growing, it spans a number of different categories. At the same time, the amount of money in HSAs and FSAs and the utilization of those accounts is growing. So more and more we just see this as just a massive opportunity across the board.

That's amazing. Let's sort of say on what is an HSA FSA?

Yes.

Let's let's describe it first and then we'll move to take it from there.

For sure. So these are two different uh types of accounts. So HSAs, health savings accounts, and FSAs, flexible spending accounts. And we, you know, we bucket them together, but there are a couple of key differences that are really helpful to understand. Both are offered often through your employer, and you often opt into them and set your contribution limits, you know, during open enrollment or when you have a life event when you're picking out your health insurance. So I think a lot of people think these are part of my health insurance when actually they are tax-advantaged financial accounts that can be spent on specific health-related purchases. And and who guides that is actually, you know, the IRS, which I think a lot of people are surprised to say, aren't their health, their healthcare accounts? Why isn't it, you know, HH, you know, the IRS involved? And it comes back to that tax advantage status. So to get back to the difference between these accounts, flexible spending accounts, those are actually owned by your employers, which is where that use it or lose it component comes in. So there's funds that are in those accounts, either from you or directly from your employer. And typically you need to use those funds within the plan year. So most commonly that's December 31st. And I think this is actually where a lot of the fear around these accounts stems from is that everyone knows someone that has gone out on December 30th and bought a year's worth of contact lenses or bought, you know, sunglasses that they didn't need. I got a text from a friend that's like a bucket of sunscreen, right? Because they didn't know where or how to spend this. And you're trying to plan what are my medical expenses going to be for the next year. And that's really, really hard, right? Health is unfortunately a little unpredictable at times. And so flexible spending accounts are maybe not so flexible, if I'm being honest. They're they're a little more prescriptive. And at the end of the year, any funds left in that account do go back to the employer. And so that's that's something to keep in mind. Health savings account, on the other hand, you need a high deductible health plan in order to qualify for an HSA in order to be eligible. And the thinking behind these accounts, which are newer, I will say, compared with FSAs, is with a high deductible, you want consumers to be able to kind of have like offset those health care costs. So that was kind of the original intent behind these accounts. And for that reason, you know, they're owned by the individual. So if you change jobs or, you know, year to year, those funds are gonna roll over, they're gonna stay with you. And uh because of that, you tend to see higher account balances in HSAs. The contribution limits tend to be uh quite a bit higher. I think on the high end, uh, right now is about $8,500 versus an FSA is more, you know, $3,300, $3,500. Let me pause there because that was a lot of information about these accounts. Does that are you following Eric? What other things do you think uh the community uh would be interested to know here?

Well, you know, I uh I am following mainly because this has been such a point of interest. Like uh Jason Paul is a friend of ours, and uh I'm sure he'll be on this podcast eventually, but he's starting a whole new form of insurance based on, you know, keeping people healthy, right? Like preventatively. Uh but he's he's really good at insurance, he's been in the inner the industry for 25 years. So he sat down, he walked my wife and I through enrollment because she gets uh you know, she has a corporate insurance through her employment. I'm more on the entrepreneurial side, I don't have that kind of stuff readily accessible. But I got a freestyle education on it, and he was really good about doing it. But I think a lot of people, like just knowing that these funds for a lot of people generally who are employed W-2 employees of most companies, probably have access to one or the other. Like what percentage of people do you think the United States have access to HSA?

Have access, I think it's roughly about a third.

Okay.

So it's a really sizable percent of the population. I think last I checked, there were about 70 million HSA and FSA accounts, and this might be like from last year or something, covering about a hundred million individuals. HSAs can be can be used for dependence as well. And so when you think about this population, a hundred million people, that's that's a lot of people. And um what we've seen in particular the HSA market has been growing a ton. Uh, you know, to be honest, I think from a business perspective, 10 years ago, this would have been less much less interesting just because the high deductible health plans were not as popular today. They make up, I believe it's 40% of all health plans uh being offered in the US. And so you just have more people that are eligible for the accounts, more people opening the accounts today. And so that's where, as a business owner, you might think about how do I enable people to use these? Because it is a really sizable pool of money at this point. I think $150 billion is sitting in these accounts right now.

That's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. It's such a huge opportunity. I think that's why there's so much excitement about it. I mean, there's well, let's start with this. So I'm gym, the gym operator. Okay. Yeah. I'm thinking like, can this benefit me? Like, who who can benefit from this on our industry side? Like, who can access this mass amount of dollars, this mass audience of people, 100 million people in the United States with all this money sitting aside that they're probably not knowing how to use? What kind of services can people use it for?

Yeah, I mean, broadly, we see anyone in what I'll call consumer wellness could could benefit from this. And to break that down a little further, you know, fitness is a huge category. That means in-studio fitness, that means equipment, that means apps. But moving through that, those wellness segments, that means uh sleep-related products. And we also see apps and coaching services. You look at the supplement space, which is massive. We also work in women's health. We work with wearables, in-home devices, like you know, air purifiers, even things like that that you wouldn't expect. Like a I love the example of a mattress because this actually came about from very personal experience. My husband had a herniated disc like early on when I was starting this business, was in a lot of pain. And and one of luckily that's passed, one of the first things the doctor said is, Well, what's your, you know, what's your work from home setup? What kind of desk chair do you have? And also, how old is your mattress? Because in terms of managing your pain and managing your systems, those are two things that are going to have a huge impact. And the thing with using these funds is that it really depends on the reason for a consumer using them. So there are some items like sunscreen, like contact lenses that we've talked about that are what the IRS calls always eligible. And we can get into more specifics there, but there's a whole category of things that could qualify. We call them dual purpose, and it really depends on the intent of the consumer. So if it is a medical need, that item, that purchase, can become eligible, which really widens the aperture, I think, of what has historically been thought of as an eligible expense.

Yeah. Uh aperture, good word, by the way.

Thanks.

What so what needs to happen? So something like a gym membership, yeah. Or a mattress or my my desk chair. Like what needs to happen to have that become a medical necessity and therefore qualify for HSA? Like, what is that process that happens? Because I mean, that's kind of what you guys do, right? I mean, we'll we'll get into exactly what you guys do, but what what does that process look like? What needs to shift?

Yeah, so fundamentally, what needs to happen, and this comes back to how these accounts are governed. So the IRS has a preordained kind of list of eligible expenses, section two D, I believe, and it's very explicit around certain categories. Things that are not included are things like gym memberships or ergonomic desk chairs. So for those businesses to take advantage, the consumers buying that membership, they need to qualify through what's called a letter of medical necessity. And that is, in short, a doctor's note that says this individual has a condition that can that can benefit from this product. And, you know, there's specific things, whether you're treating it, you're managing it, there's some elements of prevention that come into play here. The consumer needs to get that doctor's note for that purchase to be considered a medical expense. And so, you know, that's it at a very high level. How we at Flex enable businesses to streamline that process for consumers is I think what's really changing in the industry. Because to be honest, this, you know, when I was doing my discovery in this market, this flutter of medical necessity that's existed as something consumers could use for a long time. The difference is people didn't know about it, and the process was really onerous. And so that's where we as a technology provider come in and really allow whether it's a gym owner or an e-commerce store to streamline that process for consumers, ultimately driving more revenue and other impacts to the business.

Yeah. So uh let's walk through like an example. Mentioned Jim, the gym owner, right? Yeah. Uh operates a local, you know, health club or maybe a regional chain. He's like, well, okay, this seems to make a lot of sense. But I, you know, I'm busy, Sam. I got a lot of stuff going on. I gotta worry about my staff, I gotta worry about, you know, retention, I gotta worry about a build out, I gotta worry about equipment uh everything, maintenance, everything that goes into to running a gym. That sounds great. I would love to.

Yeah.

But it's difficult. So what needs to happen? Like what's what's the process?

Yeah, so I can speak to how it works with our business. So we kind of have two paths for someone like a studio owner or a uh multi-location owner. You know, the first path uh is by enabling reimbursement. And I'll say up front that this is gonna be your your low lift path, but it's also gonna be your your lower impact path from what we see. And this is basically, you know, the gym comes to Flex and says, Hey, I'd like to offer, I'd like to, I'd like to enable my members who are eligible to get reimbursed from their HSA or FSA. And what we're gonna do is basically set you up with the ability to offer, uh, you're gonna refer to Flex as your kind of telehealth provider here. So all you're gonna need to do is give us a couple of details about the business. We're gonna give you a custom link that you can share in your email, on your website, in printed materials that we're gonna provide. And anytime one of your members says, Hey, I'd like to use my HSA FSA for this purchase, you say, Great, here's here's the link. And then we basically take care of the rest. What we're gonna do is the person's coming to us, they're having that telehealth consultation, they're qualifying to use uh, they're getting the letter of medical necessity if they qualify. And then we're providing them, you know, instructions on how to submit for reimbursement. So very, very low lift on the gym owner's part. You know, we get these things that spun up in like a day or two. Now, the reason I say lower impact is because the onus is still on the consumer to do a lot of that work, right? They they need to pay up front, they need to go through our flow and they have to ultimately submit for reimbursement. And so, you know, anytime this is my like e-commerce hat coming on now, anytime you introduce friction, you know, in a checkout, you're gonna see more drop-offs. So it can be a really nice way to get up and running to test interest from your community. But we believe at Flex, really the best path at the long-term path for the industry is actually as uh a method of payment at checkouts. And so that's more akin to, you know, think of any time you pay for something, you might see credit debit, you might see PayPal, you might see a firm. We see HSA FSA as a payment method long term. And so that's really where our, you know, expertise and focus is is about maybe we'd we'd love to work with the gym owner. Often they actually don't control that part of their software, right? They're on a a platform. And so, you know, it's our hope. And envision that, you know, in the next several years, this will just be something that every platform has to offer because we see the consumer demand being there. And so in that situation, gym owner basically calls their software platform and says, hey, I'd like to offer this. They kind of turn it on in the back end as a added, you know, widget or payment method. And then consumers, the difference is now consumers at checkout can click that button, qualify uh for that letter of medical necessity and actually use their HSA and FSA cards directly. So these accounts, they give you a debit card. More and more consumers we see actually using that. And then once you do that, you're done. There's no reimbursement. You know, we send you all the paperwork so you have it on file in the case of an audit or anything like that, but it's so smooth. And it really is a great customer experience. And ultimately, that's what's going to drive the business impact for the studio.

Awesome. And talk to me about the qualification process for that letter of medical necessity. Like what is what goes into that?

Yeah. This is something. So we I'll just be up front and say it's not, you know, Sam at Flex assigning, you know, rubber stamping all of these folks. When consumers come through our flow, we partner very closely with telehealth providers. So these are NPs or MDs that are actually making that clinical designation. And what we'll do is on the front end, we're collecting relevant medical information based on the product that you're looking to buy. So in the case of a gym membership, you know, exercise is one of our most widely, I'll say, used and also like qualifying products because ever every study shows that exercise is helpful. Even I just read a study on concussions where they were like, they used to say don't move, and now it's like you should move, right? It just seems like exercise is so beneficial. So in that case, you know, there's a very broad set of conditions that an individual could qualify with. If you're thinking, uh if we're looking at something like, you know, a supplement or something in the red light therapy space or an ergonomic gesture, you know, that qualifying condition does change. And so, you know, in our flow, we're we're very thoughtful to collect and screen folks that actually map to, you know, the product itself. So you're not getting, you know, just because I have, I don't know, uh a sprained ankle, I don't know if I need a red light therapy face mask, you know what I mean? So there's we want to make sure that we're really uh aligning with that intent of that letter of medical necessity. But yeah, our all it is is a chat chat based. So you'll just have a, you know, no scheduling, no video, kind of a chat-based interaction. And at the end of it, you'll find out if you qualify and be able to pay right away.

And then how is the how do you set up your commercial relationship with like we'll keep it on the same thing? Jim the gym owner owns a regional health club. How does that work with you guys?

Yeah, it really depends on the model of engagement for the the reimbursement side. You know, a lot of the fees are passed to the consumer in most cases. We do have some studios that say, you know what, this is a great acquisition channel, this is a great retention channel. We're gonna front um those costs. But more often than not, you know, consumers are are kind of paying out of pocket to be able to use these funds. In the case that the, you know, we're doing HSA FSA payment, you know, that business model looks a lot more like an alternative payment method. And so that typically tends to fall to the merchant.

Got it. And then what have you seen like from you know, I imagine there's so many ways of like it's not just you just sign up for this as a gym, but also you need to properly notify your your gym clients, you need to notify any someone who's maybe on your list and who's been thinking about joining. So, like, what have you seen from an acquisition and and revenue standpoint? Like, what are some of the the success stories here?

Yeah, there's like so many different facets of this to dive into. I think for the studio itself, I actually see the most impact around retention. Just if you think of an in-person gym or or boutique studio, it is a little bit of like geofenced, right? Like you're not gonna attract someone from 50 miles away because you offer this method, right? So you are, you know, potentially getting some net new customers in your target community. But more than that, what we see is when people actually switch to using their HSAFSA for the recurring membership, they're gonna stay with you longer. They they tend to see this as a separate pool of funds, you know, when maybe when they're looking at budgeting or or where they need to tighten the belt, this is a separate category. And so it doesn't get impacted and cut quite so quickly as compared with maybe a regular spend. We also see folks on these payment methods like purchasing more ancillary services. So whether that's a private training session or a nutrition coaching session or things like that. Because again, I think the consumer behavior here is that is it's a separate and like health. Oh, I should be spending this on health kind of pool of funds. Um so that's what we, you know, what I tend to see in a studio model are those types of metrics. We work with a lot of also, you know, D2C, uh direct to consumer, whether it's apps or physical products, you know, e-commerce brand. And there, you know, we tend to look at acquisition for new customers, we look at checkout rate conversion, things more at that part of the funnel.

Yeah, I mean, on the e-commerce side, it's it's been like so. I I work with Dark Horse Rowing and we're signing up for Flex right now, and just for like the ability to, you know, at a $30 a month subscription, right, for something like that, which is you know a rowing app, it makes a ton of sense. I mean, that's just money like people, I think the consumer looks at this money that needs to be spent, right? Like they they need to spend it somehow, some way, right? So they might as well spend it on things that they like or they feel that you know brings brings value to their life or moves them on a path towards a healthier life. It's it's really interesting. And then what about like in the gym setting? Is like once someone's in and you mentioned, you know, ancillary services like personal training or maybe small group training, but what about like products like maybe like uh you know if there's a juice bar or if there's like they sell hyper ice stuff, like you what about those types of things?

Yeah, definitely. There's it really depends on on the additional services. So there are things like actually hyper ice is a great example because a lot of those products are actually, they don't need a letter of medical necessity. They're eligible, kind of out of the box, as I say. And so the way that Flex works is we're actually able to at checkout identify, you know, at the product level what is what needs a letter and what doesn't. And so if you're only buying those types of items, you know, we're not gonna make you go through and get a doctor's note for it, we're gonna allow you to check out right away. So, which is pretty cool. And so if you're thinking about, you know, you're a large gym and you're you know building out your juice bar, you're building out your apparel section, or you're building out all of these other kind of components, which we see more and more, right? Fitness is becoming like a hub for wellness. So I think more and more like services are coming together. We're our job is to make you not worry about compliance and eligibility or anything like that, right? Like, you know, plug us in, let us do that work. And and as a business, you don't really need to think about it. And we're we're making sure that your consumers are checking out for eligible items, things like you know, apparel and whatnot, those aren't gonna qualify, but that's okay. You know, we're still able to get folks to be able to use their uh tax advantage funds on the majority of those purchases.

Yeah, it's it's pretty incredible. I mean, uh, if people go to your website with flex.com, like they can see from the consumer angle and then the business standpoint of like I I breeze through like the consumer standpoint, I sent it to my wife. I'm like, look at all the money anywhere we could spend all your money on. It's her money, right? Uh but I'm like, well, this is cool. Uh a lot of stuff that I didn't know we could we could buy now. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, and then so let's talk about like when same thing, like a health club operator signs up for this. How do you get the word out? Do you make suggestions for them to like send an email blast or put it on the website or like what's the best way to actually leverage it once once gyms and health clubs are signed up?

Well, absolutely. And I think a big part of our job is partnering with those merchants and and helping them be successful with this, right? Like that's that's our whole business. So yeah, it really depends on what the business is uh that we're working with and what they've seen work with with their audience. You know, some gyms have a very engaged, you know, newsletter following, some of that's on social, sometimes it's in-person, you know, signage. It could be training the staff, you know, at a gym location. And so we're we do have a lot of kind of best practices that we've seen and and assets that we share, but ultimately we'll come in and work with with the owner, the manager, whoever is the main point of contact and understand how they like to educate and what's been successful, maybe in other initiatives, and then we'll tailor, you know, what we provide those folks to to those channels.

That's a huge value. I mean, I don't think that can be understated or overstated. Like it's uh it's one thing to sign up, but it's one thing to educate your your membership or the potential members or whoever your your consumers are, like on okay, this is actually here, and here's how to use it. Like, like you mentioned, friction is a big problem because a lot of people still don't really understand. Like, uh, I know my wife's HSA card has sat in her wallet for a very long time. Same thing around November. We're like, oh God, like what do we what do we do with it, right? Um if we even remember.

I'm impressed it's in her wallet, to be honest. Like, that's your your wife's I think it is.

I know it's not in my wallet, yeah. I would spend it, but she has one. That's the whole point. So it's that that's a huge value that you guys you guys have there. I want to get a little bit because talking about where where this can head to, right? Like the direction of you know, three, four, or five years from now. I mean, it's it's very interesting time. You and I were both at HFA, felt very optimistic. It was full. They had like over 10,000 people attending again, which is pre-pandemic numbers. But you know, it's the change, the industry has changed so much. And now, you know, this has been a topic that's come up numerous times as we have, you know, new administration in the White House. You know, there seems to be more focus or at least rhetoric around the health of the nation, which is good. How that plays out, we'll see. But you know, where do you think this is? Is this just an opening for something bigger? Like, what's your vision, let's say five years from now, 2030? Like, how do you see the initial the integration of healthcare into fitness and and wellness and you know, health insurance and more HSAs and more funds and things like that?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I see a lot of positive momentum, you know, in this category. And that's both out of the the current administration, but also I think just the general like why is that happening? I think consumers are really much more aware of health and how really health is a lot of lifestyle choices, right? I it's very rare that I have a conversation with someone about health and they're talking about at my annual doctor's visit, you know, we we talked about all these things. It's you know, that's always going to be a component. And, you know, I have I've had the privilege of having some great doctors when when I needed them, but more and more people are recognizing that, you know, that the actions I take every single day and the the life that I lifestyle I have and the the products I use really does have an impact not just on health, but health stand. And so I think that momentum is pushing, whether it's this administration or or the next, to think about consumer-driven healthcare in a way that we haven't really seen before. And so we we're very optimistic, you know, everything that we're seeing is around expanding access to HSAs, to new populations, to increasing the contribution limits of these accounts, to maybe broadening the the scope of what's eligible, you know, without a letter of medical necessity, which, you know, from my perspective, that's a great, you know, kind of workaround. That's a great path to make things more accessible. Wouldn't it be great if all this stuff that really made you healthy, like you could just use your cards on? Like that would that that would be amazing. And just again, lowering friction, making it better for consumers and better for their health. So yeah, we're really encouraged to see all of the dialogue around this category. And I think, yeah, we'll we'll see what actually ends up landing. But so far, it feels like there's gonna be a lot of expansion in this category.

Yeah, and it's uh I've talked about this so many times. It's just we need a revamp of the whole healthcare system. And I do believe fundamentally that's gonna start from the ground up. Like, you know, uh insurance providers, you know, are motivated and aligned to make profit, right? That's that's what they need to do. Whether you agree with that, it's just the way it is. But you know, once it kind of starts from the consumer level and starts to work up, like this is what consumers want, this is what they're looking for, this is where they want to put their money, um, that starts to change the conversation. It's it's difficult. I mean, we've been talking about the Fed Act here for many decades within our industry, and I hope it still passes, but I think you know, there's other angles maybe we have to to really consider is like stuff like this. And, you know, talking to uh Dr. Gloria Winters, who's the chief health officer at YMCA and her vision for how you know the the health clubs could be at the forefront of healthcare. Like these are all small steps that, you know, as they start to combine over time, I think is a very, very encouraging opportunity for for the industry that we've we've been in for a long time.

Yeah, absolutely. It does feel like at this moment there's, you know, we're kind of at an inflection point. Like maybe this has been growing for some time, but but now it does feel like there's a different energy behind these conversations that I think hasn't existed in the past. And so hopefully, you know, we can turn that energy into some real action and help folks, you know, access the products and services that they see driving their health the most.

Awesome. As an industry, Sam, how how can we help you? And by what I mean by that is like, what's one of the challenges you're facing as a business right now? Is it, you know, staffing? Are you looking for investment? Are you looking for growth or partnerships? Like, what's key to you? And what if people are going to reach out, what would you like to hear from them about?

Yeah. I mean, we just want to enable as many businesses and as many consumers to leverage this opportunity as possible. So if you're a studio, if you're a franchise owner, if you sell an app or something on e-commerce, like please do reach out. Even if you're not sure, even if you're reaching out and you're like, do we qualify? Like, could this work for us? A lot of what we do is education, is consulting during our process to help make sure that this is a really good fit for your business. So, and we're always surprised by who comes in the door. And again, that gives us more and more use cases. You know, we feel that pull from the market with new types of businesses putting their hand up and saying, I think this might apply to us. And we look at it, we go, actually, yeah, it really does. And then it unlocks, you know, huge categories. So the biggest thing we're looking for is just to meet, you know, more merchants that are really interested in learning about this opportunity. Yeah, that's that's top of mind for me every day.

Yeah. I mean, in my mind, I I think of like dozens of partnerships for you guys as well. I mean, from you know, software companies to, you know, consulting agencies to whatever it is. There, there's a million different angles here. I mean, you guys are really well positioned to basically align with everybody. You can partner with everybody within the industry. So that's that's nice, right? From a sales strategy, good for you.

You know, I love being in this business for a lot of reasons. You know, if we're successful, hopefully we drive health impact. That's like, you know, number one and and top of mind. But also, you know, we we if we're successful as a business, that means that the merchants we've worked with have been successful, that they've actually seen new customers and retention acquisition, which is which is great. And why did they see that? It's because consumers, like we actually solved a problem for the consumer. We we made it much easier to deploy these funds when and when and how they want to. And so, you know, I've been in a lot of different types of business as we started this conversation around my career. And and that, you know, alignment doesn't all isn't always so clear. And so it just makes our job like so enjoyable to actually know that, you know, if we if we do well, then the whole ecosystem does well.

Yeah, awesome. Okay, so people want to obviously with flex.com, that's your website. If people want to reach out to you personally, Sam, is there a way they can get a hold of you or where would you like them to go?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we have a we have a form on with flex.com. Um you can also, you know, find me on LinkedIn. And I'm pretty responsive to messages there. Just Sam O'Keefe, look up Flex. It should pop right up. And then also uh email if you want to reach out, hello at with flex.com. And that uh, you know, we're not uh we're growing a ton, but uh, I'm still gonna see those emails. So feel free to shoot a message over there.

Well, Sam, thank you so much for joining me. It's been really uh educational. I think this is something that hopefully people look at as like a fundamental introduction into HSA, FSA. Obviously, the the solutions that you provide, and they look into it. You know, it's it's that's all we want. Just give it a couple minutes, see if the opportunity is right for you, but it probably is. And uh yeah, really, really cool stuff you're building. So thanks for joining me. Ladies and gentlemen, same old cleaner. Thanks so much, Eric. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futurofitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.