I recently closed my HSA through Optum from a previous employer (changed jobs more than a year ago and do not have an HSA through the current employer). No pre-tax contributions have been made in over a year. I depleted all of the pre-tax funds prior to 2025. Instead of closing the account, I contributed my own post-tax funds to the HSA directly from my bank account, $200. I did this to continue using the HSA card to make my medical copays, (I did not have a credit card at this time and didn’t want to expose another card to the hospital’s web portal). Because of the monthly maintenance fees, I closed my HSA account at the end of December 2025 with less than $20 in the account. Optum sent me a check for the amount.
When I closed the account, I asked the representative how I must handle the funds since they were my own post-tax contribution, but the rep did not have an answer for me. I haven’t cashed the check yet, and I am wondering how I should proceed to avoid any headaches in the future. (I don’t care about even depositing the $20 check, but I wanted to make sure that this is recorded properly so it doesn’t bite me down the line.) The Optum rep made it seem like I’m on the hook to transfer the check into another HSA even though I directly contributed the funds to the account from my bank account with their app post-tax.
I tried a search but the topics seemed to be about what to do about pre-tax contributions. Does anyone know how this should be handled? Should I just try getting another agent on the phone at Optum who might know better?