With thousands of people losing their job every day, many are worried about what will happen to their health care benefits if they get laid off. While making decisions about your health care insurance, don’t overlook your flexible spending account (FSA).

With an FSA, employees can contribute a certain amount of pretax money to pay for qualified medical expenses. Employees elect how much they want to contribute on a yearly basis and deductions are taken from their paychecks to fund the account. When employees incur qualified expenses, they can then submit for reimbursement from the FSA. Qualified expenses include insurance deductibles, dental work, eyeglasses, contact lenses and over-the-counter medications among other things. (For a full list of what qualifies as a medical expense, consult IRS Publication 502).

The tricky thing about FSAs is that they are a use-it-or-lose-it benefit. That means that if you don’t use all of your FSA funds by the end of the year, you lose whatever is left in the account. This rule usually leaves employers out ahead because they often get to hold onto money forgetful employees leave in their FSAs. If you get laid off, however, you could be the one to come out ahead.

If you are worried about losing your job, you should spend down everything in your FSA before your termination date. You usually have a grace period after you leave to file for the reimbursement, but all qualified expenses must have been incurred while you were still employed. The bonus is that you can spend the entire amount you elected to fund for the year even if you have not made all of your contributions. If/when you lose your job, your employer can’t ask you to repay the money.

So how is this possible? With FSAs you are allowed to “pre-fund,” which means you can spend the money in the account before it’s actually deposited. FSAs have a feature so that you don’t have to wait until the end of the year when your account is fully funded to get the benefits you need. For example, if you elected to fund your FSA at $1,200 on January 1 by paying $100 a month, you could then go out and spend the whole $1,200 the next day even if you hadn’t made any contributions yet. You would be reimbursed as normal and your monthly contributions would replenish the deficit in the account.

This rule works in your favor if you get laid off. Technically speaking, you could schedule all of your qualified appointments like trips to the dentist, eye exams or even stock up on over-the-counter meds up until the day you are terminated and leave your employer holding the bag. Whether that’s an ethical choice, however, is for you to decide.

You do have one other option for your FSA. You can choose to extend your FSA benefits under COBRA. To get COBRA coverage for your FSA, you have to continue making the same contribution (now with after-tax dollars) and pay a 2% charge. So if you were paying $100 a month, you would have to pay $102 a month. This option is usually only available if you do not have a deficit in your FSA before you leave your job, however.

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