FSA -am I doing this right? Banking funds for reimbursement later

Location – NYC, NY 10016

Employer health FSA plan (allows for both a debit card and reimbursement) managed via BRI

Apologies if this is dumb-I've never had an FSA before.

I'm the spouse of a new employee who needs to make FSA elections soon w/in the next couple of weeks, effective 11/1/23. For simplicity here, I'm going to exclude other FSA contributions that I've already figured out.

I'm at the tail end of having braces (paid in monthly installments) and have a balance of $950. The braces should be complete by Dec '23 or Jan '24. This balance is required to be settled before they will complete the treatment.

My bad math tells me that $80/m should be allocated to the FSA ($950/12m). The $ election cannot be changed again until Nov 2024. There's a 75 day grace period to access funds after.

Can I pay for the $950 balance on my own and then submit for reimbursement to the FSA 9+ months from now after that much has been banked in to the FSA account? And it doesn't matter that this treatment began long before the FSA correct?

Thank you.

submitted by /u/photochic1124
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