Christian Healthcare Ministries questions

[Crowmangler]

What happens if there’s a catastrophic accident or something else totally unexpected? You could rack up a 6 figure bill very quickly. You’re supposed to front that out of pocket? I’d bet the vast majority on this plan don’t have that kind of cash floating around. What kind of assurance do you have that the pool of funds will always be sufficient to cover expenses? What’s it backed by? Are the financials made public to prospective purchasers?

No personal experience with this idea of “insurance”, just curious. I don’t understand it. I am a finance professional, yet also a Christian, so I find this concept fascinating, even though it’s a textbook Ponzi Scheme.

Calling it a Ponzi Scheme is a bit harsh don't you think? Are you saying you trust the insurance company to always do the right thing 100% of the time?

Thanks to the Unaffordable care act my premiums quadrupled and the deductible increased substantially every year. Basically I would pay over $20k out of pocket before they would cover anything at all. For someone who (luckily) hardly ever ever needed health care it was hard to justify. Every year it got jacked up more & more & I got tired of feeling like I was pulling everybody else's wagon.

It may not be right for everyone but for a single, self employed person who gets hosed every which way you turn it made sense (and cents) to me.

I don't remember the exact details but when you sign up for the top "gold" level you can add the "Brother's Keeper" program (for an additional $17 per month roughly) which provides unlimited financial sharing assistance in the event of catastrophic event.

Just think of it as "decentralized health care insurance" lol

 

[SDHNTR]

Calling it a Ponzi Scheme is a bit harsh don't you think? Are you saying you trust the insurance company to always do the right thing 100% of the time?

Thanks to the Unaffordable care act my premiums quadrupled and the deductible increased substantially every year. Basically I would pay over $20k out of pocket before they would cover anything at all. For someone who (luckily) hardly ever ever needed health care it was hard to justify. Every year it got jacked up more & more & I got tired of feeling like I was pulling everybody else's wagon.

It may not be right for everyone but for a single, self employed person who gets hosed every which way you turn it made sense (and cents) to me.

I don't remember the exact details but when you sign up for the top "gold" level you can add the "Brother's Keeper" program (for an additional $17 per month roughly) which provides unlimited financial sharing assistance in the event of catastrophic event.

Just think of it as "decentralized health care insurance" lol

I didn’t mean anything negative when I called it a Ponzi Scheme, was just a matter of fact statement. It fits the definition.

 

[TripleJ]

I didn’t mean anything negative when I called it a Ponzi Scheme, was just a matter of fact statement. It fits the definition.

To me, it's hard to classify it as a Ponzi scheme. We have been part of Samaritan Ministries for the last 4 years. I'm self employed, as is my wife, and we have 3 teenage boys. I also was priced out of the insurance game by the 'AHCA'. I am sending my money to a different member every month to directly cover a bill. There is no money going to Samaritan, except for 1 payment a year for administration costs. To me, a Ponzi scheme is people who get in early getting rich off of people who get in the pool later. There is none of that happening as far as I can tell. Although I was nervous when I joined us up, I have been very pleasantly surprised. We have only had to have 1 need covered since we signed up, but it was approximately 20k and it was taken care of in a couple months. Meanwhile, we pay a very reasonable amount every month, and it feels very meaningful paying directly for someone's personal bill, as opposed to sending money to an insurance company every month. The last year we had real "insurance", we were paying $1500/month and we still had a $12,000 deductible per person in our family. I had to have hernia surgery that year, and my son had to go to the doctor several times since he was pretty sick. We ended up paying 20k out of pocket that year on expenses that insurance didn't cover, all the while still sending them $1500/month. That is a racket if you ask me. If someone is worried about catastrophic expenses, you can sign up for a more extensive plan with Samaritan, and pay more per month, and you will be covered at a higher level. From my own personal experience, health insurance is only a good deal if your employer is paying for/supplementing it.

 

[T28w]

Self employed here. Been with medishare for quite a awhile. 2 babies with them. One with special needs. They have done everything they said they would do.

It is billed just like insurance when we have been to a hospital. We get a bill after medishare gets billed. Never have paid for a hospital visit up front or at time of treatment. Just this week had to go to ER and had to be admitted and spend the night. We will get a bill telling what our part will be.

We do have a high deductible but we did prior to medishare also. We do pay a copay if we go to medcenter etc that day but so does everyone else I see.

 

[amassi]

John Oliver just did a show on these programs this week. Makes for an interesting watch

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[HOT ROD]

Mw wife is a Billing specialist in a medical office and she states this is not a health insurance plan. It is a health reimbursement program. You are responsible to pay your bills and turn them in for reimbursement. They often have large deductible sometimes upwards of $10,000. As a provider this is not a program that physician's offices are contracted with therefore there is not a contractual w/o. So if your bill is $500 you are responsible for $500. Furthermore because patients with this program have access to some sort of help for medial bills this disqualifies them for possible self pay discounts. To get around this Christian Healthcare ministries instructs their holders to "lie" and tell providers they are self pay. Her office has had people get a discount then submit the full charges to the reimbursement program. Also be aware of similar programs such as Medi-Share or Liberty Health Share.

 

[T28w]

Mw wife is a Billing specialist in a medical office and she states this is not a health insurance plan. It is a health reimbursement program. You are responsible to pay your bills and turn them in for reimbursement. They often have large deductible sometimes upwards of $10,000. As a provider this is not a program that physician's offices are contracted with therefore there is not a contractual w/o. So if your bill is $500 you are responsible for $500. Furthermore because patients with this program have access to some sort of help for medial bills this disqualifies them for possible self pay discounts. To get around this Christian Healthcare ministries instructs their holders to "lie" and tell providers they are self pay. Her office has had people get a discount then submit the full charges to the reimbursement program. Also be aware of similar programs such as Medi-Share or Liberty Health Share.

Can’t speak for the others but that’s not how medishare works

 

[T28w]

Where we are offices are providers in a ppo program. They are very clear in limits they will pay out, nothing hidden. If it’s not a good fit that’s fine but they don’t try and hide that fact

 

[Mike Islander]

They work hard to make sure you understand that it's not technically insurance, but it works the same way. It's a pool of money created by members paying their monthly payments. Only its not for profit and not paying stock holders.


We cut our insurance in half, starting in June, by going from Blue Cross to Medi-Share. So far so good, but we are obviously new. We are 59 and 60 years old. We also reduced our deductible by about half.

 

[DJB]

Mw wife is a Billing specialist in a medical office and she states this is not a health insurance plan. It is a health reimbursement program. You are responsible to pay your bills and turn them in for reimbursement. They often have large deductible sometimes upwards of $10,000. As a provider this is not a program that physician's offices are contracted with therefore there is not a contractual w/o. So if your bill is $500 you are responsible for $500. Furthermore because patients with this program have access to some sort of help for medial bills this disqualifies them for possible self pay discounts. To get around this Christian Healthcare ministries instructs their holders to "lie" and tell providers they are self pay. Her office has had people get a discount then submit the full charges to the reimbursement program. Also be aware of similar programs such as Medi-Share or Liberty Health Share.

This is not how mine works. The heath share went out of their way to explain that they are not insurance. As far as billing goes the Heath Share I belong to said to have my heath provider bill them directly but my health care provider treats heath shares as self pay. Also my deductible is much lower then if I would have gone with the affordable care options, $750 compared to $10,000 and my premiums are lower which is a win win for me. I only pay $250 a month and have up to $1,000,000 dollars of coverage per incident per year. Heath shares are not for everybody but for me it was the best way to go by far.

 

[gbflyer]

We used it for a couple of years. Right now we are in a bracket where the AHA works. My good friend needed to use CHM for a hernia surgery, his mom also needed them for a spinal surgery. Both were well taken care of. If we go out of AHA again, I’d pick CHM back up. Oh the joys of self employment.

 

[shredder97]

It's so worth it! Used it a few times.. My wife is on the Gold plan and I'm on the Silver

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