I have Puetz Jegher so when my husband and I signed up I marked that I had a preexisting condition and I called and talked to them about it. They said we were good to go. In 2017 you could talk to a real person.
Then I started having problems. I ended up in the hospital with an intussusception and needed emergency surgery. I also had complications with a procedure and had lost a lot of blood. I was hospitalized for 16 days.
Medi share was paying our bills and we were excited that it was working.
Well, one day we noticed on their website that they had requested every dollar that they had paid to be returned by the hospital that received the payment. I had no clue that could happen. I had been admitted to two different hospitals that year and one of them had already returned the money. The other hospital had not and my husband got on the phone and told the hospital “Do not return the money!” They listened and did not return it to Medi share. So we owed a bunch of money to the one hospital and that hospital would not negotiate anything. We had to set up payments to pay that hospital.
When we questioned Medi share they said that Puetz Jeghers syndrome is a genetic disease and they don’t cover genetic diseases!!!!!!!! Or maybe they said it was inherited and they don’t cover inherited diseases. It was one of those. It was so crazy and stressful. I lost all respect for that company.
And why wouldn’t they have looked at my diagnosis and explained that before we signed up. Something is really wrong with Medi share!
This is the first time to share this story so publicly but when I saw this post I knew I had to.
Samaritans might be better and I hope that is the case but I wonder if everyone that has had a good experience with them doesn’t have a pre-existing condition.
A social worker in the NICU told us about the Katie Beckett / TEFRA waiver that allows children with severe health conditions or disabilities to receive Medicaid even if their parents make too much money. It is retroactive. It does not dictate what care you can / cannot pursue, nor does it mandate any cupcakes / jabberwockys. I highly recommend looking into it.
I had Christian Medishare 5 years ago—until I got Medicaid. When I told my doctors office I did not have insurance (which was true) they gave me the Medicaid price.
Also, I have been told that as long as make regular payments on a bill, the hospital will not come after you. My twins were 7 years old before I finished paying for them. Hospital (church affiliated) charged no interest.
My spouse, who works in the financial side of healthcare, has for years said that the billed rates are merely starting points for negotiation. NO insurance company pays the billed cost. They ALL have contracted lower rates. The hospitals and doctors HAVE TO bill much more than they want/expect to get paid because no matter what they bill, insurance will NEVER pay the full amount.
So you should expect to get at least 30% reduction in fees. And probably more, depending on your negotiating skills and tenacity. Labs are wildly overpriced.
Still, you obviously will have enormous costs for your little one. Not to mention the out of pocket costs for the non-conventional therapies you will be using. Thank God for your knowledge of those and ability to access them.
Homeopathic medicine also likely has ways to help and is {relatively}inexpensive.
Many prayers for you, your wife, and Benjamin. May God be especially palpably close to you during these days.
I have had Samaritan ministries health sharing for at least eight years and have never had a problem. My husband had a major heart attack and they paid every penny. We have been very happy with them. They also cover a lot of alternative treatments and supplements. Previous to Samaritans, we had Medishare And have found Samaritans far better!
We were with Christian Healthcare Ministries for some time and it was wonderful, they covered an emergency expense we had entirely. We have since qualified for Medicaid in our state and that's what we use now, I'm very grateful because we now have a child with lifelong medical needs and the monthly cost for supplies to keep her alive would have been around $3K (insulin, pump, CGM, etc).
I also now help people join a health sharing plan through my company (that we would have jumped on if we didn't already have full coverage with the state). The best part about this plan is that in addition to covering emergency and preventative care, it also covers alternative medicine like chiropractor, acupuncture, etc. It's been very popular and my customers like it.
After the ACA came into existence, the costs to our family went up exponentially. Not caring. Not affordable.
We looked at several Christian sharing ministries and talked to each. Also talked to several people we knew, and they had good experiences with Samaritan Ministries. Went with them and were happy until aging out.
Saved THOUSANDS. Only had two relatively small claims and each taken care of. Also being cash pay with hospitals and clinics for routine tests cut the price by50% automatically.
Definitely recommend doing homework yourself but I’ve recommended SM to several who are also happy.
Still praying for your family. Thx for the updates on little Benjamin.
Addendum: Also, with Samaritan Ministries we prayed for other members by name regularly.
There was also a monthly special fund that was not much a month - maybe $20 - don’t recall exactly - that helped pay catastrophic situations such as yours. And they had a dedicated team to help negotiate with providers.
Every time I called there was always someone who answered. And they asked me if I had a prayer request before we disconnected.
I switched from BCBS to Zion Healthshare over a year ago and so far it has been simple and easy. I save over $500/month just on premiums. They include well care services in your benefits and have an Rx discount & mail order pharmacy service. I'm in Naples, like you, and most providers give you the Medicare/Medicaid pricing when you tell them you are "uninsured" and have a healthshare. I've only submitted claims for well care services so far, but it's really straightforward. It can be done by email, through their portal, and/or by phone. For covered well care services I let them know a week or so ahead of the service date and they send a digital credit card to use to pay for services, or you can pay and be reimbursed them. My max annual share amount is $3000, but that's $1000 per "incident". Ex: If you broke your leg, you pay the first $1000, and they cover the rest until that problem (broken leg) is fixed. If you only had that one claim per year, your out of pocket is only the $1000, not $3000 like it would be for insurance. Any interactions I've had with them have been with very nice & helpful human beings via phone and email. Even the pharmacy service they use had a human call to see if I need a refill. Medi-share seemed like it made things more complicated than it needed to be, and Zion had great reviews. So far, it has lived up to those reviews!
We’ve used Knew Health for going on 6 years and have had incredibly positive experiences. We’ve only had one hospital (ER) trip but they negotiated the bill for us. Rob would be happy to share more I’m sure!
This was a great interview with Tucker Carlson. "An unhealthy, over-medicated country means record profits for insurance companies. Brigham Buhler explains how they work to keep us sick and monetize chronic illness." https://youtu.be/AMBCkokxTAk?feature=shared
Just this morning I was thinking what a waste my health insurance is because they don't cover any of my expenses which are mostly preventative. I was wondering how the health sharing plans work. Interested in what others have to say and the outcome of your situation.
Our family hasn't tried them yet, but several friends rave about Christian Healthcare Ministries. I have also heard really good things about Samaritan Ministries. Praying for your family daily!!
We have had Samaritans since Obamacare doubled the costs of our insurance. Because we are support raise missionaries we had to raise almost an extra $3K a month, which isn’t easy. We also Max out our FSA. Samaritans has been great. We have met wonderful people along the way, because we send money and prayer directly to the need. It has helped our doctor-patient relationship because it’s cash, and the doctor isn’t answering to the insurance company.
I used samaratin ministries for our health share for a few years. In addition to our leftover HSA account we have done very well but we don’t really do extra visits to the pediatrician or Dr. they’ve covered one home birth now, and the only thing they didn’t entirely cover was the whole bill for an internal ultrasound and I should have denied all the extra examination stuff. Now I tell people that I’m a cash customer and ask the cost of everything first.
We had a decent experience with Medishare for years, but have been with Samaritan for 12 years now, and love it! They've beautifully covered home births, miscarriages ( including special encouragement support to help emotionally), and other needs for us. Sending and receiving personal notes with the shares is always a highlight.
Not sure their stance on nicotine for therapeutic purposes... Caffeine is fine; alcohol is also permitted, you just have to have a church leader endorse that you are indeed using it moderately.
I am so sorry for your situation.
This post made me have a little anxiety.
We were part of Medi share.
I have Puetz Jegher so when my husband and I signed up I marked that I had a preexisting condition and I called and talked to them about it. They said we were good to go. In 2017 you could talk to a real person.
Then I started having problems. I ended up in the hospital with an intussusception and needed emergency surgery. I also had complications with a procedure and had lost a lot of blood. I was hospitalized for 16 days.
Medi share was paying our bills and we were excited that it was working.
Well, one day we noticed on their website that they had requested every dollar that they had paid to be returned by the hospital that received the payment. I had no clue that could happen. I had been admitted to two different hospitals that year and one of them had already returned the money. The other hospital had not and my husband got on the phone and told the hospital “Do not return the money!” They listened and did not return it to Medi share. So we owed a bunch of money to the one hospital and that hospital would not negotiate anything. We had to set up payments to pay that hospital.
When we questioned Medi share they said that Puetz Jeghers syndrome is a genetic disease and they don’t cover genetic diseases!!!!!!!! Or maybe they said it was inherited and they don’t cover inherited diseases. It was one of those. It was so crazy and stressful. I lost all respect for that company.
And why wouldn’t they have looked at my diagnosis and explained that before we signed up. Something is really wrong with Medi share!
This is the first time to share this story so publicly but when I saw this post I knew I had to.
I am praying for you and your family.
I'm so sorry to hear about what you went through 🙏
Thank you.
Samaritans might be better and I hope that is the case but I wonder if everyone that has had a good experience with them doesn’t have a pre-existing condition.
Thank you for sharing!
A social worker in the NICU told us about the Katie Beckett / TEFRA waiver that allows children with severe health conditions or disabilities to receive Medicaid even if their parents make too much money. It is retroactive. It does not dictate what care you can / cannot pursue, nor does it mandate any cupcakes / jabberwockys. I highly recommend looking into it.
Cupcakes 😂 jabberwockys🤣 love these euphemisms! The hospital is looking into this for us.
I had Christian Medishare 5 years ago—until I got Medicaid. When I told my doctors office I did not have insurance (which was true) they gave me the Medicaid price.
Also, I have been told that as long as make regular payments on a bill, the hospital will not come after you. My twins were 7 years old before I finished paying for them. Hospital (church affiliated) charged no interest.
We should make medicine a ministry again!
I have never been in a cost-sharing health plan.
Absolutely negotiate the rates.
My spouse, who works in the financial side of healthcare, has for years said that the billed rates are merely starting points for negotiation. NO insurance company pays the billed cost. They ALL have contracted lower rates. The hospitals and doctors HAVE TO bill much more than they want/expect to get paid because no matter what they bill, insurance will NEVER pay the full amount.
So you should expect to get at least 30% reduction in fees. And probably more, depending on your negotiating skills and tenacity. Labs are wildly overpriced.
Still, you obviously will have enormous costs for your little one. Not to mention the out of pocket costs for the non-conventional therapies you will be using. Thank God for your knowledge of those and ability to access them.
Homeopathic medicine also likely has ways to help and is {relatively}inexpensive.
Many prayers for you, your wife, and Benjamin. May God be especially palpably close to you during these days.
I have had Samaritan ministries health sharing for at least eight years and have never had a problem. My husband had a major heart attack and they paid every penny. We have been very happy with them. They also cover a lot of alternative treatments and supplements. Previous to Samaritans, we had Medishare And have found Samaritans far better!
🙏👍👍👍
We were with Christian Healthcare Ministries for some time and it was wonderful, they covered an emergency expense we had entirely. We have since qualified for Medicaid in our state and that's what we use now, I'm very grateful because we now have a child with lifelong medical needs and the monthly cost for supplies to keep her alive would have been around $3K (insulin, pump, CGM, etc).
I also now help people join a health sharing plan through my company (that we would have jumped on if we didn't already have full coverage with the state). The best part about this plan is that in addition to covering emergency and preventative care, it also covers alternative medicine like chiropractor, acupuncture, etc. It's been very popular and my customers like it.
After the ACA came into existence, the costs to our family went up exponentially. Not caring. Not affordable.
We looked at several Christian sharing ministries and talked to each. Also talked to several people we knew, and they had good experiences with Samaritan Ministries. Went with them and were happy until aging out.
Saved THOUSANDS. Only had two relatively small claims and each taken care of. Also being cash pay with hospitals and clinics for routine tests cut the price by50% automatically.
Definitely recommend doing homework yourself but I’ve recommended SM to several who are also happy.
Still praying for your family. Thx for the updates on little Benjamin.
Addendum: Also, with Samaritan Ministries we prayed for other members by name regularly.
There was also a monthly special fund that was not much a month - maybe $20 - don’t recall exactly - that helped pay catastrophic situations such as yours. And they had a dedicated team to help negotiate with providers.
Every time I called there was always someone who answered. And they asked me if I had a prayer request before we disconnected.
I switched from BCBS to Zion Healthshare over a year ago and so far it has been simple and easy. I save over $500/month just on premiums. They include well care services in your benefits and have an Rx discount & mail order pharmacy service. I'm in Naples, like you, and most providers give you the Medicare/Medicaid pricing when you tell them you are "uninsured" and have a healthshare. I've only submitted claims for well care services so far, but it's really straightforward. It can be done by email, through their portal, and/or by phone. For covered well care services I let them know a week or so ahead of the service date and they send a digital credit card to use to pay for services, or you can pay and be reimbursed them. My max annual share amount is $3000, but that's $1000 per "incident". Ex: If you broke your leg, you pay the first $1000, and they cover the rest until that problem (broken leg) is fixed. If you only had that one claim per year, your out of pocket is only the $1000, not $3000 like it would be for insurance. Any interactions I've had with them have been with very nice & helpful human beings via phone and email. Even the pharmacy service they use had a human call to see if I need a refill. Medi-share seemed like it made things more complicated than it needed to be, and Zion had great reviews. So far, it has lived up to those reviews!
We’ve used Knew Health for going on 6 years and have had incredibly positive experiences. We’ve only had one hospital (ER) trip but they negotiated the bill for us. Rob would be happy to share more I’m sure!
This was a great interview with Tucker Carlson. "An unhealthy, over-medicated country means record profits for insurance companies. Brigham Buhler explains how they work to keep us sick and monetize chronic illness." https://youtu.be/AMBCkokxTAk?feature=shared
Just this morning I was thinking what a waste my health insurance is because they don't cover any of my expenses which are mostly preventative. I was wondering how the health sharing plans work. Interested in what others have to say and the outcome of your situation.
Our family hasn't tried them yet, but several friends rave about Christian Healthcare Ministries. I have also heard really good things about Samaritan Ministries. Praying for your family daily!!
We have had Samaritans since Obamacare doubled the costs of our insurance. Because we are support raise missionaries we had to raise almost an extra $3K a month, which isn’t easy. We also Max out our FSA. Samaritans has been great. We have met wonderful people along the way, because we send money and prayer directly to the need. It has helped our doctor-patient relationship because it’s cash, and the doctor isn’t answering to the insurance company.
I have Medicaid and pay nothing for my health insurance and essentially no co-pays. I'm soon to be on Medicare.
I used samaratin ministries for our health share for a few years. In addition to our leftover HSA account we have done very well but we don’t really do extra visits to the pediatrician or Dr. they’ve covered one home birth now, and the only thing they didn’t entirely cover was the whole bill for an internal ultrasound and I should have denied all the extra examination stuff. Now I tell people that I’m a cash customer and ask the cost of everything first.
Good questions!
We had a decent experience with Medishare for years, but have been with Samaritan for 12 years now, and love it! They've beautifully covered home births, miscarriages ( including special encouragement support to help emotionally), and other needs for us. Sending and receiving personal notes with the shares is always a highlight.
Not sure their stance on nicotine for therapeutic purposes... Caffeine is fine; alcohol is also permitted, you just have to have a church leader endorse that you are indeed using it moderately.
Many blessings! The Ks