Our Experiences with Healthcare Sharing

our experiences. We've actually used them. We don't just pay for them and not use them. We have used them. And we're gonna look at some articles talk about our experience and see if maybe it's something you might be interested in using.

you want. Ideally, it's gonna be treating yourself. So head to Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash pamper like when you pamper yourself pamper to enter the giveaway.

friend Eileen Doherty. It is episode two fifty four, How to Save money on health insurance Open Enrollment Explained, So she talks a little bit bit more about how you can make open enrollment decisions and save money without sacrificing the level of insurance that you need. And then we also have episode two thirty negotiating medical Bills with doctor Vergie bright Ellington. We just talked about on our last episode. This is such a This is an episode we personally

recommend to so many of our friends. It is and our bill of the week. Last episode, she saved what was it, She said, ninety percent on her hospital bill, brought from like eight hundred dollars to ninety dollars using what she learned in episode two thirty. So definitely episodes to queue up for after this one. But we want

to talk about our experiences with healthcare sharing ministries. If you are not sure what a healthcare sharing ministry is, it is an alternative to health insurance where people pay into a quote unquote monthly share and it's paid into a pot and people will share medical expenses with the group. So very similar but not it. So we'll talk about some of the similarities and differences as we go through.

health insurance plans have been increasing. In twenty nineteen, the annual premiums for health insurance for a household with four cost twenty thousand dollars, and those costs don't even include out of pocket expenses that health insurance policyholders have to cover on their own. Members of health share ministries, however, they pay a lot less. They can save as much

as fifty percent compared to traditional health insurance plans. So that's the main reason, honestly for choosing health care sharing. And we definitely that's the reason both Jill and I are on these health care sharing ministries because we just counted the costs and it was more affordable. But I will say so part, I'm the only one in my

family of four on a healthcare sharing plan. My husband and two children are both on his insurance, and so what we looked at the cost of having all of us on his insurance and it was more affordable to and with the amount of times our kids need to go to the doctor, we just we calculated the cost the average and found that it's more beneficial to us to have insurance for the kids. And so if we're going to have insurance for the kids, we've got to

have it for Travis two. But we save money by like a couple hundred bucks a month just by me being on the healthcare sharing and then being on insurance. So it's not an either or, it can be just kind of a hybrid. It's up to you to figure that out, and hopefully this episode will help you do that.

And so yeah, that's where these healthcare sharing ministries come into play and can be helpful just regarding affordability month to month and sometimes with the out of pocket expenses. So then number two, as far as main differences go, is organizational aim, meaning what is a health insurance companies

organizational aim versus a health share ministries organizational aim. And for typical health insurance companies, they are for profit organizations, so they are going to charge premiums for policies in order to make money. That's just how they function. That's how most businesses function. You're going to have to have some degree of markup to be profitable, and so we the consumers are going to be the ones who pay for that if we're going the traditional health insurance route.

Whereas for healthcare sharing ministries, they are nonprofits, so contributions are collected in order to cover medical expenses for the members. It all kind of goes into a pool and a pot and is distributed amongst members. So you're not paying as much for some of that profitability of the organization, but rather sharing medical costs of those involved within that community. So very different of course, how a nonprofit versus a for profit might be set up.

poor health pre existing conditions. Health share ministries, on the other hand, are not mandated by that, So membership eligibility is based on the standards that a particular ministry outlines, and each program has different standards, so even if you don't qualify one, that doesn't mean you won't qualify for

any of them. But in this way, healthcare ministry members don't have to pool their contributions in an insurance pool that doesn't choose its members based on lifestyle or health levels, and they have the freedom to share the cost of medical care with other like minded individuals. So it's so one of the main these eligibility things is is signing a statement of faith for for a lot of not all, but most of them. And so you have to sign a statement that you agree with the faith like foundation

of the you know, quote unquote ministry. And so I mean, we're we're comfortable in doing that. I'm I'm pretty sure that the one I'm on Liberty doesn't require you to have the same faith. It just requires you to accept that the nonprofit the ministry operates from. That's from that statement of faith. So I like that about about Liberty, but so that that is a primary barrier, but also

the the lifestyle agreements. You have to agree to live a certain lifestyle, so and it's it's different again for every program, but there's usually you have to fill out a questionnaire about like smoking, drinking, you know, all recreational drugs, just kind of agreeing that you won't do anything illegal. So if you're prone to illegal activity, this isn't going to be the best best route for you.

So this is definitely the I think one of the biggest barriers for some people in choosing healthcare sharing ministries. That eligibility requirements or willingness to sign these different statements or agreements to lifestyle can be quite pro prohibitive to some, whereas for others it's the affordability is the biggest priority, and so some of these other things you might be willing to adhere to in order to save the amount of money. So definitely pros and cons and that that one,

that third one is certainly a big one. The last one on this list of the big differences between the two options is flexibility with available medical professionals. So for health insurance, typical health insurance companies, usually, in an effort to keep costs well as low as possible on their side, they will restrict the choice of physicians and hospitals that

policy holders can visit. Probably many of you are familiar with the rigamarole of maybe needing to change inssurance and then possibly change doctors and call around to see who's in network and who's out of network and where can I go and where can't I go, And they may place limits on the types of medications that are made available, whereas healthcare health share ministries often do not place such restrictions on the type of doctor or specialist that members

can visit. So that's something to keep in mind as well. I will say, from my experience, there is still a version of an in network out of network. It doesn't preclude me from being able to visit whoever I want. There just might be increased savings if I were to choose a doctor or office or hospital that is termed kind of within I don't know if they even use that exact language, but essentially within network. Still I can choose wherever I want to go, I just might not

see the same amount of savings. Mm hmm.

possibility for you to look into. If you don't have a lot of medical concerns, a lot of reasons you go to the doctor. That's probably the biggest. You know, if I had a chronic health condition that I was going to the doctor for regularly, I may be a little more hesitant. But I used this for my second pregnancy. I was on healthcare sharing. I had no insurance and obviously going to the doctor a lot, and it was there were some frustrations, but in the end, it was

a very painless experience to use this. I think it was about as painful as using insurance for my first birth. So I don't think it's any harder to use health care sharing, but that was like a season in my life. If healthcare is something that you are, you know, dealing with constantly, then this is gonna be a harder decision

for you. But so we want to go through those questions you should ask if you are thinking about it, and the first one is, well, the first one on this list is what are they But we kind of already covered that, so maybe we'll go into the second one. Jill.

So these programs typically call them share amounts, very similar to a premium that you might pay with a regular insurance So those monthly costs can be one hundred dollars or less for a single person by contract, a bronze level plan from the health insurance marketplace averages about three hundred and thirty dollars a month for that same one person.

There of course, are some government subsidies available that can bring that cost lower, but if you were just to compare them at face value, one is at least double, if not more, as far as insurance goes from these monthly share costs, and that's not to then talk about

other out of pocket expenses. And so these cost sharing plans can often get lower prices on treatment because the plans or their members pay healthcare providers directly, which does allow a lot more room for a different pricing structure with the healthcare providers or hospitals. And additionally, some of the healthcare sharing plans will cover some things that regular

insurance does not. Examples of this include medical treatment and overseas if that's needed, funeral costs sometimes even adoption expenses at certain tiers and with certain types of healthcare sharing. So I think it really is going to depend on what types of coverage do you need, what is your biggest priority in considering whether medical cost sharing is better

for you than health insurance. On the flip side, of course, medical cost sharing lacks some of the safeguards of regular health insurance, but it still can work for some people.

down by age two. So if you're under thirty five, so basically you know, thirty to thirty five you get or thirty to thirty four you get one price, thirty five to forty nine gets a higher price, and then fifty plus gets a higher price up until sixty five that higher tier, and I'm on the most expensive tier. I am thirty four years old. So I pay two hundred and fifty nine dollars a month my AUA, which

is my annual unshared amount. This would be similar to I guess a deductible and I'm I will never insurance terms are the one thing I will always confuse, I will never master. I will always have to google. I'm a really bad personal finance expert when it comes to starts. I'm so sorry, but so my annual unshared amount is one thousand dollars anything after one thousand dollars is up to one million dollars per incident is completely shared. That's

what's on the highest tier. I chose that one because I knew I was going to get pregnant. You have to be on it for at least I think it's six to ten months depending on the plant on the program before you before you can get pregnant and have that pregnancy covered, so which I was more than fine

with because I've been on it for several years. But I chose into this one specifically at a time when I was like, I think I'm going to get pregnant in the future, I'm going to choose this one now, so I have the brand amount and I didn't even get my birth control taken out until it was, you know, six months into this current program. But they have two

other lower ones. So the next lower one has the same annual unshared amount of one thousand uh and then it is there is a co share of fifteen percent after the AUA has been met. And then the lowest one, the auay is four thousand per year and there's a twenty five percent kosher. But that one I would be if I was on that one I'd be paying one fifty nine a month versus the two fifty nine, So

it's like fifty dollars increments per month higher. And there's it's a little higher, you know if you're a couple or family, but still a lot better. So we are on a fairly low level, high deductible plan for Travis and the kids, and it was still cheaper for me to be on here. I think it was going to be an extra four or five hundred dollars a month to put me on the insurance and instead I'm over

here paying two fifty nine per month. So even if there's if the person who's not owning the insurance policy maybe wants to look into getting onto healthcare sharing, that might be a way to save a couple hundred bucks a month, is by kind of doing the hybrid that we're doing.

of pocket before they start covering your expenses. We chose the ten thousand dollars deductible, and that just has helped to dictate what is in our emergency fund, and certainly chose that during a time when we just did not have the money to spend more than two hundred dollars a month towards this and we're not going to the doctor hardly ever, So that's what worked for us.

healthcare sharing. In fact, thirty states have laws saying these plans are not bound by insurance company rules, insurance watchdogs and at least fifteen states have warned people to be careful with these plans. But these are you know, insurance, these are insurance people, insurance experts, and they say the Insurance Apartment department can't assist you with any complaints about

a healthcare sharing ministry. So you do need to read the book they're gonna they have a book that you it's a it's a very thick magazine for us, and it tells you all the things they cover, the things they won't cover. All of this. You got to know

all of this stuff before you signed up. There are time restrictions, like with the pregnancy thing like our like Liberty covered one hundred percent of everything for my pregnancy after the AUA and covered it as one considered it one expense, and so we got like, but I had to submit all of my claims for my pregnancy within

six months of the the birth. So you have to there's a time limit on when you could submit medical bills has to be within six months of the of the date of service, and if it's after they don't have any they will not cover it. And that's again I only speak for Liberty, so yeah, and I think the only the only bad thing. So sometimes I think the biggest reason we chose Liberty was because they would pay the provider directly. Some of these require you to

pay the provider and they reimburse you. But I knew for a pregnancy I was going to have a hospital stay, and lo and behold, I got a seventy two thousand dollars bill from my hospital for my c section in three days stay. That is a bandsive hotels.

they paid it. And so I called again and I missed on the thing where it said it was paid, but it was paid to member. So I'd gotten a bunch of checks for overpaying my away and I didn't know what they were all for. I just I had a newborn. I just deposited the checks, and you know, I was like, yay money, uh, And so that happened, That's what it was. And so I am right now in collections. I have to pay this bill that just happened yesterday. But but yeah, so they were very diligent

in paying me, reimbursing me. Literally. I submitted that seventy two thousand dollars expense and within a week I logged back in to the portal and it was zeroed out. So that was fantastic, very seamless. I think the biggest problem I had was with my doctor's office that I wanted them. I told I was like, you can bill the provider or sorry, you can bill the healthcare sharing

and they were like, no, we can't. And I was like, yes you can, and they were like, okay, we will, and I was like cool and they were like nope, just kidding. And then I was like, okay, I'll do it. And so I'm thinking, I have to submit all these expenses and in the meantime they're submitting them too, so I And that's another thing I found out when I

was on this call. Was it like yesterday or two days ago, that I had double sent in some bills because the doctor's office was sending them when I didn't know they were sending them. So it can be confusing for some doctor's offices to figure out what to do with people on healthcare sharing. Is it annoying?

you know, don't submit it. So some stuff like that. So you just have to read, read the book, and see and compare these programs before you go with.

But these plans are not bound by the Affordable Care Act rules, so they do not have to cover pre existing conditions, and they are also not bound or that they can be exempt from having to cover the ACA's top ten essential health benefit fits, which are ambulatory patient services, emergency services, pregnancy, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, prescription drugs, rehabilitative services and devices,

laboratory services, preventative and wellness services, and pediatric services. Now that doesn't mean that they do not cover these things. It just means that they don't have to. And that's where reading that book that Jen is describing the meaning the book that these healthcare sharing plans will give you outlining what will we cover, what will we not cover?

That's going to help you determine is this going to be the right option for you, knowing what are you currently dealing with, what might you be dealing with in the future, What are you certain you want them to cover? What do you not care about? Are their aspects that they aren't going to cover that don't pertain to you? So that's no problem. So it's just worth noting that they don't they're not bound to cover these things, but it doesn't mean that they won't.

can be eligible for sharing. So and any additional expenses for transportation to a facility the nearest facility capable of providing medically necessary care are not eligible for sharing. So again you should be reading these things. When you have insurance, right, you have to know which providers are in network, which are not, which hospitals are in network, which ones are not, and we talk a lot about that in our open

enrollment episode from last year. But you have to do the same thing with healthcare sharing, so it's not different these Just because these healthcare sharing services don't have to provide care like an insurance company doesn't mean they don't. You just have to be aware of what they do and do not. So the next question to ask is can you lose your membership in a medical cost sharing

plan And the answer is yes. So each plan's guidelines spell out the rules for members and if you don't meet those, Again, it's mostly the lifestyle stuff you can actually be dropped from a plan, which is it's a lot harder for insurance. Now, this this points out that a lot like you can be dropped for like religious reasons, that that is very rare in these plans nowadays nobody is nobody really cares if you know what you're doing

behind closed doors. I think I haven't looked up kind of like what you can be dropped for on liberty, but these plans do come with that stipulation. So that's another thing to be aware of.

what are the plan's lifestyle rules? What are you going to have to sign? Can you in good conscience sign that? What will I have to pay out of pocket? What if anything does the plan guarantee it will cover? Will my doctor accept the plan? Is there any sort of network of providers if I have a pre existing condition? What are the rules for cost sharing? When I have doctor bills? Does the plan pay them directly? Do I cover them and then the plan pays me back? Like?

What is that process? Because Gen's process with Liberty is different from my process with Meta Share, so some of these healthcare sharing networks do approach that process differently. How do I appeal a sharing decision? And finally, how does the plan suspend a member's coverage if it gets to

that point? What does that look like? I'm sure there's plenty of other questions, but this is a really good start as you're considering what's gonna be the best fit for you and speaking of good fits, best fits, right fits. We got the fit the fit for everybody. The Bill of the week.

if I could push it. And I was thinking about it and how I could save money, and I decided to take the step of shaving my head and I gave myself a buzz cut at home in my bathroom, got my teenage daughter to help me. And it is something I've always kind of wanted to do, but never felt brave enough to try. And I realized that by shaving it all off, I could save fifty dollars a month and rock an amazing buzz cut. My teenager loves it. She thinks it's the coolest thing ever. And I've been

getting so many compliments and I actually love it. So that's my bill of the week. I no longer I'm spending fifty plus dollars a month on my haircuts, because now I have an awesome buzz cut.

decision for everybody. But the part that stood out to me was you saying you've all always wanted to do this but never felt brave enough, and this was kind of the push that you needed to cut costs in that way by cutting your own hair, becoming brave, loving it, bonding with your child, like this is so amazing. I love the way that you've chosen to shave, save saved by shaving.

So if you are good at that and you want to do that, it's really cool, Like it's really good for you. Sometimes sometimes it's not. Uh, I think for me. I can only speak for me and my family. Uh. It made sense for us because we don't go to the doctor often. We do not have any chronic health care conditions. We don't have any like mental health care conditions that we seek out, you know that we seek help for We just like bury them down deep inside. Just kidding, We don't do that. So so it made

sense for us, right. And even when I had the opportunity for free insurance, obviously I took it. And then when that was taken away from me so rudely, then we went we Travis and I just had insurance for a few years because it wasn't that expensive. And now that we have children, it's different. So you reevaluate every season in your life, right, So there was a while. So in Florida, under four kids can be on Medicaid

medicids and we don't get it for free. It's based on income whether you get it for free or not. But you can still be on the plan and it's very inexpensive, even full price. So Kai was on medicids for the first four years of your life, and both of us were on healthcare sharing and that saved us money. So look at your state, county, city, whatever's programs for insurance. Compare it to some of the top healthcare sharing providers, and see the options that you have for just saving

a little bit. See what your options are, because it can it is a way to temper one of those fixed quote unquote fixed expenses that we all view as fixed but can actually be creatively lowered. You know, it's not right for everyone, but I have personally had a good experience with Liberty. We are not paid by them, but I just literally found out ten seconds ago that anybody who signs up based on my referral, I could

get one hundred and fifty dollars gift card. So let me know if you said, yeah, let me know if you sign up. But yeah, I mean, and Liberty has like all of the not all of but a lot of the benefits that I would have used that I would have assumed only traditional insurance had, Like telehealth. There's free telehealth from Liberty. I just download an app and I have several times use their telehealth for free, and then they just call in my prescription and I go pick it up. Uh, They've got a.

was able to. I literally I stayed an extra night and day than I did with Kai because I wanted to get home with Kai and with the second when I was like, please keep me as long as I am able to stay, I never got My mother in law said she stayed in the hospital ten days after she had Travis, and I was like, what why? And now I get it. So yeah, and I didn't have to worry about any of those costs not being covered. So yeah, that's me.

going on, I can utilize the free telehealth. If a prescription is needed, they can call it in and just keep costs so so lu So if that's if you're in a similar position, then it could be worth it. Another benefit that we have through meta share is that they will give additional discounts for healthy living, So beyond the whole lifestyle thing that you have to sign, if you are willing to submit blood pressure, height, weight, you've kind of said, yes, we exercise, we live this healthy lifestyle,

we're low risk for certain medical conditions. They give an even greater discount to your monthly share amount. So that's been a benefit to us as well. Two other things though that I will note didn't come up in these other articles, that are worth considering. If you are in this process of wondering what's best is to look into the process of what it means to adjust your monthly share amount. Were adjust your the equivalent of the deductible When I when we first went on Meta share, I

had a lower essentially annual deductible. Again, that's not what they call it, but's what I'm going to call it for the sake of understanding. So we were at about maybe a four thousand dollars annual deductible at one point when I was just kind of readjusting all of our bills and expenses and realizing that we've been on this plan for six to eight years and we hardly ever use it. It didn't feel like the monthly amount was

worth it for me for that lower deductible. So that's when I chose to increase it to the ten thousand dollars deductible. More recently, i've been interested in decreasing that amount, but only then did I realize that it's quite a process to change it. I don't know if this would be the case for all types of sharing plans, but when I called they you have to incrementally drop down

your annual deductible. So they could have dropped me down from ten thousand and nine thousand dollars annually, which would increase my monthly I'd have to wait six months before I could drop again. So if I'm starting at ten thousand and I want to see myself back at five thousand. I mean, we're talking years before I'm going to get there.

And then I asked, well, then why would I not just cancel and restart, and they were saying, yes, you could do that, but like we said at the beginning of this episode, for many of these health sharing ministries, they won't start providing benefits to you until six months after signing up. So yes, I could drop them and re become a member, but nothing would be covered for me or go towards my annual share amount until six months of being on the plan and paying monthly. So

that's just worth stating. Make sure that you lock yourself in at a good annual deductible, because to change or to go to a lower level annual deductible might be quite a cumbersome process. I also have recently learned, at least with the sharing that we utilize with Meta Share, that even with your annual deductible, it's not as if every medical expense you pay goes towards that annual deductible.

Not everything is eligible for sharing, so you may pay out of pocket for care that doesn't even count towards your medical deductible. So one of the things that Meta share specifically doesn't cover is just like routine preventative care, So like a PAP smear, if you're going for a pap smear, they're not going to cover it. And the amount that you pay towards a pap smear doesn't even count towards your deductible. So clearly not sponsored by them.

Because that's in my estimation that that's not great. It's something I'm willing to do. I think overall, annually it's it is still less expensive for us than if I were to get on a traditional health insurance plan. But these are the things that are worth knowing before making the switch or signing up.

of four hundred dollars. And they but they do have some like unshared amounts per visit, so like a primary care doctor would just be twenty five you'd have to pay twenty five for that, and then the map like beyond it would be like that, and then they have unshared amoun it's for like the emergency room is five hundred CT scans mrized two hundred, But that's very comparable to insurance, to those those prices. But yeah, again not sponsored by Liberty. But I you know, things, I've liked them.

I mean, they're really the only thing they say they explicitly will not share are things that are outside of their sharing guidelines. So again like if you're taking illicit drugs and something happens, they don't cover anything related to results of you know, drug use or smoking. So I believe like that they didn't have to be on six consecutive months before they will share anything maternity related.

So they were in a position where they thought that they were covered and then got pregnant, and then come to find out they weren't on the right tier of the medical share plan and then couldn't switch because you can't switch once you do become pregnant. So that wasn't a great experience for them. So it really is a matter of doing due diligence.

pay my medical expenses. Anyways, thank you so much for listening. We love, love, love reading your kind reviews. We especially love this one from poison Blackberries. I love that now and they say great tips from great chicks. This is a wonderful podcast with helpful finance tips. Jen and Jill are so genuine and helpful, and I love hearing their

open and honest personal perspective. They have a wide variety of topics and their concept of the radical middle is so valuable and should be applied in all areas of life. So happy I found this podcast and I enjoy the fun banter between the hosts. I love the recent story of Jill's pans and how she fixed them and returned the new set excited for your upcoming book.

is going to be a good fit for them. So please go right and review us.