Our Trustworthy Medi-Share Evaluation after 14 years

My Medi-Share overview under was initially written in 2009 after I was investigating them however has been regularly up to date (now for 2024) as I‘ve been utilizing them for over 10 years.  Hope it helps!  

In case you are self-employed like me or are simply searching for a Christian medical health insurance different, chances are you’ll simply need to take into account Medi-Share. 

It’s the different to medical health insurance that I’ve been utilizing for a few years, and within the following overview, I need to share the great that we’ve favored about Medishare in addition to issues that could be a deal-breaker for you in case you are contemplating them. 

One of many issues that caught my consideration after I was looking for a Christian health-sharing ministry as an alternative choice to medical health insurance was this:

They are saying the everyday household saves $500/month after switching.  

We are going to get to precisely what we pay and whether or not or not that proved to be true for us in a bit. However first, let’s begin from the start…

What’s Medi-Share?

Medi-Share = Insurance coverage?

Individuals are at all times asking me whether it is Christian Medical Insurance coverage. 

Merely put, no Medi-Share isn’t insurance coverage, however most individuals wouldn’t actually be capable to inform a distinction. 

Whereas it basically serves the identical goal as medical health insurance, they’re very clear that it’s NOT insurance coverage.

They name it, “Christian Healthcare Sharing.”

It affords basically the entire advantages of medical health insurance however with decrease premiums.

In keeping with their web site:

“Medi-Share will not be “Christian insurance coverage.” Fairly, it’s a well being care sharing program facilitated by Christian Care Ministry (CCM) by means of which a neighborhood of believers voluntarily come collectively to share the price of each other”s medical payments.

Members select to share with one another, ruled by member-voted tips. Though there isn’t a assure of sharing, Medi-Share members have been faithfully sharing one another”s medical payments for greater than 20 years, trusting the Lord to offer of their time of want by means of the voluntary presents of different believers. Since 1993, greater than $1.5 billion in healthcare prices have been saved by means of sharing or discounting.”

How does Medi-Share work?

Every month all of the members pay their “share” (a hard and fast quantity relying on the plan you choose) into an account with their identify on it to America’s Christian Credit score Union.

The funds in all of these accounts are what pay the member’s medical payments every month.

“Every plan basically tallies medical claims every month, then divides by the variety of members, officers say. After subtracting for overhead and administrative bills, the remainder goes to pay claims.” 

The Medi-Share program is versatile with a number of decisions of program ranges, advantages, and naturally out-of-pocket expense. You’re given the choice of selecting your individual medical doctors and hospital, however there are reductions obtainable for utilizing networked professionals. 

In keeping with their web site:

“Members open their very own Sharing Account with America’s Christian Credit score Union. Every member family voluntarily contributes their Month-to-month Share into their Sharing Account.

For every member with eligible medical payments to be shared, Christian Care Ministry identifies a number of different members with ample funds of their accounts. CCM electronically transfers funds from every sharing member’s account into the account of the member with whom they’re sharing. CCM processes fee from the member’s account.”

From my expertise utilizing them, this sounds extra complicated than it really is.  

They do all this behind the scenes, in order a member, I’m not concerned in any of that course of.

Our Up to date Medi-Share Evaluation

Extra updates are listed under, however Linda and I simply recorded a fast video answering numerous widespread questions that we get:

Our Medi-Share video overview and what we pay every month

Is Medi-Share the Resolution to Your Well being Insurance coverage Wants?

Except you could have a very good employer-sponsored medical health insurance plan, otherwise you’re on Medicare, you’re most likely involved about your medical health insurance.

A significant motive is the price of premiums. They’ll simply be over $1,000 per 30 days for a household, and even for a pair. And that’s even you probably have a excessive deductible. 

My spouse, Linda, and I really feel like we discovered an answer, or a minimum of one which works for us. It’s this Christian health-sharing ministry known as Medi-Share. We’ve had it for our household since 2009, and have used it ever since. 

For these used to conventional medical health insurance, it’s a bit unconventional. As I mentioned, it’s a Christian well being sharing ministry, which implies it isn’t conventional medical health insurance.

However it fills the identical position, and in our expertise, it does it at solely a fraction of the fee. And simply as essential, it’s a service that’s per our religion values. We get numerous questions on it, and that’s what I’d like to debate in our Medi-Share overview right here.

So, what’s a Christian Well being Sharing Ministry?

As a Christian well being sharing ministry, Medi-Share relies on the religion neighborhood values and practices of the early Church. It was given inside the neighborhood that every member would share each other’s burdens. In that method, members of Medi-Share share each other’s medical burdens.

They try this by contributing to this system by means of month-to-month contributions, known as “shares”. The contributions go right into a pool, the place it’s obtainable to pay for the medical prices of members in want. Along with fee of a member’s medical prices, the neighborhood additionally assist one another in prayer, and generally with private assist. 

Medi-Share is a nonprofit group, and conducts this system alongside biblical rules.

What occurs while you go the physician?

They really do have a very good community of collaborating medical doctors, and should you use one, the method is clean because the physician’s workplaces know the way it works. 

Nonetheless, we typically use medical doctors from outdoors the community. That may add an additional step as a result of numerous medical doctors don’t understand how Medi-Share works. However we choose going to medical doctors that we really feel comfy with, so we’ll make the additional effort. 

However even out-of-network, we merely clarify Medi-Share to the physician, they do some little bit of digging, after which invoice Medi-Share. Medi-Share will then negotiate a reduction on the providers, and we’ll pay the distinction out of pocket. 

For us, out of pocket is widespread, as a result of we use the best deductible plan Medi-Share affords. As is the case with conventional medical health insurance, we do that to maintain the month-to-month contributions as little as potential. 

This isn’t a significant downside in our household, as a result of we principally go for routine checkups. There’s solely been one or two occasions the place we had to return for one thing just a little bit extra sophisticated. Similar to conventional medical health insurance, the excessive deductible works nicely while you don’t go to the physician that always. 

Like talked about above, the best choice is to remain in-network along with your medical doctors, however should you can’t, it simply requires just a little extra effort in your half. 

Right here is how they clarify it:

“When a medical occasion happens, you merely choose a community supplier from the Non-public Healthcare Methods (PHCS) PPO community, which affords 700,000 suppliers nationwide! (Observe: Members could choose any supplier of their selecting, together with out-of-network suppliers, however in doing so could not profit from discounting of medical payments as with an in-network supplier.) Present your Medi-Share ID Card to the supplier, and pay your supplier price–$35 preliminary cost for physician visits, $135 for an Emergency Room go to.

The physician’s workplace or hospital sends your payments to Medi-Share immediately. PHCS negotiates reductions, a mean adjustment of 30-35% by staying in-network. Your Supplier Payment of $35 or $135 can be deducted from the full invoice. Medi-Share processes the payments for sharing and notifies you of any quantity you should pay immediately with a purpose to meet your Annual Family Portion.

For any quantities to be shared, Medi-Share transfers ample funds from different members’ accounts into your account. Medi-Share notifies the sharing members of the recipient of their month-to-month share quantity. Share quantities are used to pay suppliers. As soon as the {dollars} are transferred, Medi-Share processes fee to the physician or hospital from the member’s share account.”

Medi-Share Value

How a lot does Medi-Share price anyway?

That is clearly a typical query, and the reply is for nearly everybody Medi-Share prices loads lower than conventional medical health insurance. They are saying that the everyday household saves about $500/month in comparison with medical health insurance.

After we switched from medical health insurance to Medi-Share, our month-to-month contributions fell to solely about 50% of our earlier medical health insurance premiums. And that’s with our household of 4. 

Now I mentioned we’ve taken the best annual deductible to reduce the month-to-month contribution. Our deductible is $10,000 per 12 months, which implies Medi-Share doesn’t start paying our prices till we cross that threshold. 

However consequently, our month-to-month contribution is about $230. It’s based mostly on the age of the oldest member of the family, and that’s the contribution we’re paying with me at 37 years outdated. 

The screenshot desk under offers you a primary concept what the month-to-month contributions are with various deductibles (known as the “annual family portion”). It’s based mostly on a household of 4, through which the oldest member is 40.

Discover that there are seven deductibles, starting from $500-$10,000.

On the far proper aspect of the desk, you’ll see a heading, Wholesome Month-to-month Share. 

Medi-Share offers you a contribution low cost of as much as 20% should you meet sure well being requirements. These need to do with very particular metrics for blood stress, belly circumference and physique mass index. So, should you’re tremendous wholesome, your month-to-month contribution will nonetheless be decrease.

What Are the {Qualifications} for Medi-Share?

Probably the most basic necessities of Medi-Share is that you should adhere to a biblical life-style to hitch. For example, they gained’t cowl abortions. Nor will you be coated should you’re injured in a drunk driving accident.

You need to additionally abstain from using tobacco or unlawful medication. You could know these limitations, however you have to be good to go so long as you adhere to a biblical life-style.

Does Medi-Share Cowl Being pregnant and Adoptions?

We get this query loads, and it’s a very good one. Merely put, your being pregnant associated bills will likely be coated so long as you’re making your month-to-month contributions.

How lengthy do you need to wait to get pregnant?

From the horse’s mouth:

“Pregnant Members with an Annual Family Portion (assume annual deductible) of $1,250 or greater who’ve faithfully shared from the month of conception by means of the month of supply are eligible for maternity sharing.”

We haven’t been by means of the being pregnant expertise, however we’ve been by means of two adoptions with them. They do cowl sure bills there as nicely. Adoptions will be very costly, and we obtained about $4,000 again on our first one 4 years in the past. On our second adoption we solely obtained again $1,500, however by then we had opted for the upper deductible.

What About Buyer Service?

After we first began working with Medi-Share, the wait occasions to get customer support would run 40 minutes to an hour. They’ve improved on this fairly a bit since. However what we’ve discovered is that they’re constantly useful anytime we converse with them. 

We additionally sometimes discover that they pray with us on the finish of the dialog. As Christians, we discover this comforting.

Why we go for the high-deductible plan

That is actually a private factor. As I mentioned earlier, we set the deductible excessive to maintain the month-to-month contributions low. And since we’re a reasonably wholesome household, it’s been working nicely to date.

Lots of people are doing that now with conventional medical health insurance as nicely. We work across the excessive deductible by budgeting a specific amount every month for out-of-pocket medical bills.

It’s type of like an off-the-cuff well being emergency fund, prepared if we want it. You just about have to do this you probably have a excessive deductible with any program. In a method, it’s a bit like self-insuring, a minimum of for the primary $10,000.

However it’s comforting to know that Medi-Share pays 100% of medical prices above that annual deductible.

What we like about it

• With typical insurance coverage, you pay a month-to-month premium, however do not know the place the cash goes. With Medi-Share you might be knowledgeable of who you might be sharing with every month – you possibly can then pray and ship letters of assist for these members.
• For many members, there’s a substantial price financial savings over medical health insurance. Most households can save $2,000 a 12 months.
• They assist cowl adoption bills (they despatched us a test for $3,000 after our adoption!)
• They’ve been working for 25 years.
• The members vote and make the foundations. So annually the members vote on what is going to and gained’t be coated.
• There isn’t any restrict on the quantity of payments that may be shared by members.

Medi-share vs different health-sharing ministries

After we have been purchasing round for a health-sharing service, there have been just a few keys that we have been searching for that finally led us to Medi-Share:

1. They needed to have been round a very long time and had an extended historical past of paying payments.

I wished to be very assured that no matter medical payments we had could be coated. Medi-share was the perfect that we discovered for each of these objects.

2. I didn’t need to be mailing checks to different members. 

In principle, I favored the concept of members bodily mailing checks to one another to cowl payments, in actuality I used to be rather more excited about one thing that functioned just like the medical health insurance that I used to be used to. With Medi-share we simply give our “insurance coverage card” to the physician or often ship a invoice to Medi-share and so they deal with the remainder.  No mailing checks to members each different day or coping with checks not displaying up after I want them.  (In case you would like that, try this comparability of Medishare vs Samaritan ministries)

3. It needed to be easy.  

Medi-share has carried out a surprisingly good job of conserving issues easy. Within the medical health insurance world (and sharing ministries) there are sometimes so many complexities with plans, deductibles, copays, and many others. and so they have made the entire course of comparatively easy.

Different components that set Medi-share aside from different Christian health-sharing ministries:

• Just one AHP (aka deductible) per household
• No caps, no annual or lifetime limits
• No requalification for membership
• 98% buyer satisfaction
• They use a Nationwide PPO Community
• 24/7 Telehealth service included totally free

Issues to concentrate on

In case you are researching them you might be most likely questioning what are the disadvantages of Medi-Share? Effectively, listed below are some issues that I see that you have to be conscious of…

• It’s important to be accepted into this system not everyone seems to be accepted.  And you should conform to their Assertion of Religion.
• You need to adhere to dwelling a Biblical life-style with a purpose to preserve your membership. Not doing so can get you expelled from this system and can probably nullify any claims you might have as nicely.
• “Medi-Share doesn’t share in all prices. All members vote on a yearly foundation what prices to share. Routine physicals and well being upkeep prices are at present not eligible for sharing.”
• Membership will not be denied on account of pre-existing situations; nevertheless, there are tips in place regarding pre-ex-that restrict sharing of pre-existing situations.

How they dealt with our $20,000 medical invoice

Final 12 months, we lastly put Medishare to the check to see if they might come by means of.

Lengthy story brief, Linda had a 6-hr go to to the ER that ended up costing us over $20k in medical payments. Right here’s how they did:

Ultimate Ideas on Medi-Share

Summing up our 14 years of expertise utilizing Medishare, Linda and I are each very comfy with Medi-Share and gladly suggest them to family and friends.

Greater than the rest, it’s principally a matter of getting comfy with one thing completely different. Certainly one of our largest considerations after we have been contemplating it was that we’d be going through an enormous medical invoice and that the members would simply resolve to not “share” with us to cowl it. 

After speaking to the Medi-Share consultant, it seems like that isn’t a lot of a priority should you observe the foundations. She defined that within the final 24 years each eligible want has been coated (shared or discounted). However “eligible” is the important thing phrase right here. 

For instance, she advised me a narrative of a member who was in a nasty automobile accident requiring numerous medical work, however because the particular person was intoxicated after they obtained into the accident, the expense was not coated by Medi-Share. On one hand, I believe it is best to give the man a break, however on the identical time, it’s the strict guidelines and insurance policies that make this system work.

The entire level is that by dwelling a Biblical life-style you’ll be more healthy, subsequently have fewer medical bills. From what I perceive, they usually use leftover funds to even assist cowl ineligible bills like these as a gesture of grace. 

It looks as if this system is ideal for wholesome Christians who’re dedicated to the Biblical life-style. If you have already got many well being situations or are susceptible to lapses into substance abuse, it could not be price it. In case you are excited about studying extra simply click on the hyperlink under to get pricing information from them, and I’d recommend calling them to ask some other questions that you’ve.

$100 Medi-Share Signup Bonus

As a member of Medi-Share they offer us a bonus for referring new members, so should you resolve to enroll and allow them to know that Bob Lotich referred you I’m blissful to share that bonus with you! 

I’m blissful to ship you a $100 Amazon reward card as a thanks! Simply electronic mail me right here should you do. 

I’d love to listen to different Medi-Share opinions from different members so you probably have had expertise with Medi-Share, please share about it within the feedback! 

Medi-Share

Medishare is a Christian medical health insurance different that typically is inexpensive than conventional medical health insurance. That is our Medi-share overview after utilizing it for over 10 years.

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