Christian Health Care Sharing Ministries - My Experience

[SmallCityDave]

It seems many on this forum have a negative opinion of these ministries when they look at them through the lens of government funded insurance (which it's not) I'd like to share my personal experience.

I'm going into this with eyes wide open (at least I'm under that impression). First what it's not, it's not government funded so we can't spend more than it takes in, it doesn't cover abortions, drug rehab programs, preexisting conditions or routing visits. What it is is a group of like minded Christians sharing the cost of large medical bills and it's affordable.

It's not for everyone and it's not intended to be.

[SmallCityDave]

Our Story:

The issue at hand is in the gray area, we've known about this condition before we signed up for the cost sharing ministry but we didn't think it would require surgical intervention so we didn't anticipate it would be covered but now it appears it will.

Six weeks ago we had a fairly significant surgery with 5 days in the intensive care unit, we were told the cost would be about $50k (we can handle that but it would be a little tight). We are tallying up the bills and it appears to be a little over $200k.... luckily since we are considered cash pay we get some discounts and if my math is correct it should be around $70k.

The way the program works is we pay upfront and submit the bills for reimbursement, currently we've paid out of pocket $15k-20K and it appears that we're approved to get back at least $10k. I'm confident it will be a lot more than $10k but the way the system is set up we need to submit paid itemized bills and the healthcare providers are a little slow to send us the bills in the format that's required.

[SmallCityDave]

Slight correction: In order for the HCSM to start paying we need to submit the itemized bill and some other documentation.