Christian Health Share An Alternative To Health Insurance
If you haven’t read yet, my wife is pregnant and we don’t have traditional health insurance. We also decided to sign up for Christian Healthcare Ministries in December 2014 as a way to help pay for any of our healthcare costs. We knew at the time that we wanted more kids, just didn’t know when that would happen.
If you haven’t read my other post, click the links above to read why we chose Christian Healthcare Ministries and how we are using the ministry to pay for our second child, due to be born in December 2015!
About two weeks ago we had another appointment for my wife’s pregnancy. When we checked in for the appointment, they were asking if we could pay the $700 payment due by the end of June. I told them I would pay it online or call their billing department.. as I was trying to buy us some time. When you submit your ‘eligible’ healthcare cost to CHM, it can take between 60-90 days in order to receive a check. I submitted our first bill on May 1st for our maternity care (cost $3,500 – split up into $700/monthly payments).
Since our payment was due by June 30th, I called CHM and told them that $700/month was kind of high for our family. I was told that they would see if they could speed up the distribution of funds for us. On June 27th I received this check for the full amount of our maternity bill as well as for another cost we paid in late April:
Being apart of this ministry makes you realize how you are actually helping other Christians with their healthcare cost. Unlike traditional health insurance where most of your funds go to high overhead cost, with Christian Healthcare Ministries your funds actually go to helping other individuals and families.
This is proof of the help we have received. It makes paying our monthly share so much easier, now that you actually know you are helping another family as well.
When we first joined CHM, I was a little nervous because you technically don’t have ‘insurance’, and based on how much we had to pay for our last pregnancy I knew it could get expensive. I’ve been surprised at the low cost of being a ‘self-pay’ patient as well as surprised at how much we have saved in ‘healthcare’ costs overall.
With traditional health insurance you not only pay a large monthly premium (ours would have been $683/month with a $7,000 deductible, had we joined ObamaCare), but you also have to pay the ‘insurance’ rates to your healthcare provider.
We chose Christian Healthcare Ministries in-part because of their maternity program. The other Christian Health Sharing ministries have their own ways of dealing with maternity care and pregnancies, but with CHM you pay the first $500 in cost (your deductible) and all other eligible cost are shared. Other ministries like ‘Medi-Share’ treat health sharing like traditional insurance where you pay a monthly premium and have a specific deductible.. which we did not like, mainly because we don’t like ‘traditional’ health insurance and were trying to get away from it. But for some people Medi-Share might be for them because your deductible covers your whole family, while CHM has a different way of handling your ‘deductible’.
If you join Christian Healthcare Ministries and wish to use us as your referral, please let me know and contact us! We receive credit for referring others to the ministry, which is a month free for us. You can either click this link or use our referral ID – 200300 when you join! – Thank you from our ‘growing’ family!
