Healthshare Plans Find Your Best-Fit

A: With health sharing plans, members make a monthly contribution towards a shared “pool” of resources. When a member incurs a qualified medical expense, they can be reimbursed from this pool. In other words, healthshare plans make it possible to share the cost of medical expenses with other members of your church or community.

Like traditional health insurance, healthshare plans come with a monthly fee. Most plans also have an Individual Sharing Amount (ISA) that must be paid by the member before medical bills can be shared. Different healthshare organizations may use different terms for this amount.

A: In the beginning, health sharing plans were only offered by Health Care Sharing Ministries. These faith-based organizations were looking for a way to allow their members to share the cost of medical expenses, thus fulfilling the biblical principles of community, charity, and caring for the less fortunate.

Today, however, medical sharing plans are available to almost everyone. While some healthshare plans do have a Christian religious component, there are plenty of non-denominational plans and plans that do not have a religious component.

A: In many cases, a good healthshare plan can be as little as 50% of the cost of unsubsidized insurance. But like insurance plans, most healthshare companies let their members choose from a range of monthly costs and coverage options.

A: Healthshare plans are not required to share medical costs of pre-existing conditions or preventive care. However, most plans make sharing available for pre-existing conditions after a predetermined waiting period of 1 or 2 years.

Recently, more and more health care sharing organizations are making preventive services available to their members. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive healthshare plan with these benefits, talk to your Personal Benefits Manager.