We got a letter yesterday from Blue Cross stating that even though we have cancelled our policy, they’d like to offer us a chance to come back. They promised that our premium wouldn’t go up more than 16% when it renews in a couple of months and warned us that the plan they would let us have back wouldn’t have the ACA required coverage minimums (don’t care, didn’t want them anyway). Ok, a 16% increase would make our premium well over $700 a month (yikes!) and we could only have our plan for one more year. (Great so I go through this mess with the ACA again in a year? Ugh.) With Samaritan we pay $405 a month.
Sorry Blue Cross, you don’t get us back. I threw away the letter. I don’t want anything to do with regular insurance now that I’ve seen what Samaritan can offer us. Insurance guarantees I will have big bills left over after they’ve paid their share. Samaritan asks me to pay $300 per incident, not thousands. Why in the WORLD would I go back to paying twice as much per month to get stuck with thousands on the back end? No way, no how.
There are so many reasons to stay with Samaritan over insurance.
- Lower monthly cost (I’m pretty sure I would stay with samaritan even if the cost was higher)
- Sharing directly with members who have needs
- Being part of a community of believers taking care of each other
- Only $300 personal responsibility (deductible) which can actually be reduced to nothing!
Samaritan Ministries beats insurance hands down. I know the particulars vary a little for each family and every family must make the decision based on their own circumstances. But the reasons to stay with insurance are shrinking fast for millions of people. The costs are just too high. The value for what we get in return is too small. The value of standard insurance just isn’t there for us anymore. I am so thankful to have found Samaritan and hope this website will help others make the decision, too.
My wife is currently on Samaritan. It’s cheaper, it’s good….but it only works if you have deep pockets to pay for things in advance. And it only works if you don’t ever have need to see a specialist or a doctor that requires you to have insurance. Or are we missing something?
Thank you,
Doug Yarbrough
Hi Doug. I don’t work at Samaritan, but I get the impression most members do not have deep pockets. Striving for affordable health solutions wouldn’t be such a need if pockets were deep. For scheduled surgeries unfortunately nearly all patients are having to come up with some money in advance, insurance or not (emergencies are treated regardless). With insurance deductibles so high hospitals are asking for money from everyone early knowing that deductible portion may not get paid. Some reasonable amount up front is acceptable, but most people don’t end up paying large sums. Some are paying on a credit card in order to get a better cash/early pay discount, but it isn’t often required to pay a giant sum. Sure the hospital could ask, but they are going to fish for whatever they can, what is agreed upon is often far less from what I have read in other reviews. Each hospital is going to have a different policy. Where I live big sums aren’t required in advance, but something reasonable is and they also have a fixed cash pay policy of 90 days no interest on the remainder. The hospital 30 min away offers 18 months no interest.
A doctor requiring insurance likely isn’t going to be a good fit. But there aren’t many of those. In fact I’ve read there’s a growing number of doctors who don’t want anything to do with insurance, especially obamacare plans. In some cases those patients are getting turned down unless they pay cash. Again, each office is different. I’ve not heard of any members having big problems seeing specialists, many of them have cash pay options just like general practice docs do. Not being tied to a network is one of the big draws to Samaritan, we can see anyone we want. Yes we must work out payment plans with each facility, and that could require explaining the way Samaritan works to someone who isn’t familiar, but the outcome is usually very positive from what I’ve been reading. I’m sure there are cases where it’s a bit more problematic, but those are all stemming from an office assuming cash pay means no pay. Pointing out that we can and do pay (and even faster than insurance does) tends to make all the difference. We are uninsured, but we are not unprotected. Some members are taking a Samaritan brochure and leading them to the website, others are simply explaining how it works. I did that footwork before joining and it was all very well received by my providers in the area. If you have run into a situation where you had trouble with an office, a call to Samaritan to get advice on how to proceed is warranted. I asked a “what if” question about that once and was told that Karis can even step in and help, but it usually isn’t necessary.
My experience so far, and reviews I’ve read, indicate that deep pockets are definitely not required. It is a good idea to have a small savings account ready to cash flow a couple of small payments to a doctor while waiting for shares to come in, but it doesn’t have to be huge. And specialists are seen like any other doc. Every hospital understands the concept of self pay/cash pay, and most doctors offices do too. The ones that don’t are coming to know the idea either from ministry members or the general uninsured population.
If you are still concerned please give Samaritan a call. I’m sure some members have had a few issues and they would be able to tell you the best way to handle it. So far I haven’t run into a problem, and don’t expect to based on early calls to our providers, but we also haven’t had to deal with a large prescheduled surgery yet.