Effective Aug 1, 2025 the initial unshared amount for a need on the classic membership went from $750 to $1000 and can be reduced by using the Fair Price Reward program through healthcare bluebook (Samaritan members have free usage of this through their online membership dashboard). This change is again part of the overall effort to deal with rising healthcare costs and to keep monthly share costs from rising too high and also help reduce the amount of prorating potentially necessary.
For members on Basic, the initial unshared amount went from $1500 to $2000.
A new share increase was also voted on, to take effect on Aug 1, 2025 as well. Share amounts are still broken down by family size as well as age groups (age of the oldest family member determines the group), and I have updated the monthly cost page accordingly.
I have been researching healthshare companies for my husband and me for the coming year (2026.) I read through this entire site yesterday, and it has been so helpful! What are your thoughts on the new Redeem Healthshare, which as I understand is a part of Samaritans Ministries. I’ve looked at the website, but I’m unclear about the differences. Redeem seems more expensive, and they deal with the providers directly, as well as the fact that members do not send their money directly to another member. This reminds me very much of Medishare, which our family had several years ago. We absolutely were not happy with them and have been on the Marketplace for the past 5-6 years. Any thoughts?
Hi Tammy. I’m so glad the site was useful. I haven’t had time to dig deeply into Samaritan’s Redeem Healthshare program yet, but I am very happy it exists. A cursory glance showed it would be a bit more expensive for our family while also offering some things that some families want like preventative care and more of an insurance process feel with doctors submitting bills, etc. We’ve been on Classic for so long and been through the process enough that we’re very comfortable with what Classic offers and how it works, and feel so supported by the Samaritan membership. However, I do expect that when we hit medicare age we’ll switch to Redeem to get onto the senior program (along with Medicare) and am frankly really excited about that as an affordable way to keep Samaritan in our lives at age 65, but for now I think we’re sticking with Classic. We’ve done just fine paying for routine visits out of pocket and navigating that world ourselves. Samaritan’s process quickly shared our surgical and ER needs, and I’m quite sure that with Samaritan behind the Redeem program the headaches should be slim to none. I can guess at some of your concerns about Medishare and I feel that Redeem would be superior to that experience simply because the Samaritan brand is behind it. However, I really haven’t dug in enough to get the nitty gritties, that’s just my gut feeling and faith after being part of Samaritan for so long. 🙂 It’s hard for me to imagine going back to traditional insurance so the arrival of Redeem for that “traditional” feel combined with Samaritan’s biblical approach seems quite ideal for those who really need it. And the Senior program checks all the boxes for us when we get there. Every day I’m so thankful for our Samaritan membership and have absolute peace about it. We recently started the online sharing option that Samaritan has too, and really love that also. I like sending shares direct to members and getting to write a little note to them. Sending that every month is never a chore, and gives me a feel-good sense that insurance never has. It just feels RIGHT.