Effective Sept 1, 2020 the initial unshared amount for a need is going from $300 to $400 and will no longer be reduced by discounts. This change is 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. In the past prorating was done at 20% if there were more needs than shares (often made up later), but with this adjustment prorating is expected to shrink to 3-5%. While this change will be an adjustment for many families I expect we will adapt well and considering that costs are also rising for those in the insurance world and those using other options this kind of thing is to be expected. We really need to get health care costs under control and Samaritan members are a good part of that as we are more likely to ask pricing questions and work to find affordable and reasonable ways to get the care we need. One of the main tenets of Samaritan’s membership is to shoulder some of the burden ourselves while have the larger membership help us with the rest. This is asking us to share a little more of the burden ourselves as we all adapt to rising healthcare costs.
Samaritan members are also currently voting on a possible share increase, I will update this blog once I know the results of that vote.
The 20% prorate shrinking to 3-5% needs to be explained better. That does not make sense in that explanation.
My apologies. In the past, whenever there were more needs (total medical bills) than share money available, need sharing would be reduced by 20% so that 80% of a member’s submitted need was actually shared that month; ie: if they submitted $5000 in medical bills, members would send them $4000 to cover 80% of it (just in prorated months). The remaining 20% ($1000) was generally made up later. With the coming change of members always covering the first $400 of any need they submit, Samaritan is projecting that prorating will not need to be so deep, they expect that anytime prorating is needed in the future it will only be at 3-5% instead of 20%, but that is just a projection and not guaranteed as the new requirement doesn’t kick in until Sept 1 I believe. So if prorating was needed in the future, that would mean a $5000 need submitted would get $4750 to $4850 shared, with the remainder likely caught up later. Again, this is just a projection by Samaritan’s board as they’ve been evaluating needs over time and what the new $400 initial unshared amount would do to the totals. Hope that helps.