Effective Aug 1, 2024 the initial unshared amount for a need is going from $400 to $750 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 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.
A new share increase was also voted on, to take effect on Aug 1, 2024 as well. Share amounts will be 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. These are hard to handle for some families as we all deal with inflation hitting our budgets. For those who are struggling to make their monthly bills, Samaritan also offers a Basic membership which costs less per month and has a higher personal responsibility amount per need (works well for those who rarely have needs or do not anticipate any large upcoming needs such as maternity care).
As we all face inflation and medical costs rising even faster than national inflation numbers, I am reminded of why we are Samaritan members. For us personally, it’s for the wide range of medical freedom we have. Samaritan allows us to see naturopaths, alternative medicine options, and most importantly our health care is not dictated by a faceless insurance board. Friends and family with traditional insurance routinely end up jumping through a lot of hoops before insurance will pay for the treatment their doctors requested. Why go through the extra pain and suffering waiting for insurance to decide your treatment is worth it to them? With Samaritan we have the ultimate freedom to work with our doctors for the care we actually need. Its astonishing this simple, logical feature could be such a rarity in the medical system today, yet here we are.
After 10 years of membership we are still so thankful to have found Samaritan Ministries and for all the blessings it has given us, as well as allowing us to bless others.
Hello, I’m trying to get all of the details on the increases. I’m thankful you have this up, as the site only mentions the upcoming increase. I cannot locate any amounts. As I understand it, this is an increase to $750 for the classic membership, correct? Do you know the increase for Basic? We were planning to switch over August 1st, but now I’m not sure there will even be a savings for my family.
Hi Jaime, I don’t believe the personal responsibility amount increased for Basic, just Classic. I have a breakdown of the new monthly sharing amounts for both Classic and Basic (as of Aug 1), on the monthly costs page.