This isn’t my ‘typical’ home blog post but because I am always very conscious of where our dollars go – hence why I like to do so many things myself to save money – I know so many of you can relate to feeling the same and healthcare coverage is one of those things that has gotten out of control on costs and coverage.
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I want to preface this by saying I am in no way trying to convince you to cancel your current healthcare coverage. This is purely for educational purposes and details on how our healthcare coverage works.
From all the research I’ve done on the topic, there are two most common forms of healthcare coverage – traditional insurance and cost sharing healthcare programs. For years, we had traditional insurance. I am very familiar with how it works as we had two children on a traditional insurance plan through work. You pay your premium, if you have a claim, you have to meet your deductible before the company pays anything and then the out of pocket maximum before the insurance company starts paying 100%. Since up until the age of 25, this is all we knew and were familiar with, it was a bit intimidating thinking about using anything other than traditional insurance. But after our second child, we decided to make a leap of faith and I pursued my photography business full time and quit my regular job. That would make both of us technically self-employed and ineligible for any insurance benefits though work. 8 years ago, the best plan we could find would be $1200/month with a $12,000 out of pocket maximum. That meant if we had another child which we had planned to eventually, we would automatically have to pay $12,000 and it just didn’t sit well with us. This is where I started researching alternatives to traditional health insurance.
The alternative to traditional health insurance is call cost sharing healthcare coverage. I’m very careful to not use the term “insurance” because it is not insurance and the process is very much different than health insurance… but the benefits and coverage are so much better, in my opinion. With a cost sharing healthcare program, the members pay their monthly ‘gift’ (similar to a premium) and that money is used to pay for healthcare bills for the other members when their bills meet a certain criteria.
There are multiple programs with cost sharing healthcare but the one we have used for the last 8 years is called Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM). I vetted all the programs extensively prior to becoming a member and CHM had the longest standing with the best benefits we were looking for as well as endorsed by Dave Ramsey. That just made me confident that CHM is a reputable and reliable company and we have been proved that time and time again over the last 8 years. I honestly have nothing negative to say about CHM. We’ve now had 3 children while on CHM and they have paid almost everything in full. We’ve had children have two surgeries also while on CHM and everything was covered as they stated it would be. I’m just going to give you a general idea idea of what we pay a month, what that covers and how the reimbursement process works.
For a family, we pay around $800/month. That is the best plan with the most extensive coverage which is what we feel most comfortable with, especially being in child-bearing years and having young children who will inevitably need healthcare services. If we were to have an incident/accident (i.e. broken bone, surgery, hospital stay, pregnancy, etc) the most we would pay out of pocket for that incident is $1000. Everything after the first $1000, as long as it falls within the criteria required, would be shared/reimbursed at 100% by CHM.
How the reimbursement process works:
- We see the doctor/provider of our choice (no in network or out of network hassles to deal with) and we tell them we are self-pay at the visit.
- We either have to pay for the visit that day or they bill us after the visit. Almost everywhere offers a self-pay discount. Some places is 20% and others is up to 40% off. If unable to pay the bill in full, CHM recommends setting up a payment plan until reimbursement comes.
- We request an itemized bill from the providers billing office.
- We fill out the sharing request paperwork from CHM website and submit along with any itemized bills we received from that incident.
- Around 60-75 days after the paperwork is submitted, we receive a reimbursement check from CHM to pay the rest of the bills or pay yourself back from the bills you paid.
The first few times submitting bills for reimbursement was the most difficult. I wanted to make sure I had everything correct and it look a little longer than it does now. It isn’t as hands off as traditional insurance where you see the dr and then you either pay the bill or the insurance company pays. There is a few other steps and it takes a little more effort from me in doing the work of collecting itemized bills and submitting the required paperwork. But the thousands of dollars we have saved in premiums and medical bills over the last 8 years has been well worth it. I think of it as I am the middle man, not somebody in an insurance office states away. And because of that, we save thousands each year.
A few things CHM does not cover:
-Dental
-Vision
-Infertility treatment
These are just a few of the things that CHM does not cover. If you want a more extensive list, I recommend checking out their website for more details.
We have been so impressed by CHM and their values for family and life align with our family’s values. I love knowing that our monthly premium goes to help other members who share similar values and when we have a medical incident that we submit, the help is coming from other Christian members. It really is an amazing program and we plan to use them indefinitely for our family’s healthcare needs!
If interested in applying, follow the link below to fill out an application.
