Samaritan Ministries: a guide to Christian Health Sharing

Alex Kelly
4 days ago
7 min read

For the purpose of this post I will be discussing Samaritan's "Classic" plan, which is the most extensive plan. They do have some cheaper options, but the coverage isn't as much.

What is a Health Share Ministry?

A health share ministry is an alternative approach to health insurance. It is typically organized as a nonprofit religious organization and operates on the principles of shared responsibility and voluntary contributions from its members.

In a health share ministry, like-minded individuals or families come together to pool their financial resources to assist in covering each other's medical expenses. Members contribute a monthly fee or "share," similar to insurance premiums, which is then used to pay for eligible medical costs of the participants.

Each health share ministry sets its own guidelines and rules regarding eligible expenses, member contributions, and the process for sharing medical costs. Members typically submit their medical bills to the ministry, which then evaluates the requests and distributes funds accordingly.

Visit Samaritan Ministries' website here.

Samaritan Pricing:

Pricing varies by age and how many people are in a household. We are a household of 4, with the most extensive "Classic" plan and pay $665/mo. For comparison, the other top health sharing program Christian Health Ministries (which we used to have) costs $765 for a family of 4. I believe both of these prices stay the same for up to like 6-8 people in a household before rising - which is awesome!

Before my husband was an independent contractor, the insurance through his work was going to cost us $1,300/mo for the whole family!!!

Calculate your family's cost here.

Personal Responsibility

Most health share programs have what is called an IUA (initial unsharable amount) or "personal responsibility" that you must pay before sharing begins. Think along the lines of "deductible."

Samaritan - Classic

$1,000 per need (including pregnancy)

Samaritan’s is per need. This means a need must reach at least $1,000 worth of bills before it is eligible to be shared. You pay the first $1,000 and all bills after that will be shared 100%. 20 "therapies" are allowed per need, as well (i.e chiropractor, pelvic floor, massage, etc.). Samaritan does provide you with a search engine of “healthcare bluebook providers” with fair prices. If you use one of these providers for at least one of the bills in your need then the IUA is waived.

Example: Let's say you go to the doctor for GI problems, and they do some bloodwork. The appointment + bloodwork is $300. You can go ahead and submit a need and start submitting bills, but nothing will be shared yet since you haven't hit $1,000. Bloodwork comes back, and they want you to get a HIDA scan to check gallbladder function. They refer you to the nearby hospital and the HIDA scan is $900. Your total bills are now $1,300, so sharing can begin. Since your "personal responsibility" is $1,000 they will share the $300 ($1,300-$1,000 IUA), and any remaining bills that may come. Let's say the recommend gallbladder removal...that will not be shared 100%, because you've already exceeded your $1,000 personal responsibility.

HOWEVER, let's say when they recommend you for the HIDA scan you go onto the healthcare Bluebook and find an imaging center nearby that will do it for $400 instead of the $900 the hospital was going to charge (this is exactly what we did for my husband's HIDA scan lol). Since you have chosen to go with a healthcare Bluebook option, the initial $1,000 personal responsibility is waived, and now everything will be shared: the initial appointment, bloodwork, HIDA scan, and any other remaining bills from treatments.

Samaritan Maternity

Important note: the estimated due date must be 300 days or more after the mother’s membership began in order to be eligible for sharing.

Because maternity needs consist of the majority of health share needs, they typically have different guidelines than other needs. For Samaritan, the IUA for classic remains the same ($1,000). After that there is a co-share of 30% until you have reached "out of pocket" $3,000 - then the rest is shared 100%. They also share up to $500 for doula services!

If you have a home-birth, VBAC, or use any service from a healthcare blue book provider then the $1,000 IUA is waived.

Example: You find out you're pregnant. You have your first appointment and sonogram totaling $300. You can go ahead and submit this bill, but sharing won't start yet because you haven't hit $1,000. The next few weeks you have a chiropractor appointment, another doctors appointment, some bloodwork, and another ultrasound all totaling $700. You have now reached the $1,000 personal responsibility and sharing can begin at a 30% co-share (Samaritan shares 70% and you are responsible for 30%). So let's say your next appointment is another chiropractor appointment at $100. You submit the bill and Samaritan shares $70 of that bill. This continues until the total amount of maternity bills you have paid out of pocket totals $3,000 - then sharing will begin at 100%.

In short, the most you'd pay out of pocket for a pregnancy/delivery/post-natal is $4,000, and $3,000 if you're able to get the IUA waived.

How Much Will Samaritan Share?

Samaritan Classic will share up to $250,000 per need. However, if you add on the "save to share" program for an extra $399/year then the amount becomes unlimited.

If you do decide to go with Samaritan, tell them Alex Kelly from Denton, TX referred you.

They give $100 referral bonuses ;)

Is There a "Network" of Providers?

Nope! You can see whoever you want!!!

What About Pre-Existing Conditions?

It's important to thoroughly read through the guidelines of any health share plan before signing up. Most will NOT cover pre-existing conditions. However, there are some exceptions for certain illnesses where they may become eligible for sharing, like if they've been symptom/treatment free for 24 months.

What About Preventive Care?

Most health share plans also do not cover preventative care. The good news is, though, many doctors provide a cash pay discount.

Comparing Samaritan to Christian Health Ministries

CHM is the other "big dog" when it comes to health share ministries. We used CHM for Miles' birth, and had a great experience. We ended up switching years ago, because Samaritan was cheaper and (at the time) covered alternative/holistic medicine. Unfortunately, they no longer do. But, to my understand, they do still cover some therapies like chiropractic/massage that CHM does not. Overall, though, I have no complaints with our experience!

Pricing for CHM - Gold

$765/mo for a family of 4. This covers up to $125,000 per need. Similar to Samaritan's "save to share," you can add on CHM plus for unlimited coverage which would put a family of 4 at $893/mo.

You can calculate your family's pricing here.

CHM Personal Responsibility

$1,250 annually

$2,500 per pregnancy

CHM's personal responsibility is per person, per year. Regardless, a need must reach at least $1,250 before it is eligible to be shared ($2,500 for maternity). The first $1,250+ need of the year you would pay the initial $1,250 and any bills after that would be shared. If that same person has another need that year resulting in $1,250+ bills then everything would be shared, including the first $1,250.

CHM Maternity

Maternity's personal responsibility is raised up to $2,500. So let's say at the end of the day your total bills add up to $25,000. You are responsible for the first $20,000, and the remaining $17,500 is shared by CHM. The only thing to keep in mind is that I don't believe CHM shares chiropractic, pelvic floor, doulas, etc., where as Samaritan does.

What if there are More Bills than Shares?

What this means is that members submitted more medical bills than shares one month.

For example, if there were $35,000,000 worth of medical bills submitted by members that month, but only $34,000,000 shares sent in, then the ministry would be in a $1M deficit. This is rare, but with inflation and the rising costs in the medical industry it happens.

So how does SM and CHM handle this?

Samaritan will prorate needs a small %. So instead of sharing 100% of bills that month they may only share 97%. Typically the percentage is very small, and they have a members assistance fund they will use to help members who are burdened by the proration. Per their guidelines, a member CANNOT be prorated more than $4,500 across an open need. And if you have used any care from the healthcare Bluebook during any point of your "need," then prorating is waived.

Unless things have changed since we had CHM, they will not prorate but instead push bills to the next month (and possibly the next, and so on) until the money is available. The pro is that a need isn’t prorated, but a con is you could be waiting months and months and months to receive any money.

Sending Shares

Samaritan: Each month you are assigned a specific person to send your share to either via PayPal or check in the mail. You will be given what the medical need the share is for so you can be praying for the member, and send them a note if you’d like. They have started an option for paying your share via the Samaritan dashboard, that I believe will become the standard way to share soon. This is new, so I'm not 100% yet but I would imagine this would mean you would receive any shares via direct deposit right into your bank account. I should know more in a few months once it's all finalized.

CHM: You send your share directly to CHM headquarters where they will then divvy out the shares to the appropriate members with needs.

Receiving Shares

Samaritan: You will receive PayPal payments or checks (whichever you sign up for) directly from members. Once the portal sharing is established, though, I believe you'll receive shares directly into your account - but don't quote me on that yet.

CHM: Headquarters will mail you a check directly.