my heads been chopped off - yeah
so we have been using MediShare for since 2009 for nine
years can you believe we've been using them now so anyway we're just gonna dive
in a little bit and explore our experience with them and answer a whole
bunch of questions that we get a whole lot because people are asking me a lot
about what I think about it and I'm assume they're doing the same thing for
you right well kind of the conversation normally goes hey do you guys use MediShare
and they say oh yeah do you like it yeah we like it well what do you like
about it um maybe you should talk to Bob about it yeah and that's the role I play
in our house I think yeah typically doing the financial stuff but you're
taking care of bringing the kids at doctors office and all that stuff so
that's really valuable information like how all that worked so I guess let's
just start with that okay so what is it like when you go to the doctor because
well let me rephrase that let's step back just a bit so meta share I'm
assuming you know this if you're watching the video but MediShare is a
Christian health insurance alternative so it's not health insurance but
essentially it's providing the same benefit and more or less the way it
works is that instead of paying you know your typical health insurance premium
that you would every month you're you're sending what is the equivalent to a
premium over to MediShare via a credit union and so they're taking all that
money putting in a big bucket and then as anybody in the group has a need
they're pulling from that bucket to pay for that medical expense and that's the
gist of how it works but it's not technically insurance but for everyone
using it it feels very similar to insurance but one of the differences is
when you go to the doctor's office it can be a little bit different so why
don't you chat just a little bit about that so typically a lot of doctors
offices don't really know what MediShare is so they have to do a little bit
of digging to figure it out so that's the first thing I know all right
and one little thing too - that is we should also add in that we
do not use I don't think we use any of the doctors in Medicare's Network isn't
that correct that is that might be true and so this
changes the game a lot so if you use an in-network doctor I think it's I think
because we used one one time and they did they knew what to do and you know so
the network doctors it's a lot smoother of a process and so what we do it's
actually a little more difficult so so typically I will make an appointment
with a doctor I like to go to doctors that we feel comfortable with honestly
that's probably why no so that's a higher priority to us then it'd be an
in-network doctor right so they won't necessarily know what's going on so I
will just say this is what we use they'll have to do a little bit of
digging and then typically what happens is they will mail the bill to Medishare
MediShare we'll give them a get us a discount and then we will pay whatever
is remaining from the bill so the reason that we're doing a lot of this out of
pocket is because we have the highest deductible plan MediShare offers which
drives our premiums really really low and makes it so much more affordable
than health insurance right and most of our visits that we have right now are
just basic checkups I think there's only been one or two times that have been
outside of that where it's been a little bit more of a I guess a health concern
where we're having to go an extra time so that's also the reason is that we
just don't go to the doctor a lot yeah all right so let's dive into some of the
common questions that we get when people find out that we're in this and when
they want to know more about it whatever else okay so I'll kind of ask you the
question since you're more of the expert than me great let's do it all right
let's talk about the cost first all right
so first off the cost for us our cost savings I want to say when we switch to
MediShare was probably about 50% over what it was previously or with our
health insurance so like right now for a family of four with the high deductible
plan which is which basically means it's a $10,000 annual deductible
so they don't start covering anything until we reach that point but for a
family of four we're at I think we paid $230 a month I'm 37 years old and it's
based off of I think the oldest members age okay the second question we have is
is it exempt from the Affordable Care Act
all right yeah people are always asking about this the Obamacare thing if this
works and essentially they did get an exception so you can use MediShare so
MediShare works as an exception to the Affordable Care Act okay so who is
eligible for this can anybody join so this is a Christian organization and you
must adhere to a biblical lifestyle to be a member with MediShare and so where
this really comes into play is with the coverage aspect so they will not cover
abortions for instance or if you're in a drunk driving accident that will likely
not be covered and so those are important things to know going into the
whole thing so anyway as long as you adhere to a biblical lifestyle you
should be good to go and you should be good for eligibility with them okay so
one of the questions I get a lot is how do they deal with pregnancies yeah so
you don't need to wait a year but what you do need to do is you need to be a
member at the time you can see as long as you are and you continue paying your
quote premium throughout those nine months they will cover those pregnancy
expenses cool so we have not been through a pregnancy experience with them
but we have been through two adoptions with them do you want to talk a little
bit about adoptions and maybe like funeral expenses also yeah so this is a
really cool thing that they offer we have gotten money back for each of our
adoptions because as you may or may not know adoptions can be very expensive in
which they have been in our case both times and so it's really nice getting
some support from them some financial support and so in both cases they
reimburse us for a good chunk of those adoption expenses the numbers have
changed our first adoption took place four years ago
I think we got 4,000 back for all then and then our last adoption I think it's
because we're on a much higher deductible plan I think I want to say we
got like 1500 back so either way just getting some of that expense covered was
really really nice and really helpful to us we haven't had an experience with the
funeral expense thing yet so I don't know the details there but I do believe
that they help cover with funeral expenses as well that's awesome so you I
feel like you more than me have called them a good bit when I call I usually
have a great experience but I have very basic questions I think you are the one
that handles kind of more of the tougher questions with them how are they on the
phone what do you feel like about their response time and what's your experience
there yeah they this is one of those areas
that they actually used to not be very good at well let me so we've been with
them for nine years now and when we first started every time I called I felt
like I had to wait on hold like a half an hour or 40 minutes and they have
dramatically improved in this area now I feel like I get somebody on the line
really quickly on top of that or for the last nine years we've used them they've
always been incredibly helpful on the phone and they've been great to talk to
very kind and just willing to just answer questions over and over and over
again so that hasn't changed they're still really great to talk to on the
phone but their wait times have improved dramatically which is just nice I mean
because sometimes you need to call and you know talk to somebody about
something and it's really nice when you know what to wait on hold very long
yeah and they always seem to pray with us at the end if they do that with you
but they're just so it's just a nice experience because it's another believer
on the other side of the line and they ask you if you have any prayer requests
and they always pray with us which i think is cool okay so since our
deductible is so high do you want to talk about kind of how we handle this
because we are going out of network a lot and we do have bills that we have to
pay and I know with a typical insurance you can kind of set that a little bit
more where you're not just shelling out cash all the time but do you want to
talk kind of how handle that sure how you set it up yeah
so one of the reason that we use a higher deductible plan with them is
essentially so we can save more money and we save a lot by having that super
low premium which we do because yeah it's like two hundred thirty bucks for a
family of four and you know I know other people who are paying like a thousand
dollars for similar type coverage and so anyway so it's working out really really
well but and one of the ways that we offset this is by budgeting specifically
for health issues and so we budget you know quite a bit each month just for
health just so that if anything comes up we more or less have a little bit of a
health emergency fund sitting there in that cash available for us to to spend
on these health issues and that's just made it real really easy and so the
money that we're saving on the premium more or less goes to that health savings
account and we just kind of build that up so essentially we're kind of self
insuring a little bit for the smaller things and then if we ever do cross that
$10,000 a year threshold of MediShare you know they obviously can step in and just
cover everything from there okay so all in all I think we're both really happy
with the amount of money that we've saved I do think because we're going out
of network it's a little bit more work than using an insurance company just
because you're working with doctors and occasionally you have to manually pay a
bill instead of having the insurance can take care of it and like I said if you
stay in-network I feel like a lot of that is reduced but in our case it is a
little bit more work but for the amount of money that we're saving and just
stuff like the adoption kind of expenses being you know refunded and things like
that it's just they're a great company to work with and they've been around a
long time and so I just feel really comfortable with them I never had any
doubt that anything wouldn't you know that if we ever have any real big
expense that it wouldn't be covered so I just feel really comfortable then
personally I mean how do you feel yeah I feel really comfortable with them I mean
you really do most of the heavy lifting with them but just in my experience of
calling them talking to them they just seem really I
don't think it's as scary as a lot of people think I think that's some of the
reason why people maybe wouldn't want to go with them is because it is it does
seem a little bit different than a typical insurance company do you agree with
this absolutely and it's just not it's not nearly as scary as I think that what
the change maybe sounds like yeah it's just different that's all but yeah like
I said we've been with them nearly ten years now and we have no intentions
yeah no intention of leaving or anything else so if you have any questions that I
can answer or the Linda can answer by all means send them our way happy to
help but if it is something you're interested in doing I recommend just
reaching out to them directly because there are obviously the experts and
they're gonna be a little help a little bit better but as far as questions about
our experience we're always happy to share so just let us know and that's all
for today
adios - bye