Friday, October 28, 2016

Medi-Share

With all the news hype in regard to increased insurance rates, I wanted to take a moment to share what we have done with our family.

When we got out of the military, JB started a job as a contract employee as an Emergency room physician. This meant he didn't work for the hospital and was therefore not eligible for insurance through his job.

We quickly got in touch with Blue Cross and picked up the cheapest plan we could.

It was $1,800 a month for our family of six. In addition, we had a $10,000 deductible, and the only thing covered under the plan was one well visit check-up for each of us each year. Isaac had to go to the ER one time while he was out of town and away from JB, and it cost us $1,000. Our insurance covered nothing until we hit $1,800. Even our prescriptions were not covered until we hit $10,000.

We decided after that year to try something different. We are using Medi-Share. I know this may not be an option for everyone, and I know that it is not fool-proof, but it does quality under Obamacare. We are paying around $215 a month for our family. We pay everything out-of-pocket until $10,000, but we figured, even if we paid $10,000 for the year, we'd be well below the $21,600 we paid just in rates last year.

We have a savings account for our medical care, and we put a certain amount in that every month as we work toward making sure we have $10,000 saved. In addition, when you hit $10,000, you have to pay and file for reimbursement. I truly can't say how well I'd recommend Medi-Share until we really needed them which we haven't yet.

Hope this may help someone who, like us, was completely overwhelmed with the cost of insurance!


2 comments:

hmm said...

Have you tried buying off the insurance market place? It's usually cheaper then buying through blue cross directly. It is only open certain times of year but open enrollment starts next week. I would recommend at least pricing a policy. I have never bought for a family but I did but an individual plan two years in New York and had no problems with it I got a silver plan which is what everyone I know goes for and is most popular. My month premiums were 270 first year 310 second year. Got two doctors visits certain prescriptions covered (everything I needed but some are not). Second year the plan I picked had vision coverage as well. Deductible was 2500 on everything else. It has a much worse reputation then it derserves.

Unknown said...

We are now on media-share too. We dumped over $16k in the trash each year for 4 years! I wish I could go back in time. We paid through the market place 1500 a month for our family of 5. Basic plan through neighborhood health. Medi-share was the answer we needed.