Zion Healthshare

[Knightclimber]

Anyone have real world experience with Zion Healthshare? My wife and I will be retiring early and going full time next year at the age of 55. So we will need Health insurance that can be used anywhere. Zion seems like the best choice but have read so many horror stories about Healthshares. Anyone use them or have recommendations for other places to research?

 

[MoonShadow_1911]

Anyone have real world experience with Zion Healthshare? My wife and I will be retiring early and going full time next year at the age of 55. So we will need Health insurance that can be used anywhere. Zion seems like the best choice but have read so many horror stories about Healthshares. Anyone use them or have recommendations for other places to research?

The only one that I would think about recommending is Medi-Share. Just keep in mind that if either of you have medication health issues that can possibly be taken care of by diet and exercise (think cholesterol, early type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure), they will add you to the plan, but then you will have to work with a dietician to get off of those meds.

Which is my biggest problem with them because I'm allergic to most fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, such is what they want you to consume most.

 

[Knightclimber]

The only one that I would think about recommending is Metashare. Just keep in mind that if either of you have medication health issues that can possibly be taken care of by diet and exercise (think cholesterol, early type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure), they will add you to the plan, but then you will have to work with a dietician to get off of those meds.

Which is my biggest problem with them because I'm allergic to most fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, such is what they want you to consume most.

Thank you for the suggestion. I will look into them (is it Metashare or Medi-share? Can’t find Metashare). We are both healthy and don’t have any medications or existing conditions.

 

[MoonShadow_1911]

Thank you for the suggestion. I will look into them (is it Metashare or Medi-share? Can’t find Metashare). We are both healthy and don’t have any medications or existing conditions.

Your right Medi-Share. I'll correct my post.

 

[Knightclimber]

Your right Medi-Share. I'll correct my post.

Ok. I looked and there were many different ones with Medishare or variants of the name. All seemed to require statements of faith. Looking for something that encourages healthy lifestyles without the Christian faith requirement. Sorry, should have mentioned that.

 

[MoonShadow_1911]

Ok. I looked and there were many different ones with Medishare or variants of the name. All seemed to require statements of faith. Looking for something that encourages healthy lifestyles without the Christian faith requirement. Sorry, should have mentioned that.

No problem. As I said it is that only one I would recommend.

 

[Knightclimber]

I appreciate the suggestion. Do you have a link for the specific one you suggest?

 

[MoonShadow_1911]

I appreciate the suggestion. Do you have a link for the specific one you suggest?

https://www.medishare.com/

It's a Christian based health sharing organization.

 

[Knightclimber]

Thank you.

 

[MoonShadow_1911]

Thank you.

No problem. I do understand it doesn't fit your criteria.

 

[Knightclimber]

No problem. I do understand it doesn't fit your criteria.

Still good info for others who may be interested in similar programs.

 

[alias100]

I would be very cautious about any of the medical cost sharing programs whether faith based or not.
Make sure that they can't dump you if you start costing too much.
It's easy to complain about excessive regulations (often with good reason), but there are often good reasons industries are regulated.
Good luck with your retirement!

 

[Knightclimber]

I would be very cautious about any of the medical cost sharing programs whether faith based or not.
Make sure that they can't dump you if you start costing too much.
It's easy to complain about excessive regulations (often with good reason), but there are often good reasons industries are regulated.
Good luck with your retirement!

Yes, that is exactly why I am hoping someone can offer some real world experience. Because we plan to retain ownership of our house, it will be difficult to change our domicile to another state. Have read of other Minnesota couples who had property or other interests still in Minnesota that were sued by the state saying they were still residents. Looked at ACA plans but they only cover in state which could be problematic if something would happen while out of state. yes, emergency visits are covered but then you have to get back to home state for long term or extended care.

 

[Dragfam1127]

Anyone have real world experience with Zion Healthshare? My wife and I will be retiring early and going full time next year at the age of 55. So we will need Health insurance that can be used anywhere. Zion seems like the best choice but have read so many horror stories about Healthshares. Anyone use them or have recommendations for other places to research?

My wife and I are planning on doing the same thing as you in the next couple of years. She works in the healthcare world and are thinking of the Medashare option ourselves. Hopefully anyone using them will chime in with likes/dislikes.

 

[Teledoc]

Anyone have real world experience with Zion Healthshare? My wife and I will be retiring early and going full time next year at the age of 55. So we will need Health insurance that can be used anywhere. Zion seems like the best choice but have read so many horror stories about Healthshares. Anyone use them or have recommendations for other places to research?

Yes, I do both as a consumer and as a physician/medical director who engages with health shares as part of our company's product offerings. I trust you do not need a definition, but in brief they are a sharing pool where a number of people pool their money to help pay for medical expenditures. As opposed to insurance, there is no mandate for payments to be made, but issues will quickly surface and reputations suffer if they are not. They tend to be much simpler to use than insurance, which has many layers of cost offsets to you such as copays, coinsurance, deductibles with max out of pockets to track.
Healthsharing pools started as faith based, but that has changed with newer ones not having faith requirements. Zion is in the latter camp, fairly new, with around 40,000 members. I used to belong to a faith based older one but more and more complaints surfaced on payouts, with members getting sent to collections by hospitals. I thus switched to Zion. Zion had very good feedback with various online sources with prompt payouts, so I switched and has worked well, though I have not had to file a share. Our health care company now supplies Zion for its employees.
A lesson in medical economics - I am 59 years old, and pay Zion $250/month for their $3000 max out of pocket annually option. I get a discount of $70 because I use a Direct Primary Care doctor locally whom I pay $70/month. Thus, I pay $320/month total. And do note Zion uses roughly half of the income for sharing, banking the rest for a bad claims year. If I had 3 or more bad things happen (eg heart attack, fracture requiring surgery, appendicitis) max I would pay that year would be $3000 in payments, $3000 max deductible/out of pocket = $6000 total.
With an ACA plan, silver, I was looking at $750/month, with $7000 max out of pocket. So, with the above "bad year" scenario, I would be out $16,000. So, where does the $10,000 difference go? Yup, insurance company profits.
Anyway, there are many tradeoffs between a health share and traditional insurance. And some states prohibit health share use with some health sharing companies (eg Washington state and Sedera). I don't think Zion has any state restrictions, but you can ask them. For our company, they were the top choice, and for me personally.
There is much more I can add from experience, but this already is long. PM me if you wish. Best regards with your choice.
Carl

 

[kb0zke]

Most, if not all, of these medical sharing plans are designed for individuals or families. They aren't designed for groups. That's both good and bad. If a plan fits you, fine. If not, you can always choose from a variety of insurance products. If a company decided to go with one of these sharing plans for everyone, it may not fit one employee. Then what?

A couple of years ago our school looked into this. It would have saved us a bundle of money, but there were a few things that concerned some of the staff, so we decided against it. Read the fine print, as not all of the sharing companies operate exactly the same. Like everything else, ask lots of questions before signing the check. Find the plan that best fits YOU.

 

[morttt]

I'm pretty sure this will fall on deaf ears, and I'm not going to reply again, but I'll leave this out there:

Healthshares are not insurance, they have significant drawbacks, can drop you at any time, can deny coverage for any reason (including "moral" reasons like "not going to a specific church enough"), and can deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, among many other drawbacks. There are no rules or protections that are mandatory with actual insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Their terms are not public and are shrouded in mystery until after you sign up (and even after that).

They are a scam looking to get money out of people by disguising themselves as a cheaper alternative to insurance and praying on their faith.

Congress investigated these recently, for good cause
https://huffman.house.gov/media-cen...gerous-health-care-sharing-ministry-practices

John Oliver did some good investigative journalism. there's comedy here, but that is just a means of delivering important information. As reported by the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jun/28/john-oliver-healthcare-sharing-ministries

Theres a very good episode of this Law Podcast from a Harvard-educated lawyer breaking down everything that is wrong with these things:
https://openargs.com/oa530-andrew-testifies-to-congress-on-christian-healthshare-ministries/

Short advice: Stay away. You're asking for trouble by forgoing real insurance. If you have some sort of catastrophic or chronic injury or illness, you will lose far more than you gain in monthly savings. Possibly everything.

 

[Knightclimber]

Yes, I do both as a consumer and as a physician/medical director who engages with health shares as part of our company's product offerings. I trust you do not need a definition, but in brief they are a sharing pool where a number of people pool their money to help pay for medical expenditures. As opposed to insurance, there is no mandate for payments to be made, but issues will quickly surface and reputations suffer if they are not. They tend to be much simpler to use than insurance, which has many layers of cost offsets to you such as copays, coinsurance, deductibles with max out of pockets to track.
Healthsharing pools started as faith based, but that has changed with newer ones not having faith requirements. Zion is in the latter camp, fairly new, with around 40,000 members. I used to belong to a faith based older one but more and more complaints surfaced on payouts, with members getting sent to collections by hospitals. I thus switched to Zion. Zion had very good feedback with various online sources with prompt payouts, so I switched and has worked well, though I have not had to file a share. Our health care company now supplies Zion for its employees.
A lesson in medical economics - I am 59 years old, and pay Zion $250/month for their $3000 max out of pocket annually option. I get a discount of $70 because I use a Direct Primary Care doctor locally whom I pay $70/month. Thus, I pay $320/month total. And do note Zion uses roughly half of the income for sharing, banking the rest for a bad claims year. If I had 3 or more bad things happen (eg heart attack, fracture requiring surgery, appendicitis) max I would pay that year would be $3000 in payments, $3000 max deductible/out of pocket = $6000 total.
With an ACA plan, silver, I was looking at $750/month, with $7000 max out of pocket. So, with the above "bad year" scenario, I would be out $16,000. So, where does the $10,000 difference go? Yup, insurance company profits.
Anyway, there are many tradeoffs between a health share and traditional insurance. And some states prohibit health share use with some health sharing companies (eg Washington state and Sedera). I don't think Zion has any state restrictions, but you can ask them. For our company, they were the top choice, and for me personally.
There is much more I can add from experience, but this already is long. PM me if you wish. Best regards with your choice.
Carl

Thank you for the reply. With everything I have been finding comparing ACA plans, Indemnity plans that most brokers offer full timers and Health shares. Zion really seems the best option for us. We are both in great health and don’t foresee utilizing medical care for anything beyond accidents or something catastrophic. I will send you a PM. Thanks.

 

[Knightclimber]

I'm pretty sure this will fall on deaf ears, and I'm not going to reply again, but I'll leave this out there:

Healthshares are not insurance, they have significant drawbacks, can drop you at any time, can deny coverage for any reason (including "moral" reasons like "not going to a specific church enough"), and can deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, among many other drawbacks. There are no rules or protections that are mandatory with actual insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Their terms are not public and are shrouded in mystery until after you sign up (and even after that).

They are a scam looking to get money out of people by disguising themselves as a cheaper alternative to insurance and praying on their faith.

Congress investigated these recently, for good cause
https://huffman.house.gov/media-cen...gerous-health-care-sharing-ministry-practices

John Oliver did some good investigative journalism. there's comedy here, but that is just a means of delivering important information. As reported by the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jun/28/john-oliver-healthcare-sharing-ministries

Theres a very good episode of this Law Podcast from a Harvard-educated lawyer breaking down everything that is wrong with these things:
https://openargs.com/oa530-andrew-testifies-to-congress-on-christian-healthshare-ministries/

Short advice: Stay away. You're asking for trouble by forgoing real insurance. If you have some sort of catastrophic or chronic injury or illness, you will lose far more than you gain in monthly savings. Possibly everything.

Thank you for your concern. I originally shied away from health shares because of all the bad press, faith requirements that allow them to decline pretty much anything if you are known to have a drink or do something they don’t like and some other shady practices or bad financial decisions. But as we get closer to retirement, with what I am finding, Zion might actually be worth the risk. Since changing our domicile is not something we are currently considering, we have kind of painted ourselves into a corner concerning ACA plans. I have been in contact with insurance brokers who specialize in Full time RVers and they offer either health share plans or indemnity plans mostly for a significantly higher cost. Also some of the complaints against health shares can be found with regular insurance as well. We ran into that with our son. He needed a surgery and the insurance company kept denying it until more and more tests were done. So we spent many thousands extra for more and more tests until the company finally agreed the surgery was needed. By that point, the hospital (Mayo Clinic) didn’t trust the company would pay so required us to pay up front for the surgery. We had to empty our accounts to pay. Then to add insult to injury, after insurance finally paid, the hospital wouldn’t release our money back to us for several months because as they told me “Sir, you don’t understand, that is a lot of money and we can’t just give that back.” After repeated attempts over several months, I finally got to someone who was able to return our funds. Thankfully we were able to switch away from that insurance company soon after that.
So, just like any form of insurance, a person needs to research the specific company and their practices and reviews. Just because a company is a traditional insurance company isn’t a guarantee they will pay either.