Healthcare Sharing Review: Comparing Samaritan, Medi-Share, Liberty Health & More

If you’re considering a health-sharing plan instead of traditional insurance, you’ll want the best reviews you can find. My team and I have meticulously scoured all the major healthcare-sharing ministries (Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, Medi-Share, Christian Care Ministries, Liberty Healthshare, Solidarity Healthshare, CMF CURO, and Zion) in this review and comparison (updated September 2024). Read my overview of how health sharing works here.

How Do Healthcare Sharing Plans Compare?

With so many details to consider when selecting a healthcare-sharing plan, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Here are some key things to consider as you explore your options:

• Coverage limits: Some plans, like Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM) and Medi-Share, offer unlimited coverage, while others, like Liberty HealthShare, cap coverage at $1 million.
• Faith-based requirements: Certain plans require members to adhere to specific faith practices, while others are more flexible or secular.
• Monthly costs: Share amounts can vary, with some plans offering more affordable monthly costs than others.
• Electronic bill processing: Some plans require doctors to send bills electronically, which can impact how quickly and accurately claims are processed.
• Alternative treatments: Not all plans cover alternative treatments, so if that’s important to you, be sure to check.
• Pre-existing conditions: Some plans may have restrictions or waiting periods for pre-existing conditions, so it’s important to understand how each plan handles these.
• Direct Primary Care (DPC): Some plans integrate with DPC, providing more personalized care and potential cost savings.
• Provider networks: Certain plans have a network of providers you must use, while others offer more flexibility in choosing your healthcare providers.
• Claims processing: Each plan processes claims differently, so transparency and member involvement can vary.
• Reputation and reviews: Hearing from others who have used these plans can give you valuable insights into what to expect.

The MAJOR difference with Samaritan vs. the other “big two” (CHM and Medi-Share) is that it’s the only one where you send your check directly to the person in need. 

Some people love that – the connectedness to the body of Christ, the personal prayers and notes. Some people just want to automate the process and be more private about it (since if YOU are the one in need, your medical issue is published publicly).

Legally, there’s a small chance that the other two major sharing programs could come under fire someday because of their system because they collect and redistribute funds and may look more like “insurance” than “sharing.” So far, they’ve had no problem though. Samaritan feels that they have an extra layer of protection from the government because no money goes through their hands/offices.

I actually thought I’d really dislike that part because I adore automation, especially when it comes to boring things like paying bills. I’ve been surprised.

Most months, I really do appreciate knowing where our money is going, and we’ve definitely paid a little extra in a separate envelope for “special prayer needs,” medical bills from members that aren’t publishable, either because they’re not within the guidelines (like dental or eye) or because the condition existed before the person became a member.

So I guess I’m saying don’t let that part scare you, and even if you have a pre-existing condition or pregnancy, I’d encourage you to call the Samaritan offices and talk to them. It sure sounds like MANY members end up with even un-publishable needs mostly covered by the community of Christians that makes up Samaritan. It’s amazing…

Samaritan also have a “pay online” feature via Paypal, for all of us who love our tech! I really do appreciate this, because although I still like the connectedness of the Body of Christ…finding cards to send in the mail was starting to feel annoying…

Liberty wasn’t even on my radar (and Solidarity didn’t exist) when we started looking into this in late 2014. They are a little different as well because you send the money online to other members’ “share boxes” but the doctor still sends bills directly to Liberty. With Samaritan, you receive and pay your own bills so the doc may save expenses vs. submitting claims through traditional insurance.

Structure and Review of Samaritan Ministries Healthcare Sharing

In general, here’s how Samaritan Ministries works in the Classic plan:

• Any medical need under $750 is not publishable – that means you pay for it yourself.
• Any approved need over $750 is “published” and people are assigned to send checks to you or PayPal.me
• You pay your own bills starting with $750 of your own money and then using what you’ve been sent (which is equal to the rest of your bill). Note that there are things that aren’t part of the plan, like dental care, motorcycle accidents, and preventative care like physical, well-child checkups, colonoscopies, and mammograms, as well as several “non-Christian” issues like injuries as a result of abusing drugs or alcohol. See below for how pre-existing conditions are handled. 
• Multiple appointments for the same medical issue/incident all count as “one.” So if you have an $180 bill for a doctor visit for a sprained wrist plus a $250 X-ray plus two follow-up appointments to make sure you healed okay at $180 each, you will only pay the first $750 of all of them added up.
• Your out-of-pocket, to use a regular insurance term, would then be $750 multiplied by your number of disasters and illnesses plus whatever you might spend on preventative/well care. If you’re like many Kitchen Stewardship^®® readers, you don’t go to the doctor for every little thing, so this might be quite minimal.

If you do go with Samaritan, thank you for using our name (Kristopher & Kathryn Kimball, Michigan) as your referral!

For a family of 6 with our fairly good health history, we were paying about $665/mo. at Samaritan for regular membership plus about $40-50 extra for Save to Share for added maximum coverage.

We dropped down to “Basic” in 2022 because we realized we didn’t use it much, and we decided we would rather pay the first $1500 out of pocket for any need (up from $300 with Samaritan Classic) and save over $250/mo. Our payment as of fall 2024 is just under $400/mo. total We have had a need since we started Basic, and because we got self-pay discounts, we actually didn’t end up having to pay anything out of pocket, so the calculated risk has been a good one so far.

Some Samaritan Ministries Stats

• One of the leading healthcare-sharing ministries in America
• Operating since 1995 in all 50 states.
• More than $411 million across 58,000 medical needs.
• Any size family pays depending on the age of the oldest family member. On the “Basic” plan, you can pay far less (and have more responsibility in case of an event).
• Includes a “save to share” option for very large medical emergencies. (We do use this option!)

We submitted a need in the fall of 2019. Read all about what it was like to actually get paid by Samaritan Ministries members…

Structure of Christian Healthcare Ministries Review – How it Works

Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM) allows you to choose levels and sort of accept risk – you pay less per month for a higher payment per incident. CHM’s levels are:

You can put different family members at different levels. So for example, if you were trying to conceive, you might put mom on Gold because you know she’ll have a big cost that year.

You send your checks to a central office and the organization divides the money and sends checks to those in need. It’s less of a hassle for the members, certainly, but may come under fire from the government later.

My colleague Amanda has had a great experience with CHM and wrote about how much it has saved them over insurance, plus how it went being repaid for an incident.

Note: People have different experiences – A comment from a reader on our Facebook page alerted me to the fact that CHM doesn’t pay out until 120 days after the event. Her experience has been very poor, discovering that getting discounts wasn’t easy (she had to pay in full to receive it and could not do that) and that CHM didn’t help them negotiate discounts. She also mentioned that the terms and conditions keep changing and it’s been a lot to keep up with. 🙁 

The company saw this reader’s comment and responded:

It sounds like she may have not understood our program and guidelines fully because:

• CHM calls to negotiate discounts on all medical bills that exceed $1,000 and the CHM Member Advocate team is very willing to assist members when they have difficulty.
• Members are requested to not fully pay their medical bills upfront so our Advocacy team can help negotiate further discounts.
• If members have discounts that are contingent on prompt payment, our Guidelines, print material and website state that the member should call CHM and our staff will help them secure those discounts.
• CHM’s policies do not/have not changed.
• The CHM Guidelines (that pre-determine medical bill eligibility) have been clarified because of misunderstandings, but this happens quite infrequently.
  • The only significant Guideline change that has occurred in the past 3 years is the Gold level personal responsibility was removed— which significantly benefits Gold level members! This means that if any bill exceeds $500, a member will have no out-of-pocket expenses.

I heard from another reader at the end of 2024 sharing a terrible story, that when her husband got sick after 8 years with CHM, they claimed it was a pre-existing condition. He died 3 months later of pancreatic cancer. 🙁

Structure of Medi-Share (also called Christian Care Ministries)

Medi-Share has levels and a “value” program as well, but in essence has a similar structure to CHM as far as where you send the money.

Medi-Share is also the only ministry we looked into that has a “network” where in and out-of-network docs would cost differently and be covered vs. not fully covered. As of 2024, we have been told that the PPO network is considerably larger and the prescriptions program is more robust than it was when I first looked into things.

Fees are set for office visits and emergency room visits (very reminiscent of traditional insurance), and you can pay using a credit union debit card that gets automatically loaded when you have a medical need.

They may not cover all preventative/wellness visits, although annual physicals are now eligible. If you go to someone “in-network” (PHCS) you pay $35 right away but are still billed the rest later, but you may be able to negotiate a lower fee with the organization’s help. There is some access to telehealth and telemental health as well as dental, vision, and hearing services.

Medi-Shares costs are based on state, zip code, and DOB of the head of household so the monthly fees will vary.

We figured out the numbers on Medi-Share that show the “Annual Household Portion” you can choose at various levels (similar to what you’re familiar with as a “deductible” in insurance-speak terms – the most you have to pay in case of a medical need). With each option, the “monthly payments,” go down as you assume a higher risk for the AHP.