Accountability and oversight at Samaritan

We cannot respond to every blog that purports to provide useful information to the readers about health care sharing ministries, but occasionally one comes along that is so careless in gathering facts and presenting accurate information that we think it wise to respond.

Today a blog post [no longer online as of 2014] came to our attention that contained the following:

“There is no accountability, no oversight, and the people who participate have no protection.” …
State authorities have been slow to take action, critics say, because of the plans’ religious affiliations — and the scarcity of subscriber complaints. And since it’s not an insurance company, it isn’t governed by your state’s insurance laws. If you have a beef over a claim denied, where do you go? Perhaps appeal to a higher authority.

In addition to several confusing and misleading statements in the article, both the quote above from the Maine insurance superintendent and the closing statement in the article are wrong.

At Samaritan Ministries, we have an appeals process. If members believe that the staff here is misapplying the guidelines, they can appeal to a panel of 13 randomly chosen members. Those are members who could face the same problem as the member making the appeal, and the decision of that panel is binding on the ministry. The member gets a chance to make the appeal to other members just like him, and the ministry binds itself to their decision.

What insurance company would ever let you ask 13 randomly chosen policy holders what they should do about your claim? But at Samaritan our focus is ministry. And we are a member-led organization. Our goal is to help as many people as we can, not to maximize profits.

Being member led goes beyond the 13 randomly chosen member panels. We elect a Board of Directors who serve without pay, and who are all members of the ministry. Two of our three Board members have been members of Samaritan for more than 12 years each, and have seen the ministry grow from a hundred or so families to the 14,800+ families we have today.

Insurance companies have consumer protections in the state regulatory system. But our members get to regulate their own ministry, which, if you ask them, is a better and more faithful way of doing things.