Balancing of Sharing Across Sharing Programs

Balancing of Sharing Across Sharing Programs

The Samaritan Board recently added the language below to the Samaritan Given Guidelines. Most sharing occurs primarily within each sharing program, but we are all members of the same ministry bearing one another’s burdens, and there may be situations where sharing across the Given, Classic, and Basic programs is the best way to love one another and glorify God with our health care. This is what Biblical community is all about.

From Guidelines Section IX.G Samaritan Given and Samaritan Classic/Basic—The balancing of bills and funds may be done by sharing across two or more programs, or by keeping them separate, as allowed by the Board of Directors.

It is important to remember that members of Samaritan Ministries are just that—members of the ministry, not of a particular sharing program. Ordinarily, it will be most effective and efficient for members to share with other members who are participating in the same program. However, as we seek to minister to one another’s needs, situations may arise where the sharing funds from one program could be used to help bear the burden of medical bills from members in another program.

For example, if the sharing funds held by members participating in Samaritan Given were being underutilized, those members may be asked to share with other members in Samaritan Classic who could greatly benefit from those funds.

Members of Samaritan Classic and Samaritan Basic have always shared across programs since Samaritan Basic was launched in October 2017, and now members of Samaritan Given will also participate in this community of sharing.

Samaritan Ministries is committed to the success of all sharing programs and may make adjustments to sharing across the programs to help them all flourish.

For example, currently the Samaritan Given program would not have enough funds in members’ wallets to share several very large bills. If there were a million dollar bill in Samaritan Given the Board would want to make sure that this burden is shared by assistance from members of Samaritan Classic.

Another issue is that members who have switched from Samaritan Classic to Samaritan Given may still be having bills shared in Samaritan Classic because the date of service on the bills is prior to the date they switched. The Board desires to for members of Samaritan Given to assist with the sharing of these bills.

Finally, in all three of the sharing programs there are uncommon situations when funds assigned to be shared among the members are sent to Samaritan Ministries, who then directs those funds to providers to pay members’ bills. For example, sometimes a large reduction on bills is obtained after the sending members have already sent funds to the receiving member. Perhaps a member ends up with $10,000 in extra Shares after discounts are applied on a bill. This extra amount is ordinarily assigned directly to another member who has bills to pay, but sometimes it is sent to Samaritan Ministries to be utilized to secure substantially better pricing. In this example, Samaritan might use the $10,000 to pay a provider to get a member’s bills reduced from $20,000 down to $10,000, thus lowering overall costs for all Samaritan members.