'God provided above and beyond' for Matthew's need

On December 22, 2024, my husband, Ben, my 6-year-old son, Matthew, and I visited a pediatric surgeon at a prominent children's hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Matthew was born with an umbilical hernia, and his primary care physician finally recommended that he have it revised. The surgeon was kind and patiently described the surgery and its pros and cons. Having decided to go ahead with it, we scheduled it for January 22, 2025.

After hearing about the outpatient, rather routine procedure, I was shocked to get a text from the hospital on the way home from the appointment that said that our bill for the surgery would be $24,000. Needless to say, Ben and I prayerfully considered this cost and the burden that it would place on the members at Samaritan Ministries. Upon arriving at home, I logged on to my Samaritan Dashboard and quickly navigated my way to the Healthcare Bluebook™ site. There I found something more shocking. The fair price for a pediatric umbilical hernia revision was listed as between $7,000 and $8,000! We were going to be charged three times that price, and that was with a cash-pay discount of 25%. This was not acceptable.

My husband spent part of his Christmas vacation calling various hospitals and outpatient procedure clinics to see what they would charge for the same procedure. Seeing that this was for a pediatric case, most of them said that they wouldn’t do it and/or they’d need to do an initial consultation. We had already paid $500 for the hospital consultation and weren’t interested in doing another one.

After a bit more prayer of what we should do—if we should even go ahead with it—we called the billing department at the hospital where we had scheduled the surgery. The lady understood our concern about the price and how it was so much higher than it should be. She said that perhaps we could apply for assistance. That was our last option. We decided to do so, thinking that we wouldn’t get anything.

We filled out forms, submitted my husband’s pay stubs for the previous three months, submitted our older children’s pay stubs, and wrote a note explaining our situation. As a family of eight, we want to steward the money we’ve been given well. Our oldest son is paying his way through seminary 700 miles from us, we have a daughter graduating in May and paying her way for a full-year missions program, and the four children remaining at home are home-schooled by me, so my husband is the only income earner for us.

We said that we would be willing to pay the price for Matthew’s surgery if it were a fair price and asked for a reduction in the cost.

After reviewing the cost breakdown, I was surprised to see that only 8% of the bill was to pay for the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. The other 92% was hospital overhead.

We waited for 10 days and finally heard back. The hospital reviewed our case and was granting us 100% compensation for Matthew’s surgery. Not only that, they would be covering any medical bills that he might incur for the coming calendar year—including the initial appointment of $500 for his surgical consultation. Praise God!

But this isn’t all. You see, Matthew has Down syndrome. We pay out of pocket for so many therapies and special supplements for him; he also had to have some medical needs evaluated after his annual blood draw back in October 2024. After contacting Samaritan in November, we found out that some of those costs would be shareable, but one would not be because it was considered a preventive screening.

Now that Matthew was scheduled for surgery at this hospital, all of the other testing that needed to take place outside of the hospital was being brought into the system before his surgery to see if he was able to have the surgery: neck X-ray, heart echocardiogram, and more lab work to check out some questionable lymphocyte counts. And it all had to be done at the hospital before the surgery. God, in His great kindness, provided above and beyond what we could have imagined.

In the end, his hospital bill was over $37,000, and the hospital paid for it all! Matthew was able to have the surgery and is doing well. The extra tests to check some possible problems all ended up being normal, and he is back to his energetic self.

What was going to be a year full of bills and tests and submitting bills has turned into the greatest blessing for our family. It does bring to light the brokenness of our health care system, but it also shows the power of God providing for His people. We knew that we could share all those bills with the members of Samaritan, but we felt so convicted by the amount and of being good stewards of God’s money. All we did was check Healthcare Bluebook, call around to several surgical centers, and finally ask for a reduction in cost for the procedure. Never did we think that the hospital would pay the cost at 100%, and that is for the entire year.

I pray that we don’t need to go back this year for anything, but it is amazing to think that if we had to, it would be paid for. Thirty-seven thousand dollars that we didn’t have to ask to be reimbursed by the Body of Christ. All praise to God alone!