This is the last part in the business school series on self-employed doctors purchasing healthcare for their families through their micro-corporation. The key point to remember is that insurance is not your only option.

14 Health Insurance Tips For Self-Employed Doctors

Exploring DPC As An Alternative to Insurance For The Self-Employed

Health Sharing Plans For The Self-Employed Doctor

Today, I will review the process of combining various options and provide you with a cost comparison for the plan that suits my family's needs.

Maximizing Healthcare Value: Combining Health Sharing Plans with DPC Membership

When paired together, a healthshare plan and a Direct Primary Care membership can protect your health, enhance your well-being, and potentially save you thousands of dollars.

There's no doubt about it: health insurance is not suitable for everyone. Whether you don't qualify for an ACA subsidy or you're paying for coverage that you don't need, traditional insurance plans are far from being one-size-fits-all.

It comes as no surprise that Direct Primary Care (DPC) is gaining popularity. DPC offers Americans an alternative method to maintain good health without having to spend thousands of dollars each year on health insurance. However, the drawback of DPC is that it does not provide coverage for emergency or hospital expenses.

That's where a Healthcare Cost Sharing Plan comes in. By combining your DPC arrangement with a specialized healthshare plan, you add the necessary protection for significant or unforeseen medical expenses.

Introduction

In an era of changing healthcare dynamics, individuals are seeking innovative ways to access quality healthcare and manage costs effectively. One powerful solution in healthcare management is the combination of a Health Sharing Plan with a Direct Primary Care (DPC) membership. This dynamic duo offers comprehensive care, significant cost savings, and peace of mind. In this blog post, I will guide you through the process of making this partnership work for you.

Understanding Health Sharing Plans and DPC Membership

Health Sharing Plans: These are healthcare cost-sharing arrangements where members contribute a set amount each month to cover each other's medical expenses. They offer an alternative to traditional health insurance and can be more cost-effective. Offered by Health Care Sharing Ministries (HCSMs), Healthshare Plans are an affordable alternative to traditional insurance plans. Typically, healthshare plans are about half the cost of an unsubsidized insurance plan.

Direct Primary Care (DPC) offers memberships that provide direct access to a primary care physician for a fixed monthly fee. This approach focuses on putting the patient at the center, with benefits such as easy access to care, longer appointment times, and reduced administrative overhead. DPC has gained popularity due to its affordability, with memberships typically costing less than $100 per month, making it one of the most cost-effective health strategies available.

Why Combine the Two?

1. Cost Savings:DPC membership is renowned for its affordability, providing high-quality primary care at a fixed fee. Combining it with a Health Sharing Plan can further decrease your healthcare expenses, as Health Sharing Plans often come at a fraction of the cost of traditional insurance premiums.

2. Comprehensive Care:DPC (Direct Primary Care) provides comprehensive primary care services, while Health Sharing Plans can cover a wide range of healthcare needs, including hospitalization and specialist care. Together, they offer a well-rounded healthcare solution.

3. Flexibility: Health Sharing Plans often offer broader provider networks, providing more flexibility in choosing healthcare providers, including specialists. This allows individuals to enjoy the personalized care of Direct Primary Care (DPC) while still having access to a wide range of medical professionals.

How Direct Primary Care and Healthshare plans can work together

Here's how it all works: First, your DPC membership grants you unlimited monthly access to your physician. This means you can focus on staying healthy, developing a strong doctor-patient relationship, and identifying any medical issues before they worsen.

If you happen to incur any significant medical expenses, such as an unexpected surgery or a trip to the emergency room, your healthshare plan will be there to support you. Simply meet your Initial Unshared Amount (similar to a deductible), and your medical expenses can qualify for cost sharing.

The best part? Even if you have both a DPC membership and a healthshare plan, you're likely to pay less than you would with an unsubsidized health insurance plan.

The best healthshare plans are designed to work with a DPC arrangement

To fully leverage the benefits of the healthshare + DPC strategy, it is recommended to enroll in a healthshare plan that is specifically designed for Direct Primary Care (DPC).

DPC Direct: Individual medical cost sharing plans designed for DPC members

Formerly known as MPowering Benefits, MPB Health has some of the most popular healthshare plans on the market, and they don’t deny anyone based on religious beliefs or pre-existing medical conditions.

MPB Direct Individual DPC is designed exclusively for people who are enrolled in a Direct Primary Care relationship. This is a plan that offers cost sharing for big emergencies, like an unexpected trip to the E.R or hospital. It also includes on-demand telehealth, behavioral resources, and a discount prescription program.

What this plan doesn’t have is cost sharing for routine doctor visits and preventive care, or in other words, the stuff that your DPC membership already covers. This allows MPB Health to offer an even more affordable healthshare plan, with monthly contributions as low as $195 per month.

Does MPB Health make you sign a Statement of Faith?

Unlike many health sharing organizations, MPB Health doesn’t not require a statement of faith. Instead, they ask that their members agree to the Principles of Membership. This is a non-religious statement where the member agrees to abstain from illegal drugs, refrain from excessive alcohol use, and treat other people with care and respect.

PROS:

• MPB Health doesn’t deny anyone based on religion or pre-existing conditions.

• The MPB Individual DPC program works with any established Direct Primary Care arrangement

Selecting the Right Health Sharing Plan

When considering a Health Sharing Plan, be sure to:

• Review the plan's coverage and limitations.

• Understand its monthly contributions, deductibles, and sharing guidelines.

• Check if your DPC physician is in-network or if the plan allows out-of-network care.

Medi-Share: A trusted health sharing program with Christian community values

Since 1993, the Christian Care Ministry has been providing low-cost healthcare solutions through their wildly popular Medi-Share Program.  Medi-Share is one of the largest and longest running sharing ministries in the country, with over 400,000 members and almost $3 billion in shared medical bills.

Last year, Medi-Share members voted to add access to Direct Primary Care. All members on the $12,000 AHP can now submit their annual DPC fees as an eligible sharing cost. Medi-Share will then cover up to $1,800 every year towards your DPC membership.

Is Medi-Share Christian health insurance?

Medi-Share is not health insurance. Rather, it’s a medical cost sharing program that has roots in the Christian faith. All Medi-Share members are asked to sign a Statement of Faith based on biblical principles. This helps members rest easy that their contributions are not being used for purposes that don’t line up with their faith.

PROS:

• Medi-Share is a trusted health sharing ministry with built-in Christian community values

• Medi-Share members who are already enrolled in the $12,000 AHP option can start seeing a DPC physician right away

Real-Life Success Stories

My family successfully used Medi-Share for about 5 years and found it to save us money, and also covered all the essentials. I didn’t care for the lack of wellness coverage including mammograms and colonoscopies. We also had to get used to a new way of processing medical claims, and embrace using GoodRX for prescriptions—which in the end was a bit of a pain. However the plan did cover the over $100,0000 costs of my son’s cardiac ablation procedure. So the coverage is real—it’s just a different approach.

Conclusion

Optimize your healthcare experience by pairing a Health Sharing Plan with a DPC membership. This powerful combination allows you to access personalized primary care while enjoying the cost-saving benefits of a Health Sharing Plan. Take advantage of this innovative approach to healthcare management and start maximizing your healthcare value today.

Stillson Case Study

I have completed an analysis of these various healthcare options for our family as we head into my retirement year. Here is our breakdown based solely on costs.

First, let me point out that healthcare is expensive in the US. Each of the options has its strengths and drawbacks, which I won't go into detail about. Ultimately, choosing the right option as a micro-business owner is a personal and budgetary decision.

Fortunately, being a high-income earner makes these expenses more affordable for you, especially when you can classify them as business expenses rather than personal expenses.

Start Here

At SimpliMD, when I collaborate with our legal network to establish your micro-corporation, we’ll sort through your healthcare needs. Healthcare alone is a great example of why you need someone to assist you in personalizing the entire business setup in order to maximize your business expenses and personalized fringe benefit plans. At SimpliMD, we prioritize listening to you, understanding your needs, and then assisting you in creating the optimal business structure to ensure your success and growth.

For example we set up a micro-corporation for a doctor recently who had a child on the autism spectrum. There were numerous business structure elements that were needed to optimally support his family from healthcare to other services. The fringe benefit plans built into his business were unique and needed personalized to his family.

Let me encourage you to go here to let SimpliMD help you set up your personalized micro-corporation. Don’t settle for “saving money” by using a generic attorney or online site to do this—you will be sorry and miss out on lots of business savings if you go this route.

If you have a micro-corporation already, let me assist you by providing personal micro-business coaching, where we can discuss important topics such as healthcare coverage. Sign up for my highly popular coaching 4-pack here.

But before you sign up to be coached, I recommend you become a SimpliMD member here, and it will unlock $2500 in savings for you with all my SimpliMD products—including the coaching 4-pack.

Tod