If you have been shopping for a HealthShare as an alternative to your current health insurance plan, you are probably hoping to find a membership that offers some similar benefits. Your preventive care is likely to be a priority in this search.
Let’s talk about what preventive care consists of and what you can expect to find when you are HealthShare shopping.
What is preventive care?
At HealthShare guide, we use the term “preventive care” to refer to those kinds of medical and health expenses that you know are coming: your annual checkup, inoculations for your young children, visiting your dentist for a teeth cleaning. Companies may use different various terms like routine, wellness, maintenance, or preventative. But whatever they call it, all of these labels generally mean you expect to receive this kind of care.
Most HealthShare members coming from a health insurance plan may assume that these types of services will be included in a HealthShare’s offerings. However, your prospective HealthShare may not include preventive care.
Built for the unexpected
Your HealthShare is not the same as insurance, and it was not designed to offer the same kinds of benefits. HealthShares help members with bigger bills and address unexpected medical concerns like accident, injury, or major illness.
As a general rule, HealthShares do not share in expenses related to health maintenance or expected symptoms of the aging process. Health concerns like vision and hearing issues that are more likely to occur as we get older are typically not eligible for sharing. Thus, many of your routine concerns are generally not shareable.
Benefits of membership
Many HealthShares provide members access to a variety of resources for physical, mental, or spiritual wellness. Though your HealthShare may not offer you the kind of routine medical care that your health insurance plan might, they will offer you plenty of other benefits and discounts.
Being a member of a HealthShare will generally mean that your providers will treat you as a cash-pay patient. As a cash-pay patient, you will pay a reduced rate from what your provider would charge through your insurance. On top of this, most HealthShares include discount programs for routine concerns like dental care, vision care, medical equipment, and prescription expenses.
HealthShares and preventive care
Though HealthShares were designed with larger, unexpected medical events in mind, many companies have realized that routine care is something most prospective members want. Of the major HealthShares that we have reviewed, only three do not currently offer preventive care. Of these three, at least one may include some preventive screenings like a colonoscopy or mammogram.
We have compiled some information about HealthShares and preventive care into one handy chart. The chart includes each HealthShare we have reviewed. Keep in mind that HealthShare companies are constantly evolving. Just because a HealthShare may not offer routine care now does not mean that they will never offer it.
If you have questions about any particular HealthShare, you may contact us. Better yet, you may wish to reach out to the HealthShare directly. To make this easier, we have included each HealthShare’s contact information in the chart.
Do your homework
You may not have much routine care included in your HealthShare membership, but HealthShare members often claim that, overall, their HealthShare strategy has saved them money over traditional insurance. Of course, this may not prove true in every case. As always, make sure you do your research before committing to a HealthShare membership.
