As of July 31, 2022, Samaritan Ministries has closed their Given beta program. Samaritan’s Given program attempted to try something new: combining a standard AUA member responsibility with a co-share structure and no annual sharing limit. Given members could choose their AUA amount ($1,000; $2,000; or $5,000) and a co-share amount (10%, 15%, 20%). Members would meet their initial member responsibility amount, the AUA, and be responsible for 10-20% of their medical expenses thereafter, depending on the co-share amount they chose.
The most interesting part of this trial membership was that Samaritan was trying out an unlimited sharing program (Samaritan historically has a per need sharing limit of $236,500-$250,000). Though Given members would have had an AUA and co-share amount, they would also have a maximum co-share limit; meaning that once a member met their AUA and maximum co-share, there was no dollar limit on shareable expenses for the remainder of the year.
With this transition away from the beta program, all Given members had the opportunity to choose which Samaritan program they would move to after the program close date—either Samaritan Basic or Classic. Samaritan is known for putting their member’s first, and they continued to uphold that tradition by moving any members who did not notify Samaritan of their new program choice to the Samaritan Basic program with the Save-to-Share option. In doing this, Samaritan has protected their members from having to reset their program start date and any potential issues that might create for pre-existing condition wait times.
