Rethinking Healthcare: The Membership Model That’s Disrupting Insurance

Episode 014 - In this episode of Healthcare Wayfinders, host Zach Aton sits down with Chris Ramcharitar, Vice President of Impact Health Sharing, to discuss a cost-effective, transparent alternative to traditional insurance. With a membership-based model, Impact Health Sharing is making healthcare more accessible for individuals and families across the U.S.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Imagine a world where healthcare doesn't come with sky-high premiums, confusing paperwork, or the constant worry about hidden costs. Well, that world could just become a reality. Welcome back friends to the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast where we are routing you to more accessible and cost-effective healthcare.

I'm your host, Zach Aton, and today we have Chris Rum Carita here with us Vice President of Business Development at Impact Health Sharing. Chris and his team are reshaping the healthcare landscape with an innovative membership based model that's not only cost effective, but also broad-based and transparent.

Let's dive in.  

Zach Aten: Chris Ramcharitar from Impact Health Sharing. It's great to have you on the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast, man. How are you doing today?  

Christ Ramchartier: Fantastic. Thank you for having me.  

Zach Aten: Yeah, man, we we're excited to hear about you and about impact health sharing and about health sharing in general. Can you give us just a little bit of background about you and about impact to get us started off today?

Christ Ramchartier: Yeah, sure. So Impact Healthsharing we're going to be in our [00:01:00] fifth year of business this year. And took this approach of trying to find a way to help people save money. We came from a different world. We came from the benefits world, right? Our CEO, myself and some of our other team.

And back then it was, we help people save money in a variety of different industries, over 20 something industries. And one of the ways that we always looked at is, okay, how can we help people save money on their healthcare? And came across this idea, right? This concept of healthcare sharing.

you, we didn't even know about it, honestly. And the more we learned, and the more we discovered, and then unpacked this healthcare sharing industry, we're like, oh my goodness, if we could figure out a way to partner with someone, we could look at helping our membership at that time save money on their healthcare, exactly what we're looking to do.

And the more we continue to dive into it, there was this niche that or this niche, but itch, I should say that our CEO had Phil Chrysler, and he was like, I think we need to be starting our own. And why? Because healthcare sharing started [00:02:00] many years ago.

And it started in the churches. So if you're in a church in, in anyone in your congregation, contributed to the medical expenses in that congregation. So everyone will pay something put money forth and then any sort of medical expenses that, that arose at that, within that community it would have been paid for within that community.

That's how it all started. And so the concept for most for most health care sharing companies today is that there's still religious faith, right? And so you have to be of faith and nothing's wrong with that. But we said, okay, being that we were in the membership business, we're like, okay we do have people that are outside of, maybe the Christian faith, the Catholic faith, right?

So we do have, we have, folks that are Jewish and Hindus, et cetera, right? So how do we, how are we able to be, be more inclusive with all those people, considering all those people. And the result was, let's start our own healthcare sharing organization. And so we did this basically [00:03:00] started, diving into, the logistics of it and trying to figure out what it was and how to get into it and how to start it up.

And, we came across a partner basically this entity that we've partnered with that basically is a TPA for us, a third party administrator and what they do. Is they create they've created the technology and so what separates us from the marketplace, one is, you know that we are inclusive of all religions, right?

You need to we do have a faith based type guideline, right? That we all abide by, which is love thy neighbor. And if you look at, what Jesus has said and other faith based, other, religious groups, everyone abides by love thy neighbor, right?

In some form or fashion. So that's inclusive of all, all religions. And what is your neighbor, right? Your neighbor could be, a different person of a different religion, different, different creed, different race, right? So us being impact health sharing, we're able to accept everyone.

So that's actually, again, what separates us from the competition, which is, great. And [00:04:00] what obviously made us extremely relevant to our membership at the time, right? And makes us obviously relevant today. But this TPA that I referred to they, they have over the, over a hundred years of experience in healthcare sharing.

Combined experience in health care sharing. So these they created the technology which, that positions us with this extremely advanced modern day of doing health care sharing. What does that mean? Everyone pays in their monthly share, but they see literally what percentage of their monthly share goes into the reserves.

What go, what percentage goes into administrative costs? What it goes into program costs? So you can see the separations of monies. And then when obviously medical bills rise in the community, it's extremely very transparent with this TPA, right? You're able to literally log in and see who's medical bills without telling you the illness or who exactly they are.

But you can honestly know where your money is being attributed to within the community, which is again, separates us from the [00:05:00] transparency as well. So you're talking religion, transparency. Which allowed us to say, man, we feel really good about, starting up this organization, having that TPA behind us, providing us with this new modern day of the way healthcare sharing was originally designed and bringing it to modern day, giving it very much like this.

Almost similar to what insurance, what the insurance world is accustomed to, right? You're getting a member card there's a payer ID on the back of it. Very, we can go into those details, right? But those again we literally have given you the best in class service transparency.

inclusive of all religions, love thy neighbor approach, and then it gives you the closest thing to, what you're accustomed to in insurance.

Zach Aten: Yeah, that's really cool. It sounds like you guys, found a model and then made it work for what you guys wanted to do as far as the community that you wanted to create. So that's really awesome. Can you talk a little bit more about I, I feel like one of the big selling points of a health share is the cost effectiveness of it.

Can [00:06:00] you talk a little bit about the difference from a cost perspective for healthcare about being part of a health share versus, like traditional insurance or not having a health share or health insurance.

Christ Ramchartier: Yeah, absolutely. Insurance has its purpose. It's, and for a lot of people, the vast majority out there, it's working for them, right? But what you're doing is you're paying for, I think there's a statistic out there that says 95 percent of the, the population pay for 5%.

Of the medical expenses that are that actually arise in the United States. So what does that mean? So there's a lot of money that's that you're putting forth in insurance. Again, it has a purpose and it works as it's supposed to but you're also paying for, you're paying for that.

You're paying for, Okay. Shareholders, you're paying for, profits. Every business model thrives on profitability, right? Whereas with us we don't, yes, we, we definitely need to be above to, above a specific stretch, [00:07:00] a threshold to pay our bills.

But at the end of the day, we're not for profit. And health care sharing companies are not for profit. So we don't have to report to, to an executive, board or shareholders to say to them this is where we're at. This is how much, we, there's none of that.

And so when you eliminate all of the need for why you need to rise, raise the cost in, in, in healthcare. That's why this, that's why we could be a very good solution to a family, right? And individuals out there that's looking for an inexpensive way that has very comprehensive in, in terms of what's eligible to be shared giving you a really nice solution for healthcare.

Zach Aten: That's cool. Let's say I'm a, a family of three. Husband and wife and a kid. If I was looking at joining Impact Health Sharing. What am I, what's the information that you're going to give me?

How am I going to think about this compared to what I normally would think about, having normal insurance? How's is how I get healthcare going to change? Is it what's the, what's it look like and how's it [00:08:00] different?

Christ Ramchartier: So the process of actually obtaining a quote is extremely simple. Yeah, you go onto our website, impacthealthsharing.com, you go to programs, you choose if you're an individual a family, et cetera. And the so a family of three that, so you take the birth date of the eldest person in that group and basically you put in that person's their birthday, right?

It's as simple as that. Date, month, year. Choose how many members of, will be in the family, in this case it'd be three. And in our world, it's one, two, three or more. So actually if you have five, it's still the same price as if you had three, right? So it's pretty cool. And you just click submit.

It's super easy. Within 30 seconds, you could have a quote. And one of the things that we do that we're very proud of is that we publish our guidelines, right? So in terms of, there being pros and cons in terms of, okay, insurance or health share, it's so easy in our world.

You could literally Download our guidelines and you could see for yourself in terms of, what's [00:09:00] eligible, what's not eligible, right? We're very transparent about that. But in terms of us, we are very comprehensive, right? So the difference is that there might be limitations when it comes to pre eligibility as opposed to insurance, but then you determine, right?

Because of our published guidelines, you can make that determination and position your family really quickly to decide if health care is beneficial over insurance.

Zach Aten: So you've got, I'm assuming some type of You probably don't use this language, but like deductible or amount of money that like the family pays first before they can start sharing their health care costs? Is that kind of how it works?

Christ Ramchartier: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah just like insurance, right? Again, our program is designed to be very similar to insurance, right? And most healthcare, healthcare sharing organizations are because they do have deductibles in insurance in our world. Everyone has different language, right?

So we call it a PRA, a personal responsibility amount. And so that would be equivalent to a deductible in the insurance world. Yes, you, when you go and you, when you get the [00:10:00] pricing that I referred to, you put your, your birthdays in, put in how many people in your family.

And then the pricing will come up in the pricing calculator. It will tell you what your price is per PRA level. And in our world, it's a 2 2, 500, a 5, Hundred or a $10,000 PR rate. So you determine where your comfort level is, and then that's basically where you could sign up at. And again, it's that simple.

It's that quick. And an average for a family of three or more, you could pay as little as probably 350 bucks. And it's probably as much as 650 ish, right? Depending on your PRA level. So again, extremely affordable.

Zach Aten: Okay. So that, those numbers sound great. How do I use it? Do is it I just give the card to the doctor or can I go to any doctor? How's that work?

Christ Ramchartier: Yeah, so I'm glad so allows me to unpack what I was referring to with the You know how close we are similar to that insurance world, right? So yeah, when you sign up with us, we will mail [00:11:00] you a an impact membership card no different than an insurance card It will have your BIN number.

So for pharmacy, so forget your, to get your pharmacy discounts you'll be able to have that in there. The payor ID is on the back of the card. So literally just like you would with an insurance card, you go see the doctor, you hand them the payor ID. They will register the pay RD in their system.

We are registered with all states in terms of in, in, in the United States, right for that pair ID. So we are recognized and they could send us the bill via EDI or electronically that is, or physically because it has our address or PO box on the back of it. If they wanted to mail us the again.

Providing the provider with an experience that they're extremely comfortable with and familiar with providing the member slash consumer with an experience that if they came from the insurance world that they're very familiar with right it's we were allowed to when we again Part of our initial creation of this is that we wanted to get you as close as possible to that experience because from [00:12:00] us, where we came from, we had insurance, right?

Our company provided insurance to its employees. So we knew what the ideal experience was in our minds, and we wanted to recreate that. different from other healthcare sharing organizations out there, because some of them will have some sort of reimbursement sort of policies and so on. Again, those are great, those work, but not for us.

We want to get it as close to what that initial experience is like closest to insurance.  

Zach Aten: Okay. So it sounds like I can get my normal. Health care costs paid for what happens in bigger health care events like a pregnancy having a baby or, some kind of catastrophic illness or something like that. How does somebody manage that? When they're on a health share or specifically impact health sharing?

Christ Ramchartier: Yeah, I could speak for us, right? Based on our guidelines, again, there are limitations with preexisting conditions. Let's think of it this way, from the day you sign up going forward, Any illness or any sort of event that took place from that moment going forward.

Think of it. It's going to it's going to be eligible for sharing, right? [00:13:00] Something that may have happened in the past in terms of something you've been dealing with, other illnesses that have been ongoing. That's considered pre X, right? And so there is a fine guideline in our published guidelines to do a fine line to distinguish what will be and what will not be.

But think of it from the day you sign up any event going forward that took place from that moment. going forward will be eligible in terms of, pregnancies and any sort of catastrophic event that, God forbid happens.

Zach Aten: Okay, cool. Yeah, tell me a little bit about how you got involved in this, Chris. What you gave us a little bit of background, of the company you were working with. But, what's your personal journey coming to work in this healthcare space, and why is it important to you?

Christ Ramchartier: It was always in the very beginning of Impact Health Sharing where there, there was a need to develop a team in the very early days, and what that team looked like some of us. Immediately came over from our old company over, to impact health sharing but Phil Chrysler and I specifically. Listen, when we were at the old organization, I think we spent like 16 years [00:14:00] together, right? I worked directly under him for a good period of time and then we, as I rose up in the company, we became more like colleagues, right?

So him and I have always been buddies and always been friends. So he knew I was going to be on the market as my time ended with the acquisition, right? Part of that acquisition. It just made sense. Phil said, Hey, Chris, we know you're going to be a free agent. And there's obviously work that we started as a team when we were part of the old organization that you contributed and we want you to bring your skill set here and we'd love for you to contribute to.

You know what, in that case, so I spent 19 years with the old organization. Maybe we can, work towards something close to 19. And so yeah, that, that allowed me to come on board. I serve as a vice president of business development for the organization. So I look at partnerships, I look at, Membership perks, some things and things that we could throw in into the membership to give to give much more of that in that presence in the marketplace.

Last year we launched a part of my, my first year with the organization. We launched a [00:15:00] dental and vision discount program. So it allowed members to not part of the sharing program. It was a discount program. but for them to now walk into, their dentist, their eye doctor and receive up to 60 percent off on on normal visits on sort of procedures that they were going to have.

So literally it was and what was great about us introducing, Because, because of negotiation, because of our size of our organization as well, I was able to to get us at a really nice position where it didn't cost the current membership, anything additional to bring on the dental and vision discount program.

So when you run as Phil has when you're running a a program like ours, pretty lean and solid if it positions you and you have, you're blessed to have reserves in the bank we're, we are positioned very well but it allows us to start doing things like throwing in these additional perks, allowing the members to use their membership because that's what it is.

It's a membership. You use your membership how you want to now includes then dental [00:16:00] and vision. So very proud of being able to bring that on board, last year. But that's what I'm here for. I'm here to add value. Serve. We have a servant minded leadership. Just here to fit in as I can and help improve the cause.

Zach Aten: What are, some of the things that you guys are thinking about in the future as far as, making your membership attractive to folks and what are some areas that y'all are looking to go after and innovate on, I would say?

Christ Ramchartier: Yeah, we look at the experience that the members currently having so I'm talking present day, we're talking 5, 10 years from now, that, that's a different conversation, but in terms of the immediate future, we're looking at certain experiences that our members are having today, and how can we improve those.

Could we, hold their hand in different processes? Could we help them with educating their provider? Because, healthcare sharing isn't a well known thing. It is a known thing, but it's not a well known thing, in, throughout the United States. So helping, us holding the hand of the customer, helping [00:17:00] them with their provider creating this sort of concierge type service experience, right?

What's great is that companies. Different health care sharing companies out there have different sort of levels of packages that you can, enrolled to where with us, there's only one level, right? Different PRAs, there's no gold, silver, platinum, right?

Everything is at a platinum level with us right now, right? So we're looking at, okay, what can we do to to make that experience better either with technology, either with concierge? Customer, member acceptance all sorts of different ways.

So those are, that's what we're focused on right now. And we're most passionate about at this moment.

Zach Aten: Alright, I gotta ask you about GLP 1s. What do you guys do about those? What do people who are interested in them, cause it's such a big topic right now as far as, specifically in the weight loss area, but then also, just improving people's health in general. What's, how's that work with impact health sharing or what's the position y'all have taken?

Christ Ramchartier: Listen if your [00:18:00] doctor is again, let's remove preexisting from the conversation. But if your doctor is is telling you need to now go on this because of this new illness what's, there, there's nothing that's prohibiting you from doing that with us, right? If you're using it for what the doctor's not telling you to, then that's a different conversation.

But they're out there that people are using it for weight loss, but listen, you're not diagnosed with anything. In terms of you're not using it for diabetes, you're using it for something, the alternative route and that's a different conversation, but if your doctor is telling you, Hey, this is something that we're recommending that you're, you should get on because of this new this new illness of yours or whatever.

Yeah that's something we're accepting again, if you're not using it for what's intended, that's a different conversation. Now, I will tell you with our RX program, you still are going to save money if you wanted to if your doctor is someone's gonna write your prescription for it, right?

You could still save money on it, but in terms of it being eligible for sharing, et cetera, no, it won't be part of that.

Zach Aten: Yeah. [00:19:00] I appreciate you talking about that. Is there

Christ Ramchartier: I'm not a doctor, right? So that's something that, I was like, yeah, my medical, our medical doctor, VP of billing, she could speak more on that. But again, if it's not, if you're using it for not what it's intended to let's just say it's, it won't be accepted.

Zach Aten: Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Is there anything else that you want to talk about impact or the work that y'all are doing or anything like that?

Christ Ramchartier: Listen, if I, to conclude, I'm just going to say that, I'm super, super blessed to be part of this organization. For us, just doing what we've accomplished in just a short period of time in our five year, history thus far.

It's, we believe just based on, what the industry experts are telling us we're doing a fantastic job. And I just, I just love to hear that, I love to know that. I would like to add that there, we're paying medical, eligible medical bills are being paid.

I just wanted to make sure that I qualify that by saying eligible medical bills are being paid within 13 days right [00:20:00] now. Providers are getting payment pretty quickly. They're not accustomed to that, right? And so we've positioned ourselves because of, having healthy reserves and so on.

Running that tight, that tight ship that I told you that Phil's just very passionate about running. Just because we're able to do that it's positioned us to, to again pay, eligible bills within 13 days allows us to create our own little sort of reputation within providers, different hospitals and so on are saying, Hey, we may not accept those guys, but impact, we'll accept them.

And we're hearing that more and more. Hey, the way you guys conduct business because of the gun we come from an untraditional, background of the way we do business, right? We didn't come from healthcare sharing. We didn't come from healthcare in general, right? But we came from a running businesses.

And so having that in mind and taking pride in paying your bills and stuff like that, we've created that reputation. So I think that if someone's like. Considering healthcare sharing in general, I would hope that they would give us an opportunity, go to our [00:21:00] website, take a look at what we're doing and realize that, that we could be a great solution for, again for you, your family.

at your time of need Cobra, we were a great alternative to Cobra that people don't even think about, right? Cobra is so expensive in itself. And we could be a great alternative for those things, again, depending on where your life is.

Zach Aten: Chris from Impact Healthsharing, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and telling us all about how you guys are making healthcare more cost effective for your members.

Christ Ramchartier: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.