Ditch the Insurance: A Deep Dive Into Health Cost Sharing Programs

In this episode of Crunchy Stewardship, hosts and cousins Katie Fiola Jones and Chrissy Rombach explore alternatives to traditional health insurance, including Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM) and Crowd Health. They discuss the financial benefits, differences in coverage, and their personal experiences with these health cost-sharing mechanisms. Katie shares her positive experiences with CHM and her considerations about switching to Crowd Health, while Chrissy weighs the pros and cons of leaving traditional health insurance. The episode provides a detailed comparison of costs, how each model handles expenses, and their alignment with Christian values. They also touch on topics like direct primary care, the implications of IVF, and the importance of making informed, prayerful decisions about health care. The hosts encourage listeners to subscribe, leave reviews, and join their Facebook group for continued discussion and support.

Episode Takeaway:

This Crunchy Stewardship episode highlights a significant shift in healthcare, moving beyond traditional insurance to health cost-sharing ministries and even crowdsourcing platforms like Crowd Health. These alternatives are presented as potentially more affordable and values-aligned options, particularly for those seeking faith-based principles in their healthcare decisions. The discussion emphasizes their focus on major medical events while encouraging members to take a more active and informed role in managing their routine and preventative health costs, fostering a greater sense of personal stewardship over one's well-being.

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship
02:06 Introduction to Health Insurance Alternatives
03:38 Comparing Costs: Traditional vs. Non-Traditional Health Coverage
04:45 Christian Healthcare Ministries: An In-Depth Look
08:31 Exploring Crowd Health
24:21 Faith and Healthcare Choices
30:48 Direct Primary Care Explained
43:50 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
 

Links We Mentioned:

• CHM: https://agapeinvests.com/chm (Katie’s Referral link. Use number ‪(231) 475-0280‬ when asked who referred you) 
• CrowdHealth: https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/ 
• Medishare: https://www.medishare.com/ 
• Check out Katie’s Christian Healthcare Ministries Review videos on YouTube. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbGQ6XVmrx6m6RW3vn25WbC12GLHxneDW&si=r1jzqxOGDiS-8Rnj 

Connect With Us:
Join Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crunchychristianmama
Follow us on Instagram @crunchystewardship 
FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living

Transcript

Katie: 0:00

Hey, and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. My name is Katie Fiola Jones.

Chrissy: 0:04

And my name is Chrissy Rombach. We are two cousins who are passionate about learning and sharing knowledge to equip others to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health in order to honor God in every aspect of their lives.

Katie: 0:20

In our podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it means to steward our lives as. God originally intended for us with the resources that he has given us, we are going to look at topics such as food, medicine, finances, mental health, and lots more through a natural lens and with a biblical foundation. Before we dive in to our topic today, we just wanna give you a reminder to subscribe to our podcast if you haven't already, and leave us a five star review and let us know what you are loving about this podcast. We love hearing from you, and it also helps our podcast to be seen by people who are looking to learn more about how to steward their health and their finances in a way that glorifies and honors God. And, if you haven't already, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter by going to the link in the show notes and join us there and you'll get notified when we have new episodes as well. But without further ado, we are diving into this week's topic, which is actually kind of extension onto our conversation from last week. So if you haven't tuned into that episode, I'd probably recommend starting there because this conversation is going to kind of build off of what we started discussing last week, which was all about healthcare and kind of how our healthcare system has fallen apart and how it's not really doing what it probably was originally intended to do is to actually keep us healthy. And so in today's episode, we are actually going to start diving into and looking at health insurance alternatives. My husband and I have been using Christian Healthcare Ministries for the last four plus years and have really been loving it. But we're also at the same time considering leaving Christian Healthcare Ministries for something else new that I've been researching. So today Chrissy and I are going to discuss health insurance compared to a health cost sharing ministry compared to this new form of kind of quote unquote healthcare, which is crowdsourcing your health expenses So it's slightly different than a cost sharing ministry as well. And so we're gonna kind of compare these things so that way if you are considering potentially switching to a health cost sharing program or a crowdsourcing program. Hopefully we can equip you with some tips and things to consider if you are looking at that. But I know Chrissy, you and your husband are using traditional health insurance and you're also considering switching to something like Christian Healthcare Ministries or Crowd Health, which is this other one that Wes and I are now considering. So, let's just start off by what just comes to mind when you are thinking about switching and are there any specific questions that are the most pressing for you guys?

Chrissy: 3:31

Yeah, I guess the biggest question that I ask when considering switching away from traditional health insurance to a non-traditional health share or a crowdsourcing form of health coverage is mostly like the cost of it and how the cost of each of them compares both on a day-to-day basis and. On a basis of when tragedy strikes or when we do have a medical incident. How that cost impacts our family. So would you be able to like kind of give an outline or a layout of what Medi-Share versus Christian Healthcare Ministries versus Crowd Health, how each of those day-to-day costs compare to each other, and then how the medical incident cost compares with each other.

Katie: 4:29

Yeah. Yeah, great question. I think that is definitely the number one thing that people always wanna know is like, what is it gonna cost me? And is it more or less, we actually did end up switching to Christian Healthcare Ministries because it was more affordable and we got more for what we were paying on a monthly basis compared to traditional health insurance. So some people are like, oh, well I only pay like really small number for my health insurance per month, but then their deductible ends up being like$15,000. So you're like, well, if something really bad happens that then your$15,000 out of pocket for whatever that medical event might have been that cost you so much money. I actually do want to express before we go further into this episode that am not like a broker or licensed professional for insurance in any sense. So, if you're looking for more specific advice on your situation. The details and the things that I'm sharing are more my own experiences and not necessarily financial advice for anybody. So just, you know, take that with a grain of salt as you listen to this. It's just my experience and my observations of these different things. But we found that it was more affordable to switch to Christian Healthcare Ministries. And their plans are actually pretty decent prices. You can actually look them all up and we'll have links to each of these programs for easy access for you in the show notes. So if anyone wants to kind of check them out, One thing that's nice about CHM is that it doesn't matter where you live or generally how old you are, unless you are 65 plus, then you actually spend less on a monthly basis for their senior share program, is super cool. It's only$115 and out of all of their programs, they have three other ones, gold, silver, and bronze. The CHM Senior Share Program has not changed prices in like four years. So on my YouTube channel, I've been doing reviews of CHM every year and I update like what are the changes that are coming with it? And consistently I share the data from all the past years and consistently the senior share program has not increased their price, which is kind of cool and nice for those who are in they're older years of life. And so that could be really beneficial because something like Crowd Health actually does not allow, currently, does not allow anybody over the age of 65, and that is to help keep the costs a little bit lower for the program in general. Because typically speaking, people older in life, they have more medical expenses, so keeping them outside of the program, like not allowing them in does allow for the rest of the Crowd Health members to keep their costs low. So the interesting thing about Medi-Share, I don't have their prices off the top of my head right now. You do have to go through some, like a qualification to get into Medi-Share. And what's interesting is the prices are dependent on where you live as well as your like health status and your age and things like that. Whereas like CHM as long as you are under 65, it's the same price. But then if you're 65 plus, then it's it's an even lower price. and so it doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter on your health status, which could be beneficial or not. A lot of people do like that medi-Share does charge less if you are healthier and younger and things like that. But at least at CHM it's just, it's very easy, very simple to find out. Now, with Crowd Health, I did do some research.'cause again, for us, this is what we're considering potentially jumping into. So I've done a pretty deep dive into their program and I've literally read their entire manual.'Cause I wanna know everything that I can about it before jumping into it. But they have. Their breakdown of their price is actually in two individual things, and it technically can fluctuate per month, which is very interesting. So you have a$55. Per month per person. They call it the advocacy fee, and that is just to be a part of their program. It does get you free virtual care. Both primary and urgent. They have talk therapy for free. They, you get a personal care advocate who helps you find people that you can work with that give you affordable prices and they give you like bill negotiating support and a few other things. So it basically gets you access into the Crowd Health resources in general. So that's$55 per month per person. And then you have what they call the monthly contribution. So what's interesting about it is that on a monthly basis you will get a message from their app saying. Hey, Chrissy is going through a knee surgery again and she

Chrissy: 9:43

Hey, we don't need to be making fun like that. Who's the one who's had three knee surgeries?

Katie: 9:49

Only had two and then Wes had one ankle thing,

Chrissy: 9:52

oh, sorry about it.

Katie: 9:55

But we, so then you'll get a notification saying, here's how much. Yeah. Every member of Crowd Health is being asked to share to Chrissy. And from my understanding, you basically hit like, accept, and then the money goes directly to Chrissy's bank account. Like it'll just show up and, and you, Chrissy will get notifications whenever people are sending you the money, which is so interesting.'cause with, with Christian Healthcare Ministries, it goes to CHM and then CHM disperses it to you.

Chrissy: 10:27

So I actually do have one question about that from a tax perspective. Does that count as a form of income for the person? Like how is that money viewed from a tax perspective going straight into your bank account?

Katie: 10:42

Wow. You know, that is a really good question. That's not something I even thought about at this point, but it's definitely something that, now that you bring it up, I definitely wanna find out because you're right, like if you're getting, and it would be, you know, it is money that you're using directly for health expenses, so it's not like. You know, hopefully nobody's taking advantage of it and pocketing it and stuff. I mean, if you have a health expense, you do have to submit your bills, right? With CHM too, you have to submit all of your bills in and they have to approve it. So I assume that Crowd Health would go through a similar approval process before they just start sending you money. Right. But yeah, I don't know how that works because it could be like hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially if you have large medical bills. So.

Chrissy: 11:31

Right. I wonder if they maybe have a particular bank account for the medical expenses and say like, okay, you are now a part of Crowd Health. You have this Crowd Health Bank account that is to be used for your medical expenses and you can't really use that money for other things. That's just what would make sense for me.'cause that way you avoid the IRS viewing that money as income or some other form of something or other.

Katie: 12:02

That is a really great point I definitely should look into that. I do know that you sending money to somebody else is not considered like tax deductible.'Cause I know like when you have medical related expenses, you can get tax deductions for all of that in general, but the money that you spend on Crowd Health or that you send to other people for your kind of monthly contributions, those are not tax deductible. So I did come upon that information, but as far as like what happens when you receive the money, that's a good question, Chrissy.

Chrissy: 12:39

I have one more question about the Crowd Health. So they send, once a month, they send you one person who would need help paying for something?

Katie: 12:48

From my understanding, it sounds as though you, so as a family, you will have certain maximum limits that you could share to other people, but you will get like a notification. Again, this is kind of my limited experience with it, but you have an app, the Crowd Health app, and then you would get a notification saying, this is the monthly share amount that we're asking from you. And so hypothetically, it sounds like, I mean, even in their description it will say that, the maximum monthly crowdfunding amounts listed. not fixed and can be adjusted based on the actual spending of you and the crowd, like as a whole. So if, if all of us have a ton of medical expenses, you could be asked to give the maximum amount, which for a family of three plus is$420 per month. And then that's again, plus the, the$55 per person per month. But if you're a single person between the ages of zero and 54. Oh, and I guess they do have different levels, so it's up until 54, it's$140 per month. But then once you're in the 55 to 64, you know, getting up to the 65 age, it's$280 per month, so it is more expensive as you age versus with CHM, once you hit 65, then you have a lower sharing amount, so at least you would have that to potentially look forward to if you switch over to that. So. I calculated it that if our little family of three switched to crowd health, the advocacy fees would be$165 for the three of us. So again, that's that$55 per person, and then the contribution maximum would be$420 per month, it could be lower depending on the needs of everybody. So the total out of pocket. To be a part of Crowd Health would be$585.

Chrissy: 15:00

You're saying that's the maximum contribution though, does that imply that you're not always asked to give that$465?

Katie: 15:12

Yeah, from my understanding it says that it could be lower, and I actually did watch a YouTube video where the couple that was talking about being a part of Crowd Health said that there was one month where they were asked to give something like$10 to$20 less than their typical maximum amount because the needs of the community were much lower. So that's one thing that's really unique is that no matter what the needs are with Christian Healthcare Ministries, you're always paying the same amount into it. It's considered your sharing amount and, they pool it basically, so that way if the money isn't all used for somebody's expenses, then they would save it for something in the future. Whereas like Crowd Health, they basically only ask for what is absolutely needed in that moment. And they take in account like if you have scheduled things. So they ask that, you would say, that, you would tell them, oh yeah, I have a scheduled surgery, a knee surgery coming up in two months, and this is the estimated amount that I was given from my provider. And so they can at least like start to prepare for some of those things. But if in general everybody's doing really well, nobody's getting sick nobody has all these surgeries, nobody's having babies, right. Then, whatever. Then they wouldn't ask for more. And, and that one couple did say in their review that they have experienced that they had a less amount. But compared to CHM, we currently spend like over$800 because we pay$255 per person. So that's three of us. For our kind of just our regular gold level program, but then we also have the CHM Plus program, which I'm forgetting off the top of my head how much it is, but it's something like$35 or something per person, per month, which the CHM plus program basically bumps your maximum sharing amount to be unlimited if you're on the Gold program. So if you're on the regular Gold program, you can only share a maximum of like$250,000, I think, per medical incident. And so the like plus program basically makes it so that there's no ceiling for how much you can actually share. And so we've done that because we have had experiences that made so that we needed to it unlimited and we realized that very quickly we needed to be a part of that. So Crowd Health does not have a a cap. There's no maximum amount that you can share, which is also just very interesting. It's like a lower amount, but then there's not a maximum and their quote unquote deductible is much more affordable it works very differently in that they're deductible, quote unquote. Again, I'm using quotes'cause that's not actually a deductible, but it's similar to they have, it's not an annual thing, it's like a per medical event and it is only$500. I used an example in last week's episode of Wes' ankle surgery was originally$22,000 out of pocket after all of the self-pay discounts. Now, in our case with Christian Healthcare Ministries, we had$1,000 that was our personal responsibility that we needed to take care of first, and then everything after the$1000 was shareable within CHM. Well, if we were to do that same event. With Crowd health, it would only be$500 that we would be responsible for. However, the difference there is that, if he had some other medical event that same year, he would be again responsible for the first$500 of the expenses and then everything else would be shareable. So it's, it's slightly different in that it's not like a annual maximum thing, but it could be lower if you don't incur a lot of medical events. So that was kind of interesting.

Chrissy: 19:18

And I recall, I mean I listened to the same podcast that you did originally that brought to light this idea of crowd health, the company. And from my understanding from that podcast was that each month you're given an opportunity to share or an opportunity to give. You don't always have to give the maximum. Is that correct?

Katie: 19:42

Yes, that is actually, and that is one thing that I was trying to figure out a little bit more about, because it really weird to be like, oh, you have the option right now to say yes or no. Because again, you get notified saying Chrissy has a knee surgery coming up, and we're asking all of the members right now to give$100 towards her surgery and you could say yes or no. And it sounds like if you don't respond within two days, the automatic default is that you say yes and you have like a bank account connected to the app and then it would automatically do that for you. So it is kind of nice because at first I was like, that sounds like a lot of responsibility if I'm getting notified all the time about people's medical events and needing to figure it out. And in most cases, so they actually, what's really, really fascinating is there's a sense of accountability within Crowd Health that each member has two different scores. They have the generosity score, and then they have a health cost rating. So the generosity score reflects your crowdfunding activity. So it basically will say how often you say yes or no to those requests, but at the same time, it takes into account your health cost rating. So. There is no in-network with crowd health, which is very interesting. And something that I personally really love about Christian Healthcare Ministries is it doesn't matter where I go, whereas in, Medi-Share, they do kind of have a preferred network. You can go outside of it, but they only share like a certain amount of that money or something from my understanding. So Medisure does want you to kind of work with the providers that they already kind of deemed good, so you don't really have as much choice. So with crowd Health, they will give you a score based on the actual market price, fair market price of the procedure that you're getting. So again, going back to an example of like a knee surgery. If you go to a place and they quote you 30 grand for this knee surgery, and maybe that's right on par, like that is the average for a knee surgery. And so crowd health will be like, Hey, that's good. You're, you're within the range of a fair market price for this. And so they'll give you like a green score for that. But if you go to some fancy professional, which you can do and it's your choice. might give you a higher, more like a negative score based on the fact that it's more expensive to go to that provider and their out of pocket cost might be 50 grand. And so it's really interesting'cause it, it kind of helps you to keep a little bit accountable for what you're paying for things and what you're sharing. So it's really intriguing to me

Chrissy: 22:35

That also makes me think like if you're going to have an elective surgery such as a knee surgery or something like that, that is scheduled, it's almost incentivizing a person to go to an outpatient surgery center rather than to a hospital. Because once you go to a hospital, the costs just shoot up through the roof. But going to an outpatient surgery center, even though it does technically give you less access to extensive resources, if you end up needing them, it helps to keep the cost of your procedure significantly lower, and they really do those lower risk. Surgeries in those outpatient surgery centers such as ACL surgeries or a meniscus surgery or like a typical tubes in the ears kind of things. Those are the kind of surgeries that they do in outpatient surgery centers, the kind that have really low risk of becoming bigger than they actually are. And so by doing that, you know, it's really a great way to limit the cost of a procedure. So that's probably something they also take into account of like. Where are you having this surgery done? You know?

Katie: 23:46

Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's all really interesting. And to your point a little bit to that is one of the things that I was the most curious to learn about as far as like switching, potentially switching to crowd health is I really love Christian Healthcare Ministries because they are very faith focused and because of that, I know, for the most part that the majority of people within Christian Healthcare Ministries, like all of the members are all Christians and they're all adhering to the same general lifestyle, covenant of living with biblical principles. And so I was very curious to know a little bit more about like what Crowd Health would share versus not share. And so I did learn that they don't cover services related to abortions, gender change, IVF, certain like smoking or alcohol related incidents. So that was definitely a plus for me. I mentioned last week that one thing that is kind of nice but some people don't love about Christian Healthcare Ministries is that if you were to have a pregnancy outside of wedlock, so even if it's like a partner of yours, but you're not married, they would not share the cost of that within CHM because they want you to sign this lifestyle covenant that says like sex is strictly for marriage and is meant to be for married couples. And so if you're getting pregnant outside of marriage, then they're basically saying like, no, that's outside of our lifestyle covenant. So we won't share the cost of that. So Crowd Health does not, they just basically say as long as it's not through, well actually I guess they don't say if it's from an like an IVF. Like if it's an IVF pregnancy or not, but they basically said adoption abortion, contraceptives, IVF treatment and pregnancy conceived before membership. So it doesn't necessarily say pregnancy from IVF because that's also something that CHM does not cover, is if you did get pregnant with something like IVF, they actually won't cover that pregnancy as well, which is also a game changer for a lot of people if you are looking to potentially, do that.

Chrissy: 26:20

That's very interesting. IVF is definitely one of those things that I never really thought about the moral implications of it until I started getting into this conversation and hearing more about it. The concerns of IVF and now, I mean, speaking as a person who is the result of IVF. That's the only way that my parents could conceive was through IVF. In my perspective, you know, it is truly a blessing that it's an option to get pregnant by means of IVF. But at the same time, you know, the Bible very clearly states that God loves each and every person as they are and who they are as they were created and. They are a person created in God's image from the point of conception. And so the issue with IVF is that. Which actually took me a long time to identify and why some people I think could have such a hard time understanding is that the idea of IVF requires you to throw away the unused embryos, which in God's eyes are a living human being made in his image, who he loves. And so, yeah, it took me a long time to understand the moral implications of IVF, but now that I do, I mean. It's really difficult from my perspective since I am the result of IVF, and I'm very thankful for it, but I also understand the moral implications of it now, and I understand why these health sharing organizations don't support IVF.

Katie: 28:04

Yeah, I would love to dive into the topic of IVF a little bit more. I've been so curious to know more about your own thoughts, especially because. I learned at a, like a much later age in life that you and your sisters were born out of

Chrissy: 28:23

Um,

Katie: 28:24

IVF.

Chrissy: 28:26

Yeah, my sisters and I didn't really know about it either until I was, I think I was 16 and my sisters were 14, and Aunt Julie dropped the bomb at Christmas and mentioned it, and that's how we all found out. It's very funny to look back on.

Katie: 28:41

It's like, hello. Yes, I, I am very curious because it is something that, you know, we had gone through an infertility journey ourselves, and a lot of people did suggest to us to look into IVF and I didn't really know too much about it except for the fact that I just didn't feel quite right about it and I never could place my finger on why, because again, I had never researched too much into it. I just, for me originally it was like I could, I know that going through IVF, you have to like stick yourself with hormones. With a needle like daily, an hour, like it just sounds like so much pain for me. And I'm like, that sounds terrifying because I already hate needles a lot. So there was that, but I just, there was something else, but I never could quite point to it. And yeah, I've been learning a little bit more about it and I think it would be a good episode. To discuss in the future. So if you're listening and you're curious to like hear us, just discuss it from a biblical perspective as well as someone who considered potentially doing IVF and from Chrissy who is the blessing and result of an IVF pregnancy, like, I think it'd be really curious to let us know if you would be interested in hearing more about that. Chrissy do have other questions about Christian Healthcare Ministries or Crowd Health

Chrissy: 30:02

Yeah. So in the last episode we mentioned direct primary care. First off, what exactly is direct primary care and how does that fit into these health sharing organizations?

Katie: 30:15

Awesome question. So what's interesting about Christian Healthcare Ministries, Crowd Health and I believe also Medi-Share, they do not cover the expenses for simple primary care visits. So either wellness checks, so like if you get strep throat or you get sick, or your kid you know, falls and you're like, I need to go get this arm looked at, just like to see if they need stitches or something. Like those smaller things are not shared within these memberships. They're considered like, again, like you're supposed to, the way that I view it is like you save up in your emergency fund or just like a health thing like a health I line item on your budget. Like we literally just set aside like a hundred or so dollars just for simple visits or things like that. And so they don't pay for them. But if in the case, like for kids who are getting sick a lot or getting hurt a lot, and you want some sort of provider to. Be available to you a more regular basis, someone who really knows your family. That's where something like Direct Primary Care can be really beneficial. And we actually, I tested out some direct primary care originally by myself, just to see how it was and see if it was super beneficial for me as an adult, like a healthy, young adult to use. And what it, what it basically comes down to is you pay a monthly subscription fee for access to your doctor on almost like an unlimited basis. So you can go as often or as infrequently as you'd like, and you typically get direct access, like text access to your doctor when you have questions. Or maybe like, virtual care option as well. And so you'd pay a monthly subscription fee and get access to certain services and, and that's that. And you, you have that. And me, as an adult who is healthy and young, I did not find a lot of benefit in it for myself. Maybe someone who gets sick more often or something like that, it might be a little bit more beneficial for you as an adult. For our son, we actually have done direct primary care for him for the last year of his life. We pay$55 per month and he has unlimited access to his doctor and that's it. So$55 and we can, I text our doctor pictures of rashes and of different things that I won't get into here'cause it's a little and we are able to just chat and I bring him in for his regular checkups But yeah, as we get ready to move, I actually was just texting Dr. Brown. I love Dr. B. I was just texting him and, and you know, updating him like, yeah, we're gonna be canceling our membership probably at the end of this month. And so I was preparing him. He already knows that we're moving but we've been considering what we're going to do moving forward because there's not, like, we're going to a rural area in Michigan and there's not a lot of these providers out there in general. And so if we did want to join a direct primary care, it's gonna be like 45 minutes to an hour away. And I'm like, that doesn't really seem as beneficial. And so I don't really know yet what we're gonna do, but what is nice with. Christian Healthcare Ministries and with Crowd Health, and I think Medi-Share also has an option like this, is that they do offer free virtual telehealth, like primary care visits. So that's for both like sick and wellness visits, also for like your annual physicals and things like that. But it's not always the same as like going into your doctor. So it is nice to have if you're like, Hey, I just need to jump on here really quick. But I haven't used Christian Healthcare. I've used it once, I think when I had a rash on my arm. But I actually talked to your mom more than I talked to the telehealth person. When I had the, I had like a dermatitis thing on my arm. It was like this weird, almost exclamation point looking thing, and I was like sending her pictures. And she helped me more than I think the doctor did, but the doctor gave me a prescription for it. So.

Chrissy: 34:33

I am sure my mom and I both, my mom for reference for our listeners is also a nurse. And so of everyone in the family, we are the two nurses and i'm sure both of us now share all of the fun text message pictures of fun, gross things that our family members have. Anyways, back on topic. in terms of direct primary care, I am curious, do direct primary care providers tend to lean more on the functional medicine side of things, or do they tend to lean more on the western medicine side of things?

Katie: 35:09

Yeah, so the provider that we have, I would say is like kind of in the middle. I. They have been very open-minded about our medical choices, and they do promote more choice-based medical decisions, like actually like informed consent, medical decisions, versus just doing what the recommended pediatric stuff is for our son. And, and so I would say going to a typical pediatrician or maybe even family doctor, they're a little bit more regimented of like, you must come in at these month marks and you have to get these done and, and all this stuff, and, and it's just a little bit more protocol based. Like this is just the protocol for when we see kids and what we do for the kids and all the stuff that we take care of, whereas like our. direct primary care physician that my son sees is like a lot more laid back where he's like, yeah, you could come in at the three month mark. Yeah, you could come in at the six month mark. And so I've been kind of like, yeah, is there any specific times that we should come in? And he's like, you can come in, get him weighed, you know, you can come in whenever, you can come in every week if you wanted, and get him weighed and checked out and everything. And. We've kind of been just doing every, every three-ish months right now, but now that he's gotten to the one year mark, it's like, okay, well we probably don't need to go that often as much.. And we have asked him questions about. You know, hey, what do you think about getting some chiropractic care for Malachi for this situation? Or have you heard anything about the benefits of acupuncture for allergies and things like that? So we've asked him and he hasn't had like a ton of information. He has encouraged us to check it out and has not told us not to do it or anything. So he's definitely like, I would say, middle of the road and I would. I, I guess I can't really speak for a lot of the others out there, but I'm sure you could potentially find both sides of the spectrum of someone who is a little bit more western versus like alternative naturopath-like But I would say what we're more so considering when we move is finding someone who is more of like a naturopath physician and that. My friend has a really great one out here in Colorado and I really love their relationship and I'm like, I would love to find someone like that for us in Michigan. So I'm definitely gonna be searching pretty hard for someone who will be kind of like our family doctor, but who is definitely more like functional, natural instead of western medicine.

Chrissy: 37:57

Cool. Well, okay, so I know you mentioned earlier in this podcast that you have some YouTube videos out through your other business that explain a lot of these concepts with Medi-Share and Christian Healthcare Ministries. Where exactly can our listeners go to find those YouTube videos?

Katie: 38:17

Yeah, they're probably some of my most popular videos on my YouTube channel, and lots of people have questions about them, and I would love to continue to answer your questions either on YouTube or in our Facebook group, which is Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget I. But you can find my YouTube videos simply by looking up Katie Fiola Jones. We'll link to it in the show notes below as well, so you can go check those out. And, and I'll keep you guys updated too on whether or not we switch. I'm really curious to test it out, like the Crowd Health stuff. The only thing that kind of makes me slightly nervous is just the fact that they've only been around for like four years. I, I think they started sometime during the pandemic and Christian Healthcare Ministries is actually one of the longest standing health cost sharing ministries out there, and they have always, they have a hundred percent shared all of the medical bills that have come in that have been qualifying. And even more so, because even if your bills aren't, like, they have like this prayer page and you can get more medical expenses shared and stuff, which is really cool. But CHM has a really good track record and like tech health companies, like health tech companies like Crowd Health give me a little bit of a pause because I've tried other things out there. Like Forward Health was like a tech health company that we tried out a while back that kind of did a direct primary care virtual thing, and they're, they're gone now and that they started right before the pandemic, and then I tried them after the pandemic and they're, they went under and I'm like, so stuff like that, it, it makes me a little nervous. And I think that's giving me the biggest pause before switching outside of CHM. And so but, it's either we're gonna switch to crowd health or probably stick with CHM for a little bit longer.

Chrissy: 40:10

Some encouragement on the Crowd Health thing. If I do recall correctly, I believe even though it's only been around for four years, they already have over 10,000 members, and they do have that same 100% track record of getting all of the medical expenses paid for. And I believe they said that they've had a couple million dollar medical bills that they've gotten completely covered from merely just those 10,000 members. So that's encouraging to me that they're growing and I see that they're picking up traction. You know, one of the things that in this podcast that we both listened to about Crowd Health, they talked about how Crowd Health really does embody what it means to live as a Christian and to provide for those in need. You know, in the Book of Acts, it talks about how everybody gave to everybody and nobody was among them who was in need. And so even though Crowd Health doesn't technically identify as a Christian organization. They do have Christian ownership, and their whole principle does rest on the biblical principle of everybody giving to everybody and nobody among the people being in need. And so I really do love that aspect of crowd health that it is my choice to give and also everybody is giving and also nobody is in need. And so, I think that's also very encouraging from that aspect. It is just, the one thing is you're not required to be a Christian, to be a part of crowd health, which I also think is really cool, that it could be a means by which the gospel can go out among the people and more people can learn the truth of Jesus and how living a life rooted in the gospel and following the Lord is truly beneficial and a joy. And so I think that is also like a spiritual benefit, not just of Crowd Health, but also of Christian Healthcare Ministries, you know? The joy of being able to provide for one another and take care of one another through sharing healthcare costs. So that's another little I tidbit that I think is pretty cool about both of those.

Katie: 42:22

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely gonna be considering it more heavily here soon, so stay tuned. Um, we'll I'll, I'll share an update at some point if we do decide to switch and our experience of it. And I'm sure you will see YouTube videos of it on my channel because I love sharing that kind of stuff with everybody to give you more knowledge and make better decisions for yourself. But with that, at the end of this episode, I think one thing to remind you as a listener is no matter what these decisions you are making with your healthcare providers and insurance and all of the crunchy stuff that we talk about with food and medicine and things. The best course of action is always to consult God and be prayerful about your decisions and really include him in the discussion of which choices to make because at the end of the day, we, we do really want to glorify and honor him with our health choices and the way that we are viewing our bodies as a temple. And so just remember that and, and you know, just know that you can always change course, right? Like, I'm here saying like, with Christian Healthcare Ministries, we might be changing course because after a while we, we found something that might work better for our family. Just keep that, keep that in mind. Like it's not an end all, be all. Like don't get too stressed about it and figure out what works best for your family and, and just go to God in prayer with that. And so with that, we do pray over all of you guys and we, really hope that these conversations can be beneficial. I know hopefully for Chrissy right now, this was beneficial for you you're kind of learning too, and. And so I, I just hope that this conversation blesses you and your discovery of different options out there because there's, there's more than just what the conventional way of doing You know, there's more than that. So consider that and. Join us over at our Facebook group, which is Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget and we can keep the discussion going. If you have other questions or have other opinions or thoughts on it, let us know. And please don't forget to subscribe, share this episode with a friend who's also considering switching, um, and just wants to learn more and leave us a five star review. If this episode was helpful, let us know. On Spotify, you can even like put comments on that. We've had some people put some comments on our episodes and we really enjoy seeing that and love hearing from you guys and um, yeah, just gives us a bit of encouragement as we continue to record these for you. So with that, my name is Katie and I'm signing off.

Chrissy: 45:14

And my name is Chrissy. Peace and Blessings, everybody.