Phoenix HealthShare

What Phoenix is

Phoenix HealthShare is a community of members who voluntarily share one another’s eligible medical expenses. It is administered by Planstin. It is not insurance. No one guarantees your bill gets paid, you remain responsible for your own medical expenses, and sharing happens according to Phoenix’s Member Guidelines.

It is a faith-based community in the sense that members agree to six principles about looking after one another. It does not ask you to belong to any church, denomination or religious tradition.

CoreMed offers Phoenix alongside Zion HealthShare. Both are live, and we are not steering you toward either one. They are different organizations with different rules, so the honest answer to “which is better” is that it depends on your situation. Read both and ask us.

How a medical need works

Phoenix keeps the shape simple:

1. Get the care you need. If it is a real emergency, go, and sort the paperwork out after.
2. For anything that is not an emergency, call Care Coordination before you get care.
3. Pay fair, transparent cash prices. You present as a self-pay patient, not an insured one.
4. Meet your Initial Unshareable Amount for that medical need.
5. Eligible expenses beyond it are shared by the community.

There are no network restrictions. You can work with any provider you like.

What you pay first

The Initial Unshareable Amount, or IUA, is what you pay toward a single medical need before sharing starts. It is per medical need, not per year, which is the piece that trips up anyone coming from insurance.

That last column is the ceiling, not a target. You are responsible for no more than three IUAs in any rolling twelve months. Once you have hit three, a new eligible need only has to clear $500, and then eligible expenses can be shared from the first dollar.

One timing rule worth knowing: an IUA has to be satisfied within eight months of the date of service to count toward your three.

Care Coordination lowers what you pay

If you call Phoenix before non-emergency care and let them help arrange it, your IUA drops, and it is not a token amount:

You have to genuinely cooperate with the process and broadly follow the care they arrange. Phoning them and then doing your own thing does not earn the discount.

The reverse also applies. Non-emergency hospital care booked without calling them, when calling was reasonably possible, can carry a $500 fee on top of your IUA. It does not apply to emergencies.

What Phoenix does not share

This is the part to read twice, because the list is longer than people expect. Under the base membership, Phoenix does not share routine preventive care, mental and behavioral health, substance-use treatment, retail prescriptions, vision, hearing aids, speech therapy, sleep apnea, neurodivergent disorders, chronic and medically stable conditions, or anything primarily cosmetic.

The full list, and the rules behind it →

How Phoenix fits with a CoreMed membership

Phoenix is for the medical event that would otherwise be ruinous. Your CoreMed membership is for everything else, and that distinction does a lot of work here.

Several things Phoenix does not share are things your CoreMed clinic already handles: your own doctor, physical therapy, mental health, and your everyday medication and labs. You are not meant to be sending those to a health share in the first place.

Some gaps are real gaps, though. Routine preventive care, vision and hearing aids are not shared by Phoenix and are not part of a Primary membership either. Phoenix mentions optional preventive sharing and optional prescription sharing under separate guidelines, and we do not have those documents, so please do not assume either is included. Ask us and we will find out rather than guess.

Who can join

You need to enroll before you turn 65. New memberships are not available at 65 or older, though members who join earlier can carry on past 65 as long as membership stays continuous and in good standing.

You need to live in the United States, and Washington State residents are not eligible. A membership can include you, you and your spouse, you and unmarried dependent children under 26, or all of you together.

Tobacco or cannabis use adds $75 a month to the contribution.

Phoenix HealthShare is not health insurance. Membership does not create an insurance contract or guarantee payment of any medical expense. Members remain ultimately responsible for their own medical expenses. Sharing is voluntary and governed by the Phoenix Member Guidelines. Questions about eligibility, sharing, Care Coordination or a bill go to Planstin on 435.571.0011 or Individual@Planstin.com.