The CrowdHealth plan doesn’t involvea premium, deductible, network, or anything else associated with healthinsurance companies. Instead, we negotiate directly with health care providersto reduce costs and build a vibrant Community to share the remaining expenses.Here is a closer look at how our alternative to health insurance works:

       1. Sign up for coverage

Enrollment in the CrowdHealthcommunity means promising to make a small monthly financial contribution to ourplatform. Only $30 of your contribution goes to CrowdHealth to coveradministrative costs, with the rest placed in a personal savings account you canuse to fund your needs or share with other Members on a strictly voluntarybasis. Your “generosity score” will increase every time you pay for someoneelse’s care, and you get your money back (minus a small fee) if you ever decideto cancel. 

       2. Visit any doctor in Colorado

While health insurance plans try totell you which doctors you can see in Colorado, CrowdHealth never does that.Choose any physician or health care provider you like and ask for the cashprice. If it’s $500 or less, you simply pay it. If it’s more than $500, youmake a payment in that amount and then submit a funding request to CrowdHealthto cover the rest. If you know that you need a costly medical procedure, we askthat you give us advance notice so we can work something out with yourprovider. We can negotiate the price of emergency procedures after the fact aswell. Doctors love getting paid in cash because it means fewer administrativecosts and wait times on their end, so they have every incentive to negotiatewith us.

       3. Submit a claim

The average health insurance companyin Colorado makes filing a claim seem impossible, but the coverage we providecouldn’t be simpler. Just download our mobile app, take a picture of all ofyour quotes, and click the submit button. That’s it!

       4. Enjoy the benefits of health insurance without insurance

CrowdHealth facilitates everyfunding request, so you can trust us to let other Members know about your bill.Your bill will be paid smoothly and quickly, with the money transferreddirectly into your account for maximal flexibility.

Considering the raw deal that Colorado citizens have received from health insurance companies for years, everything above might sound too good to be true. The truth is that there are some limitations to the coverage we provide, though our health plans are still cheaper and more accessible than most insurance plans. 

Some may not qualify for our plan as we strive to reduce the risk for our other Members. For example, women who are already pregnant are not currently eligible for enrollment because we cannot ask existing Members to cover prenatal, labor, and delivery costs for brand-new ones. Services such as alternative therapies, vision coverage, dental coverage, fertility treatments, long-term prescriptions, and cosmetic procedures don’t qualify for crowdfunding either. 

People with preexisting health conditions qualify for our plan, but costs associated with those conditions do not qualify for crowdfunding for the first year. After that, there are strict maximums on how much money Members can receive for treatments associated with chronic health conditions, capped at $100,000 after the first two years. 

If you compare these restrictions to the fine print on a standard health insurance contract, you’ll find that our plans provide much more flexibility for a fraction of the cost. CrowdHealth is dedicated to providing coverage to as many people as possible, and we hope to eliminate some of the restrictions on our health plans soon.