When member Jennifer went on vacation to Nashville, a trip to the emergency room was not on her original itinerary. But after an e-scooter mishap, that’s exactly where she ended up.
Jennifer and her husband joined Medi-Share a little over three years ago. Prior to that time, she had a job that provided medical benefits, but when she quit to take care of aging parents, the couple needed to find another option. As self-employed farmers, Medi-Share was a good choice for them financially, and they had friends and family who had expressed positive experiences with Medi-Share.
“Medi-Share was the best choice for us, seeing as we’re Christians and we’re in good health,” Jennifer says. “There really was no reason for us not to do Medi-Share.”
During their trip to Nashville, Jennifer and her husband and their friends all decided to rent e-scooters to get around town. It was Jennifer’s second time using those types of scooters, and she thought nothing of it.
“I consider myself an active person, in good shape. It wasn’t like I was overreaching my abilities,” she says.
But all of the sudden, as she was taking off from a stoplight, the scooter got away from her. In a split-second, she knew she was going to end up either in traffic or against an exterior wall. The scooter went down, and she hit the wall face-first.
Bloodied and badly shaken, Jennifer fell to her knees surrounded by her group. A ride-share driver saw what happened and stopped to offer assistance. They hopped into his vehicle in hopes of getting some first-aid supplies at a nearby pharmacy, but on the way, Jennifer declared that she felt ill. When she got out of the car, she fainted, and the group immediately decided to head straight to the hospital.
“Because my blood pressure went so low, I was considered a trauma patient,” Jennifer says.
As such, the doctors ordered plenty of scans to rule out internal injury and possible concussion. In the end, everything came back clear, but she was still held for five hours of observation. Not the vacation day they had planned, for sure!
When Jennifer got home, Medi-Share contacted her to make sure there wasn’t a third party involved, then got to work in sharing her medical need. When she got the original bill from the hospital, the total was astounding – close to $50,000! But Medi-Share worked out professional discounts and shared in the bill, reducing her total to only the AHP.
Jennifer got her explanation of sharing in the mail shortly after. She says, “Here were all these people – four pages of people -- who were paying for this bill. I was humbled.”
Having never needed to go to hospital before, she goes on to add, “We’ve felt so supported. My accident has proven for us, ‘Hey, this works!’ I didn’t feel like I was looked down upon or treated differently [for having Medi-Share].”
Though her injury was “no vacation”, we’re so glad for Jennifer’s positive experience in getting the care she needed while out of town. Her testimony highlights the power of our sharing community – hey, this works!
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