Florida-based nonprofit health system Orlando Health has sued faith-based healthcare-sharing ministry Liberty HealthShare, alleging that the organization instructed patients to hide their memberships in order to secure reduced rates for their care.
In the complaint filed Thursday, Orlando Health wrote that it received a letter from Liberty indicating that it owed the health system approximately $1.1 million for a “large block of claims.”
The ministry also referenced “discrepancies” among the claims stemming from, among other things, diseases and conditions associated with “lifestyle choices … and other moral choices that are outside of our program’s values and beliefs.”
Orlando Health, however, said it had no records of patients who identified Liberty as their source of medical cost funding. The health system replied to Liberty’s letter asking for any identifying information that might help it verify the claims and their balances but received no response from the ministry, according to the complaint.
“Orlando Health has since learned that, all along, Liberty was instructing patients to not disclose Liberty as an outside source of funding so as to illegitimately secure the reduced ‘charity rate’ for medical services,” the health system wrote in the complaint.
Orlando Health asked the court to require Liberty to provide a full accounting of all medical services provided to its members, the discrepancies referenced in its letter, the amounts due to Orlando Health and any other relief “as the court deems just and proper.”
Fierce Healthcare has reached out to Liberty for comment and did not immediately receive a response. A representative of Orlando Health said the system does not comment on pending litigation.
Virginia-based Liberty is a Christian organization offering members a lower-cost alternative to traditional health insurance coverage. The organization said it provided “healthcare and end of life assistance to over 70,000 families” during the 2020 fiscal year.
Healthcare sharing ministries are not held to the same coverage requirements as traditional payers and, according to patient advocates and regulators, can be predatory for members who are unaware of their coverage limitations.
Earlier this year, for instance, California opened a lawsuit against the Aliera Companies and its founding family for allegedly collecting hundreds of millions in monthly premiums through a nonprofit organization purporting to be a healthcare sharing ministry.