Privacy Policy | REDEEM HealthShare Ministry

Last updated: 17 April 2025

Samaritan Ministries International (“SMI” or “we”) is a voluntary, distinctively Christian community that is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit health care sharing ministry. As a Christian ministry, we believe that data privacy and security is a moral stewardship obligation. As a health care sharing ministry, we understand the importance and sensitivity of your health information. We protect your information because it is the right thing to do, and we endeavor to maintain your trust and privacy in the use of the data we collect, as described below.

We provide this Privacy Notice (“Notice”) to inform you of the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you use our services, visit our websites, including SamaritanMinistries.org (“Website”), and/or use our apps. This Notice describes our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

Please read this Notice carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is to not use our services or Website. By using our services, or accessing or using this Website, you agree to this Notice, as well as the Website’s Terms and Conditions of Use. This Notice may change from time to time (see 13. Changes to Our Privacy Notice below). Your continued use of our services or of the Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the Notice periodically for updates.

1. Definitions

“Member” means both currently active and inactive members, as well as prospective members that have contacted Samaritan.
“Personal Information” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual.
“Special Category Personal Information” means Personal Information revealing religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, genetic data, and data concerning health.
“Sensitive Personal Information” means Personal Information revealing a social security number, driver's license and passport numbers, account numbers and credentials, precise geolocation, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, or union membership, Personal Information concerning a consumer's health, sex life, or sexual orientation, contents of a consumer's mail, email and text messages where the business is not the intended recipient, genetic data, biometric information, or citizenship and immigration status.
“Biometric Information” means physiological, biological, or behavioral characteristics, including information pertaining to an individual's DNA, that is used or is intended to be used singly or in combination with each other or with other identifying data, to establish individual identity. Biometric information includes, but is not limited to, imagery of the iris, retina, fingerprint, face, hand, palm, vein patterns, and voice recordings, from which an identifier template, such as a faceprint, a minutiae template, or a voiceprint, can be extracted, and keystroke patterns or rhythms, gait patterns or rhythms, and sleep, health, or exercise data that contain identifying information.

2. Information We Collect

The types of Personal Information we collect and share depend on the program or service you have with us.

We may collect and use the following Personal Information—including Biometric Information, Special Category Personal Information, and Sensitive Personal Information—that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonable capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with you and/or a particular person in your household:

Categories of Personal Information	Specific Types of Personal Information Collected
Identifiers	Your real name, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifiers, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, social security number, and other similar identifiers.
Information that Identifies	Signature, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, driver’s license or state identification card number, photograph, marital status, date of birth, citizenship, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information (such as salary and budget information), medical information, or health insurance information.
Account Information	Log-in credentials allowing access to your account.
Commercial information	Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.
Technical Information	Browsing history, search history, and information regarding your interaction with the Website (what you use on our site and how you use it), affiliate websites and applications, how you interact with emails we send, the type of hardware and software you are using, such as device number, browser version, operating system, etc.
Geolocation Data	Address, coordinates, and IP Address.
Audio / Visual Information	Audio and visual information may be captured during calls and videoconferences
Professional or employment-related information	Employer name
Education information	Educational institution attended and enrollment status.
Inference Information	Member profiles related to health care consumption and program design.
Sensitive Information	Church affiliation, theological convictions, religious practices, income, denominational affiliation, and church leader identification.
Communications Information	Messages sent through the Website.
Payment Information	Banking details, credit card information, financial transactions, bills, payments on bills, bill negotiation information
Genetic Data	Genetic data may be included in certain information provided with a need.
Health information	Medical provider name, medical provider contacts, medical diagnosis, status of conditions, height, weight, sex, mental health, pre-existing conditions, medical services received, treatments, prescriptions, medical devices, good faith estimates, payments on medical bills, and discounts on medical bills.

If you do not provide Personal Information required to provide services to you, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.

3. How Your Personal Information is Collected.

We collect Personal Information from the following categories of sources:

You or a member of your household, directly in person, by telephone, text, or email and/or via our website and apps. (As a reminder, do not send sensitive information via email, as it is unsecured.)
Automatically as you navigate through our Websites or other electronic content. Information collected automatically may include usage details, IP addresses, timestamps, geographic information, device information, and other information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies. This may include the use of advertising networks, internet service providers, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, social networks, data brokers, and cookies or beacons on our website.
Third parties, such as with your consent (e.g., your bank, your medical provider, member surveys), with your instruction (e.g. presenting a Samaritan Ministries member card to a provider), or when Samaritan Ministries has a relationship with the third party (e.g., integration with Healthcare Bluebook tools).
Publicly accessible sources (e.g., property records)

4. How and Why We Use Your Personal Information.

We are a community of Christians paying one another’s medical bills and praying for one another as an expression of our shared faith in Jesus Christ. We call this health care sharing.

Members voluntarily provide financial assistance, encouragement, and spiritual support directly to other members. Members voluntarily entrust sensitive information from their household to other members to facilitate this community support.

SMI as an organization facilitates this direct health care sharing. Therefore, we collect, use, and share your information for the following reasons:

To provide you with health care sharing services,
To advocate and support in communicating with providers regarding medical services,
To assist with financial aspects related to medical care, including the review and negotiation of medical bills and their payment,
To improve our health care sharing services,
To fundraise for ministries,
To encourage grassroots efforts relating to laws and regulations,
To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations,
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party –or–
Where you have given consent.

We may link automatically collected data to other Personal Information such as your name, email address, address, and telephone number.

A legitimate interest is when we have a ministry reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. The table below explains how we use (process) your Personal Information and our reasons for doing so:

What we use your Personal Information for	Our reasons
To provide services to you	To provide you with health care sharing services.
Conducting checks to identify our members and verify their identity Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal, and regulatory obligations that apply to our ministry, e.g., under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional organizations	To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, inquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies	To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, such as policies covering security and internet use	To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training, and quality control	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any agreements entered into between you and us, including preventing and detecting fraud against you or SMI and the membership	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to minimize fraud that could be damaging for us and for you
Statistical analysis to help us steward (i.e., faithfully manage) the ministry, e.g., in relation to balancing needs and shares, designing and managing programs, improving our services, or other efficiency measures	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Preventing unauthorized access and modifications to systems	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Updating and enhancing member records	For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g., making sure that we can keep in touch with our members about new and existing services
Statutory returns	To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments	To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g., to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you
Provide you with information, programs, or services that you request from us or that we believe may interest you. Marketing our services and those of selected third parties to: Existing and former members Third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services or are affiliated with an existing, former, or prospective Member Third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e., to promote our ministry to existing and former members
External audits and quality checks, e.g., for Healthcare Sharing Accreditation Board accreditation and the audit of our accounts	For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e., to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards To comply with our moral, stewardship, legal, and/or regulatory obligations
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it, for any other purpose with your consent, or in any other way we may describe when you provide the information	To provide you with health care sharing services.

5. Promotional Communications.

We may use your Personal Information to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone, or post) about our services.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your Personal Information for promotional purposes (see above "How and why we use your Personal Information"). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional communications. However, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your Personal Information with the utmost respect and never sell it to other organizations for marketing purposes.

You may opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

Contacting Member Services at 1-877-764-2426, or
Using the "unsubscribe" link in emails or "STOP" number in texts.

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

6. Who We Share Your Personal Information With

We may disclose aggregated information about members, users, and visitors of this Website, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction.

We may disclose Personal Information, such as Identifiers, Information that Identifies, Account Information, Commercial Information, Technical Information, Geolocation Data, Audio / Visual Information, Professional Information, Education Information, Inference Information, Sensitive Information, Communications Information, and Health Information, that we collect or you provide, as described in this privacy policy, with:

Members of Samaritan Ministries,
Our affiliated ministries,
Service providers we use to help deliver services to you, such as payment service providers, medical bill negotiators, and consultants,
Other third parties we use to help us run our ministry, such as marketing agencies, technology services, or website hosts,
Third parties approved by you, and
Our banks.

We only allow our service providers to handle your Personal Information if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your Personal Information. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers limiting their use of your Personal Information to provide services to us and to you. Recipients of Personal Information may combine this information with information they have independently gathered from other websites, services, and applications relating to your activity on those other websites, services or applications. They may collect and use this information in accordance with their own privacy policies. We may also share Personal Information with external auditors, e.g., in relation to accreditation and the audit of our accounts.

We will typically anonymize shared information, but this is not always the case.

We may also disclose your Personal Information:

To comply with any lawful court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
To enforce or apply our Membership Requirements, Terms of Use, and other agreements.
If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of SMI and affiliated entities, members, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection.

7. How Long Your Personal Information Will Be Kept.

We will keep your Personal Information while you are a member with us or while we are providing services to you. Thereafter, we will keep your Personal Information for as long as is necessary:

To respond to any questions, complaints or disputes made by you or on your behalf,
To show that we treated you fairly,
For ministry and operational reasons identified above, or
To keep records required by law.

We retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods may apply for different types of Personal Information.

8. Electronic Communications.

Clicking “I agree” constitutes your electronic signature. You consent to electronic provision of all disclosures and notices from SMI, including those required by law. You also agree that your electronic consent will have the same legal effect as a physical signature. Certain notices may only be displayed on the platform and others may be emailed to you. You may withdraw your consent to electronic communications by writing to us at "Attn: Electronic Communications Delivery Policy, Samaritan Ministries, PO BOX 3618, Peoria, IL 61612", or contacting Member Services at 1-877-764-2426.

Selecting to receive text messages for multi-factor authentication indicates your consent to receive automated SMS text messages at the number entered during setup. Message and data rates may apply. You may revoke your consent to receiving SMS text messages, either in whole or in part, at any time. This revocation can be made by contacting Member Services at 1-877-764-2426.

9. Information of Minors

The Site and our SMS Service is not meant for or targeted at children under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect Personal Information about children under 18, except in conjunction with the processing of applications for membership and requests for the sharing of medical bills. Parents or legal guardians can review Personal Information collected about their child under 18 years of age and their adult children within their household (see Section II.A. of the Guideline) and exercise rights regarding that information on their children’s behalf.

10. Donation Information Specifics

Samaritan Ministries offers convenient ways for friends of the ministry to donate online. Some information is collected from donors during the process to ensure proper receipt and tracking. This includes: Name, Address, Phone, Email, and Credit Card information, etc.

11. Data Rights

State laws and individual companies may give you additional rights to limit sharing. If you limit sharing for your household, your choices may apply to everyone under your household.

12. Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your Personal Information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your password.

13. Changes to Our Privacy Notice

We post any changes we make to our Privacy Notice on this page. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for periodically visiting this Privacy Notice to check for any changes.

14. Contact Us

To ask questions or comment about this privacy Notice and our privacy practices, contact us at compliance@samaritanministries.org.

15. Ministry Transition

If we undergo a restructuring or transition (such as a merger with another organization), your Personal Information may be part of the assets that we transfer. If that would result in your Personal Information being used in a manner different from what we stated at the time of collection, we will give you the option of continuing to share the information consistent with this Privacy Notice. Nothing in this Privacy Notice shall be interpreted to interfere with or limit our ability to transfer all or part of our ministry and/or assets (including the Site) to another organization.

Last Updated: 11 November 2024

REDEEM™ HealthShare Ministry (REDEEM), a division of Samaritan Ministries International (SMI), takes your privacy very seriously. Please read our policy so you are aware of how we may use your information and how we will not use your information. For purposes of this policy, “member” shall mean both currently active and inactive members, as well as prospective members that have contacted REDEEM or SMI.

Our Privacy Principles

We do not sell member information.
We do not allow those who are doing business on our behalf to use our member information solely for their own marketing purposes.
We do allow some entities that are willing to promote discounted services to members the ability to promote these services to our members, but only upon agreement that our members' information will be protected.
We contractually require any person or organization providing products or services on our behalf to protect REDEEM members' information.

Information we collect

We collect information in order to better serve our members. Sometimes the information we collect includes simple things like what browser you are using. Sometimes the information we collect can also include sensitive or private information, such as medical bills and other health information. It is the goal of REDEEM to only collect the minimal data necessary to conduct the needs of the ministry and any agreed upon service in a way that is simple and secure.

We collect information in two ways:

Information you give us

This includes uploading images of bills, entering in personal information on an application, or simply requesting more info. This type of information is always given to us voluntarily, and many times the purpose is to provide a service to you.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

Information such as your name, address, date of birth, email etc. may be collected and used to send you additional information about REDEEM or as part of your membership information.

When a medical condition is published to the membership, the name, address, and possibly the electronic payment platform address are included in a share assignment notification, which is sent to a certain number of members based on the size of bills related to the medical condition. This allows the membership to share directly with one another.

Protected Health Information (PHI)

PHI can refer to information such as medical bills, treatment history, medical “needs,” etc. Medical information that we collect will always be kept confidential and will only be used by REDEEM HealthShare staff or partners for one of two purposes: 1. determining a bill’s eligibility for sharing, and 2. negotiating or repricing the charges. The data will only be accessed or retrieved by authorized personnel, and only to the minimal extent required to carry out these purposes.

When a medical condition is published to the membership, the related prayer request and short description of the medical condition are included in a share assignment notification, which is sent to a certain number of members based on the size of the bills related to the medical condition. This allows the membership to share directly with one another.

Information we get from you to use our services

We collect information about what you use on our site and how you use it. This information helps us to provide a higher level of service and gives us insight on how best to improve. The information we collect includes:

Device Information

We may collect information about what hardware you are using. This may include whether or not you are using a mobile phone or a computer browser. Depending on the device used, information may include device number, browser version, operating system, etc.

Log Information

When you use our services or view content provided by REDEEM HealthShare, we may automatically collect and store certain information in server logs. This may include:

Search queries or other fields you fill in
Internet Protocol Addresses (or IP addresses)
Device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL.

Location Information

There are many methods to track location information. One method we utilize is IP address tracking which gives us the state and city you are connecting from. This helps us determine utilization and track issues and insure we are providing a high level of service to our members and guests.

Local Storage

We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches. This may be done to increase speed or security.

Cookies and Anonymous Identifiers

We use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit a REDEEM service. This sometimes includes the use of cookies. We also use cookies and anonymous identifiers when you interact with services from some third parties.

Other Information

Some information is automatically recorded through tools such as Google Analytics. REDEEM does not always have direct control over what information is collected by Google Analytics, however where possible all information collected by Google Analytics or otherwise is protected in accordance with this policy. This information may be associated with a unique identifier to connect information from Google Analytics through multiple sessions (and any activity within those sessions, whether authenticated or unauthenticated) and other user information obtained by REDEEM. By continuing to use our site, you hereby consent to REDEEM’s use of Google Analytics with your information. If you desire to opt out, Google offers a Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on that can prevent Google Analytics JavaScript from sharing information with Google Analytics about visit activity.

Our partners’ use of your information

We contractually require any person or organization providing products or services on our behalf to protect REDEEM members’ information. Medical information that may be contained in your medical bills will always be kept confidential and will only be used by partners for one of two purposes: 1. determining a bill’s eligibility for sharing, and 2. negotiating or repricing the charges. The data will only be accessed or retrieved by authorized personnel, and only to the minimal extent required to carry out these purposes.

Donation Information Specifics

REDEEM HealthShare and Samaritan Ministries offer convenient ways for friends of the ministry to donate online. Some information is collected from donors during the process to ensure proper receipt and tracking. This includes: Name, Address, Phone, Email, and Credit Card information, etc.

While this information is not typically shared outside the organization, please let us know if you specifically want any donation-related information restricted from outside parties. You may also contact us to review any personal information (if any) that we currently have on record.

REDEEM takes security of your information very seriously and has several methods for protecting information we collect. Some of these include: physical and logical access controls, firewalls and intrusion protection systems, file monitoring and backup, etc.

For questions or concerns related to our handling of data, our privacy policy, or the security and compliance of member data, please reach out to support@redeemhealthshare.org.

REDEEM HealthShare Security and Compliance Team

Please contact us at support@redeemhealthshare.org for more information.