By Roy Hayhurst
DALLAS — Churches and pastors looking for budget-minded health care coverage as well as protection for themselves, their employees and their families have another option to consider coming this summer.
GuideStone®, which is celebrating 100 years of serving Southern Baptist and evangelical churches, will roll out the new GuideStone Secure Health plan during the Southern Baptist Convention and enrollment will begin on July 1.
“We hear daily from pastors and other church leaders who feel the tension between wanting to do right by their employees while also being responsible to their budget,” GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said. “With Secure Health we wanted an option that provided lower-cost coverage and protection for church employees, as well as their families.”
Under the new Secure Health plan, eligible participants still have access to the nationwide Blue Cross Blue Shield network. Primary care visits and Teladoc consultations are available at no out-of-pocket charge. Some care — such as out-of-network service — is not covered. Before enrolling in the plan, GuideStone encourages participants to review their health coverage needs to see if GuideStone’s Secure Health is the appropriate coverage choice.
“We serve thousands of Southern Baptist and evangelical churches and ministries with health coverage that reflects their values,” said Scott Charbonneau, managing director of insurance plans at GuideStone. “Secure Health is a natural extension of this offering for churches that may have thought they had no options with GuideStone and were considering other solutions in the marketplace.”
Hawkins said, “We know churches have choices, and while they may find other cheaper options, those alternatives might cause stress and increase the chance of failure for their employees. We hope every pastor and church that has talked to us in the past but thought they could find a financially more advantageous option will call us this summer to learn about Secure Health and determine if now is the right time to move to Secure Health for their church and family.”
Monthly costs for the plan are pre-tax and offer significant savings compared to comprehensive PPO plans. Additional information on Secure Health will be available at the Southern Baptist Convention and will be posted on GuideStone’s website in mid-June. In the meantime, ministers and churches can visit GuideStone.org/SecureHealthInfo to sign up to receive emails when they are available to learn more about the plan.
