With Jim’s blessing, and the help of some friends and family, and a bit of my savings as start up funds, I moved forward, getting non-profit status, drafting a website, creating donation forms, even asking for donations and bringing brochures to some biodynamic classes. In the process I learned a few things about myself and other people. I don’t like asking for money. People can’t wrap their head around giving money to help doctors. Even if the primary goal is to get their services more broadly available to those that can’t afford them. Even if the goal is to train doctors to do what everyone wishes they would do – work that would stop people from saying doctors don’t listen, don’t care, don’t help…. In order to get donations you have to have a kid, or a sick person, or a hungry person… a tragedy or surprise, an immediate need.
There was a second problem which was that part of OHAs mission, was to offer osteopathy patients who couldn’t afford it, without asking doctors to work for free – doctors who were already having trouble making ends meet because they weren’t inside the managed care system. My original plan was to send them money each time they treated someone who couldn’t pay. But that was proving incredibly complex due to varying state insurance laws, varying physician rates and malpractice issues – OHA could not approve or provide healthcare or health insurance.
Jim wasn’t attached to OHA. His classes were full and he didn’t have the headache or costs involved in providing CME. Over the years, however, more and more foreign DOs came to classes, and less U.S.-trained physicians, because the CME requirements (and training) is different outside of the US.
One year, while doing the annual paperwork required by the government for non-profits I mused out loud. I should just let this whole thing go. I am a teacher and a doctor, not a fundraiser. My husband said, don’t do that. Just get the paperwork in. You don’t know what might come and you’ve already come this far. OHA wouldn’t work if we couldn’t raise money and I wasn’t going to spend my time raising money. OHA wouldn’t work if we couldn’t provide osteopathy to people who couldn’t afford it and I couldn’t see a workaround. But my husband was so often right. I decided to let it go, but not close it down. I just took a breather to regroup. That lasted several years. Read more
Osteopathic Health Access 