The M25 Program

What if you could pay for your surgery and make your community stronger at the same time? This inspiring idea is the foundation of the Healing Hands M25 Program. M25 was created to give patients who cannot afford surgery or any other healthcare procedure a way to pay by donating their time to community service.

One of the key components in surgical success is postoperative compliance – how well a patient follows the plan after surgery. Patients who are invested in their surgical outcomes get better results. This is due to the fact that patients who “have skin in the game” are more likely to comply with therapy, prescriptions, instructions, and precautions after surgery, resulting in higher success rates. They don’t want to mess up the results and end up paying more for the consequences of poor decisions.

The fundamental question, then, is “how do you get a patient who has no money to invest in the success of the surgery, and ensures the best results possible?” Ultimately, the M25 Program is our answer to that question. M25 works like this:
- The patient needs surgery or healthcare they cannot afford.
- Instead of dollars, they pay for the surgery with community service hours.
- For example, a patient needs surgery on their left ulnar nerve. Insurance fee is $5,000. A patient would need to donate 250 hours of community service to pay for their surgery.

The spiritual inspiration for the M25 Program comes from Matthew 25:40
‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40b, NAB)

The core mission of Healing Hands of Nebraska, from its inception, has been to offer world-class healthcare to all comers in a way that’s compassionate, innovative, forward-thinking, affordable, and fair. Healing Hands of Nebraska is dedicated to creating a system that restores your relationship with your doctor—keeping the focus on you and your health. At Healing Hands of Nebraska, our pricing is transparent and affordable. We use time-based billing, just like many other professional services. This allows us to set reasonable and predictable prices. Since we are not constrained by commercial insurance contracts, we have the freedom to be transparent about our pricing and we charge exactly what we say we do.* Every patient knows the exact cost of the care offered, right down to the last penny, prior to undergoing any visit or procedure. Our approach to medical financing is tri-partite:
1) Lump-sum payments at the time of the visit or prior to surgery
2) installment payments through our third-party collaborators
3) the M25 Program

While some patients can pay the fees at the time of service, others would incur a significant financial burden by doing so. That’s why we offer the second option for our fees: third-party financing for those who would prefer to pay for their care in installments. The third, and frankly, our favorite option is the M25 Program. By partnering with charitable organizations, such as the Orphan Grain Train (https://www.ogt.org), we are able to offer care to patients that do not require them to have any money. Through the M25 Program, patients invest in their healthcare through a donation of their time and energy to one of our partner charities.

Over ⅔ of individual bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical debt. What’s more alarming is that in over 75% of those bankruptcies, the patient had insurance. Clearly, insurance is no guarantee against financial ruin, and in many cases gives patients a false sense of security.