A Doctor Challenging a Broken System. Join us in a true David vs Goliath fight by helping raise $200,000. Any amount you can give is welcome.
If you know Dr. Nyasha Spears, you know she shows up. Now it's time to show up for her. She's the doctor who takes the call when you're worried about a family member. She's the friend who offers thoughtful advice when life gets complicated. She's the person who brings cookies to ski meets, hosts the neighborhood at her home, and quietly gives her time and energy to her community without expecting anything in return. And now Dr. Nyasha Spears has done something courageous. After years of caring for patients within a healthcare system increasingly dominated by bureaucracy, insurance hurdles, and corporate interests, she chose to build something better. She and Dr. Kristin Lusian created a new kind of primary care clinic – one designed to put patients first and remove many of the barriers that prevent low income, uninsured and underinsured people from getting the care they need. Before opening her Direct Primary Care practice, she sought court approval to ensure she could move forward despite a noncompete agreement with her former employer and a threat that it would sue her . Minnesota now prohibits most new noncompete agreements, but because Nyasha's agreement predates the law, she remains caught in a legal fight over restrictions that many now recognize as unethical, unfair and harmful to the public. A Minnesota court ruled in her favor by issuing a temporary injunction, allowing her to open Amity Creek Primary Care, but the deep-pocketed employer is dragging it out and the legal battle has continued through an appeal and ongoing litigation.
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Defending her right to care for those patients has already cost Nyasha $200,000 in legal fees as of the end of May, with substantial fees mounting every month. As friends and supporters, we're not going to let that burden crush her.
Why This Clinic Matters
Amity Creek Primary Care is built on a direct primary care model - Rather than forcing low income, uninsured and underinsured people patients and their physicians to navigate endless insurance paperwork and administrative barriers, Direct Primary Care offers affordable, transparent care through a simple monthly membership. No insurance is involved. Patients receive longer visits, easier access to their physician, and a level of personalized care that has become increasingly rare in modern medicine.
Across the country, more than 1,000 DPC practices are helping transform healthcare from the ground up. Dr. Spears and Dr. Lusian wanted to bring that same vision to her community.
Why The Stakes Are HighFor years, Nyasha has shown up for her patients, her friends, and her community. But she's facing a legal fight that no individual physician should have to carry alone. She's not backed by deep corporate pockets - just her conviction that patients without sufficient insurance or financial ability deserve better care. Now it's our turn to show up for her.
We believe this legal fight has become about more than one physician or one clinic. It is about whether doctors can build innovative practices that prioritize patients over profits.
And it is about protecting healthcare models that offer families more affordable options and better access to care. The mounting legal costs threaten not only her family’s financial stability but also the continued growth of a practice that is making a real difference in people's lives. |  |
How You Can Help
There is no shortage of important causes in the world today, and healthcare often feels too big and too broken for any one person to change. But every once in a while, a clear and hopeful opportunity emerges—a chance to support someone who is already building the kind of system we'd all like to see more of. That's why we're rallying behind Nyasha: not just to help her weather this challenge, but to help protect a model of care that puts people in need first.
In the incredibly unlikely scenario we raise more money than Dr. Spears’s legal bills require, any excess funds would go to local nonprofits supporting health care access for underinsured and uninsured folks.
