Dobbs Kids Doc Of­fers Free Care for Fur­loughed Fed Fam­i­lies

Like most Amer­i­cans, Dr. Nitin Gupta, the Dobbs Ferry pe­di­a­tri­cian whose Di­rect Pri­mary Care, or “concierge” prac­tice, was first pub­li­cized in The Hud­son In­de­pen­dent, was deeply touched by the sto­ries of fed­eral work­ers and their fam­i­lies strug­gling to make ends meet dur­ing the shut­down that ended this week­end.  He felt a per­sonal con­nec­tion since his own fa­ther had been a Cal­i­for­nia state em­ployee af­fected by fur­loughs.

My par­ents were not cer­tain if they could af­ford the co-pay for a doc­tor’s visit,” he wrote on Twit­ter. So he reached out to other Di­rect Pri­mary Care physi­cians un­der the ban­ner of “Doc­tors United for Good” with a call to of­fer free med­ical care to the chil­dren of fur­loughed fed­eral work­ers. “All co-pays, de­ductibles, and fees will be waived un­til the gov­ern­ment re­opens,” he wrote, adding that if and when fam­i­lies were get­ting pay­checks, they would have the choice to re­pay him or not.

One lo­cal res­i­dent who was touched by his of­fer was Tar­ry­town’s Anne Richards, who over­sees the com­mu­nity Face­book page, 10591, where she posted Dr. Gup­ta’s of­fer and be­gan mon­i­tor­ing Twit­ter re­ac­tions to the of­fer. She also con­tacted CBS News Cor­re­spon­dent David Beg­naud, who arranged an in­ter­view with the doc­tor that aired on the 11:00 pm broad­cast.

In the first 36 hours fol­low­ing the of­fer, half a dozen other Di­rect Pri­mary Care doc­tors had joined in the of­fer, as well as the Nat­u­ral­Fit Phar­macy in Irv­ing­ton, which vol­un­teered to of­fer pre­scrip­tions at a re­duced cost.

By then, the dom­i­nant news was that the shut­down was about to come to an end—at least for the next three weeks. Did his of­fer still stand?  Yes, said the doc­tor, not­ing that fed­eral work­ers still did­n’t have a pay­check and that the whole or­deal might re­turn in three weeks if Con­gress and the pres­i­dent can’t come to an over­all agree­ment on The Wall.