What is a Private Health and Wellness Membership Association? What advantages do they offer to the members?
A Private Membership Association can be formed by any two or more individuals who wish to come together around a specific topic, mission, goal or service. For example The Boy Scouts of America is a PMA dedicated to youth development and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is a civil rights organization for ethnic minorities. Like these two examples, Quantum Bridges Health Alliance (QBHA) is a PMA that is organized around the intent to provide its members with services, products, information and support that promote health and wellness.
One of the most wonderful freedoms we have in our country is the Right to Associate. This right is provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. We all have the right to form private membership self-help associations that are not open to the public, do not affect a public interest, and whose activities are inherently benign enough to exempt them from regulation by states’ policing powers when services are not offered to the public.*
Just because the association is private and not open to the public, does not mean the public can not join. Anyone who agrees with the tenants of the PMA and wishes to join will be welcome. They are then free to benefit from the offerings that other association selected members provide to the membership at large.
Quantum Bridges Health Alliance screens and allows only competent and experienced member practitioners to actively present and promote their areas of expertise within the association. As the membership grows so does, potentially, the scope of the member offered benefits and resources.
Private Membership Associations offer a number of advantages:
A PMA provides extraordinary privacy protection. PMAs are self governed and regulated so the membership determines the guidelines and rules for the association. Any dissatisfaction or disputes members might have are settled within the association. They are safe from frivolous litigation and exempt from carrying the burden of outrageous malpractice insurance premiums. This results in lower costs for health and wellness services.
Within the PMA, even if one is a licensed healthcare provider, it is possible to offer holistic or alternative health and wellness techniques and modalities outside of parameters of the license within the PMA setting, without fear of discrimination or sanctions by the regulatory agencies.
In addition, all bona fide and competent practitioners may practice within the PMA. Many healthcare practitioners and companies who provide natural remedies are being harassed, investigated and sanctioned by licensing agencies, law enforcement agencies and attorney generals. By going after the practitioners and naturalists, these entities believe a great service is being performed in the name of “protection of the public.”
In 2008 the FDA proclaimed that cherries and walnuts were “drugs”? Is proclaiming cherries and walnuts a drug really for the “protection of the public”? The solution to the problem is for the public patient or customer and the practitioner to become private contract members of a Private Membership Association. Under the 1st and 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and equivalent provisions of State Constitutions, one has the right to associate with fellow members and offer benefits and services that are outside of the jurisdiction, venue and authority of State and/or Federal agencies. What could come under scrutiny and, in some cases, be considered a criminal act outside the association can be perfectly legal within the protection of a private association.
In general an association is outside the jurisdiction and authority of all state and federal agencies and law enforcement authorities. At the same time it is important to know that this right is not absolute. An association operating in the realm of creating a clear and present danger of substantive evil would trigger an investigation. However within the intent to do good, a Private Membership Association of private members is in the private domain with the protection of numerous favorable U.S. Supreme Court decisions with none to the contrary to date.