Limb loss changes everything: income, identity, relationships, and independence. We address what the healthcare system leaves behind.
The Ryan Fitzgerald Foundation was built for what comes after. We fund devices, close insurance gaps, and support the mental, emotional, and financial recovery that determines whether an amputee truly moves forward.
The Ryan Fitzgerald Foundation removes financial barriers to prosthetic care so that every amputee can move forward with the device they need, the mobility they deserve, and the life they've earned.
More than 30,000 people in Middle Tennessee are estimated to be living with limb loss. More than one in three will experience clinical depression. Many will face financial ruin: lost income, shuttered businesses, and medical debt that follows for years.
Marriages end. Careers disappear. The person who existed before feels irretrievably gone. The healthcare system addresses the body. The financial, emotional, and psychological wreckage is left for the patient to manage alone.
That is the gap this foundation exists to close.
"I knew what it felt like to need a prosthetic and wonder how I was going to pay for it. Nobody should ever have to ask that question."
The healthcare system addresses the body. We address the life.
Targeted funding for the gap between what insurance pays and what a device actually costs. Coverage limits and denials should never determine whether an amputee gets to walk.
Connecting amputees with prosthetist partners across our care network who meet the foundation's standards. Access to the right provider is as important as access to the device.
Gait training, trauma counseling, and programming that rebuilds employment, relationships, and purpose, delivered through our partner network. A device restores mobility. These programs restore life.
Helping patients navigate the economic wreckage that limb loss so often leaves behind. Through our network of financial planning partners, we address lost income, medical debt, and the rebuilding that determines whether recovery is sustainable.
Three of the Foundation's five board members are amputees, including its Founder and Director of Development. This is not a board that studies the problem from a distance.
Your gift funds prosthetic devices, closes insurance gaps, and supports the mental and financial recovery that determines whether an amputee truly moves forward.
No amputee in Middle Tennessee faces that journey alone.
Donate NowWhether you're an amputee in need of support, a donor, a prosthetist, or a potential partner, we want to hear from you.