Since its launch in 2023, PELTO Health Partners has doubled its number of practices in 2024, and its leaders are thinking about what future expansion will look like.
PELTO has a footprint in nearly every region of the U.S. Its founding practices are Durham, N.C.-based EmergeOrtho, Indianapolis-based OrthoIndy and Seattle-based Proliance Surgeons. And this year Wilmington-based Delaware Orthopaedic Specialists, Olympia (Wash.) Orthopaedic Associates and Cincinnati-based OrthoCincy joined.
Leaders with the new additions all shared similar reasons for joining PELTO in conversations with Becker's. What stood out to them was the opportunity to continue working independently with the support of physicians who shared their values.
"We're not taking over any of their back office functions," Ed Hellman, MD, president and board chair of OrthoIndy, said. "We're helping them to be more efficient, helping them to save money, and they're helping us too. Because the bigger we get, the better position we are in to negotiate with service providers and other companies that we contract with. We are starting to touch a larger percentage of the country. So where are we going from here? I don't want to say we're going to have unlimited members."
Although there isn't a specific number of practices Dr. Hellman envisions for PELTO, leaders are looking for mutually beneficial partnerships.
One of the advantages of casting a wide net across the U.S. is that practices benefit from each other's unique success strategies instead of working in opposition, Frank Aluisio, MD, physician president of EmergeOrtho said.
"The greatest thing has been it's a think tank, and each group brings different skills and strategies to make them successful," Dr. Aluisio said. "We've sat down and we've shared the best practices of all these great practices. As physicians we've learned a lot of new things, and our administrators have learned a lot of new things that have made all of our practices better at home. So when we bring in new practices, we want to bring in practices that have something to bring to the table that we might not have existing already."