Today, we’d like to introduce you to Jake and Erica Davis.
Hi Jake and Erica, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
Epic Prosthetics and Orthotics LLC is located in rural Richfield, UT where we service patients in need of custom bracing and artificial limbs in the surrounding area. We have been operating for three years now and have loved all the adventures along the way. We are husband and wife who decided to take more control of our lives since we weren’t satisfied working for others and being restricted in our freedom to be with our family.
Jake is a certified Orthotist/Prosthetist and has a Master’s in Orthotics and Prosthetics (O&P) from the University of Pittsburgh. He has always wanted to work in the medical field and has considered heart surgery as a career for a long time. However, when he was introduced to orthotics and prosthetics, he realized that this field married his two passions of medicine and construction. After interning at Primary Children’s Medical Hospital in Salt Lake City, UT, he decided that this was the career he wanted to pursue.
Luckily, I worked in the prosthetics and orthotics field for the first few years of his schooling, so I learned about the administrative side of the business while he was learning about patient care. Once Jake was done with his schooling and residencies, we attempted to work out a deal to buy an existing orthotics and prosthetics business, but after a year, we realized that our goals didn’t align with the current owners. After much discussion amongst ourselves, Jake and I decided that we had the experience and drive to open our own practice.
At first, we were based out of our home and Jake would travel to patient’s homes or to hospitals to administer care throughout the area north of Salt Lake City since that is where we were living at the time. Eventually, Jake discovered there was a great need for an orthotist/prosthetist in Central Utah. It is a rural area where the nearest care is a 4-hour drive round trip, so many patients would forego their bracing needs because they were unable or unwilling to make the drive. Jake started making monthly trips to the area, but only after 4-5 months he saw a full patient load every day, five days a week.
We realized we needed to make a decision. We could either give our full attention to where we were currently based in northern Utah, or we needed to give 100% to Central Utah. Splitting between the two was very difficult for Jake and our family. After much prayer and consideration, we felt called to base our business right in the heart of Central Utah in the city of Richfield. This was a huge risk since the rule of thumb in the O&P field is that you need a minimum population of 100,000 people to safely open a functioning practice. However, the small city of Richfield only has around 10,000. Needless to say, we were a little nervous, but we trusted the nudge God gave us to focus on Central Utah.
Jake continued to travel down to Central Utah to see patients and strengthen relationships with local healthcare providers and hospitals. After only six months of our decision, we were at a point where we needed a physical location to see our patients because Jake was too busy to drive to do remote visits at the patient’s homes. We moved our family to Richfield and found a great space to rent as our office. Despite the odds against the rule of thumb for the O&P field, our business continued to grow!
It’s been 1.5 years since we opened our office. We are now a team of four, and we pride ourselves on excellent patient care. We have big plans for our company, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for us.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
It definitely has NOT been a smooth road, but opening a business isn’t expected to be easy and carefree. We have seen God’s hand guiding us to help us get through and make wise financial decisions.
The orthotics and prosthetics field is a very niche part of the medical community, and insurance is our main source of revenue. As everyone knows, insurance has many nuances, and it has taken us time and mistakes to learn how to contract with insurance and navigate billing and administrative needs.
In our field, you must contract with Medicare first before you can hope to get any other insurance contracts. That process took almost eight months and was very stressful. We had to partner with third-party medical billing companies as their contractors/clinicians to enable us to bill insurance until we had our own contracts. Once we got that Medicare contract, we started to get traction and see light at the end of the tunnel. We were able to get contract by contract with various medical insurance companies here in Utah, which allowed us to rely less and less on our third-party medical billing partners for their fees.
We were always stretched thin financially during the first two years and often wondered if we would make it. In our field, you have to float the cost of the orthotic devices and prosthetic limbs for months after we have delivered them to the patient before we receive payment from the insurance company. It goes without saying that it was very stressful. Luckily, we had amazing vendors who were patient with our prolonged payment plans and family who were incredibly supportive during those tough times.
It wasn’t until about 2.5 years into this journey that we finally started to get more consistent income, and we were able to keep more money in our bank account since we didn’t have to pay fees to our third-party medical billing partners. This enabled us to pay off our debts and finally get our heads above the water, which was a HUGE relief! We continue to see growth and progress every day, and Jake always jokes around by saying, “Geez, I think this O&P business might actually work out!”
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We specialize in prosthetic and orthotic care in the medical field.
Some examples of orthotics would be pediatric helmets for infants whose head shape needs correction (this is usually due to laying too much on one side of the back of the head, which causes the skull bone plates to shift in the wrong way), back braces to correct scoliosis in teens, ankle foot orthotics (AFO) that stabilize the ankle in patient’s whose muscles are weak or deformed and they can’t walk well or without pain due to those issues.
Prosthetics is a little more known, but when a patient is born with a limb deformity or their limb was amputated due to infection or accidents, we work with them to provide an artificial limb that will help improve their quality of life. Legs are the most common limb we work with, but occasionally, we get someone who needs an arm. Each case is unique, and Jake gets to use his incredible problem-solving skills to get the job done. It’s an incredibly rewarding feeling to help someone walk again after two years of being in a wheelchair!
We pride ourselves on our relationship with local healthcare providers and hospitals, which enable us to provide the best care for our patients. We focus on our patients’ needs, not the paychecks we get from providing care to them. This means that even if we need to see a patient twenty times to adjust their device in order to make it fit comfortably, even though we aren’t paid by insurance for that time, we will gladly do it because our goal is to improve the quality of life for our patients.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
We are hoping to see our industry become more accessible and affordable through insurance plans.
Medicare is the big driver behind the policies for our field, and there are some great bills in the works that will encourage insurance to provide better coverage for these devices.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.epicpo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicpando/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epicpando
Image Credits
Jake Davis (Epic Prosthetics and Orthotics) and Ashley Thompson Photography
