Customer Success Story
Published September 22, 2026 · Updated September 22, 2026
Scale Without Compromise: Protera Health Delivers Unified MSK Care on Healthie
Protera Health is a rapidly growing virtual musculoskeletal care organization delivering physician-led, multidisciplinary MSK care through an API-first platform. By building on Healthie, Protera Health embedded patient engagement and EHR tools directly into their custom portal, consolidated billing operations, and grew their patient volume 20x without sacrificing clinical quality or care coordination.
20x
Growth
Patient volume scaled 20x while clinical quality, engagement, and experience metrics continued to improve.
100%
Billing In-House
Billing brought fully in-house via the ClaimMD integration, eliminating third-party billing services entirely.
73
NPS Score
An all-time patient NPS of 73 reflects consistently high satisfaction across Protera's longitudinal MSK care model.
56%
Program Completion
Share of patients who complete all 13 weeks of Protera's program, well above industry norms for digital health programs.
At a Glance
Protera Health is a value-based care organization delivering integrated musculoskeletal care through a fully virtual, physician-led, multidisciplinary model. Built to make the integrated practice unit (IPU) delivery model scalable, Protera Health treats health plan members with complex MSK conditions, coordinating physical therapists, physicians, and health coaches across a single digital platform. After outgrowing a static EMR, the team chose Healthie for its API-first architecture, built their custom patient portal directly on top of it, and consolidated billing across direct invoicing and in-network claims. The result: rapid growth, cleaner operations, and better experiences for both patients and providers.
“Healthie is more than our EHR; it's the infrastructure we build on. Its flexibility lets us move fast, adapt quickly, and deliver better care at scale as our team and business constantly evolves." ”
The Challenge
Why does pediatric behavioral health need different tooling?
Protera Health was founded on the thought that virtual-first care could outperform the clinic. "The idea was that if we equip our best-in-class multidisciplinary care teams with integrated technology, we could achieve a true integrated practice unit delivery model and make it far more scalable than brick-and-mortar models," said Jake Chase, PT, DPT, COMT, Senior Director of Operations.
As patient volume grew rapidly, the limitations of Protera Health's existing EMR became a ceiling. The platform was static, disconnected from the organization's broader technology infrastructure, and unable to keep pace with the team's need to iterate on workflows. "Our EMR at the time was fairly static and not integrated into our similarly rapidly evolving technology infrastructure. We needed a platform that could scale with us, integrate with our internal tools, handle fast iteration, and support custom workflows," said Chase.
The requirements went beyond basic EHR functionality. Protera Health needed a platform that could coordinate across clinical, administrative, and billing teams simultaneously. Their billing model was unusually complex, spanning direct invoicing and in-network medical claims under value-based contracts. On the patient side, they needed asynchronous education, embedded communication, and outcome-tracking tools that could live inside their own branded portal experience. No off-the-shelf solution checked every box
“We needed a platform that could scale with us, integrate with our internal tools, handle fast iteration, and support custom workflows.”
Inside the build
Building a unified care experience at scale
Protera Health chose Healthie for one reason above all others: the ability to build on top of it. Rather than accepting a generic EHR interface, the team embedded Healthie's core tools, including chat, telehealth, charting, and billing, directly into their custom patient portal, creating a branded, cohesive experience for both patients and providers.
Three capabilities do Protera Health's heavy lifting:
- API-first infrastructure: Every patient and provider screen is Protera's own, built directly on Healthie's API
- Clearinghouse billing integration: Claims and invoices flow automatically to each health plan in their preferred format
- Editable charting templates: Clinical workflows update in real time as care protocols evolve
“We leverage the API to fuel our own technology and patient volume growth. It enables us to be uncompromising in achieving high-quality outcomes as we build exactly what our providers and patients need.”
BUILT ON HEALTHIE
What did they build on Healthie?
The specific Healthie capabilities behind that build, grouped by type:
Extensions
0
Healthie API
Gives developers full, backward-compatible access to Healthie's GraphQL API — the same API Healthie's own team uses to build its web and mobile apps.
Integrations
0
Zoom for Healthcare
Gives every Healthie appointment a HIPAA-compliant Zoom video link automatically, without providers or clients needing their own Zoom account. Supports group video chats and webinars, including sessions that anyone can join via a shared link whether or not they have a Healthie account. Session recording is included, all covered under Healthie's Zoom BAA.
Results
What changed when Protera Health built on Healthie?
20x growth without operational strain
Healthie's API-first architecture scaled alongside Protera Health's rapid expansion, supporting growing patient volume, team size, and care complexity without requiring a platform migration or significant re-engineering.
Stronger multidisciplinary coordination
Clinicians, health coaches, and specialists collaborate through shared tools and embedded communication, enabling the IPU delivery model to function at digital scale.
Outcomes proven in peer-reviewed study
Protera Health's care model was validated in a peer-reviewed study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, highlighting the cost savings generated by their end-to-end MSK care approach.
A product roadmap that replaces internal dev cycles
When a new operational need surfaces, Protera checks Healthie's roadmap before spinning up internal development. What they need is often already coming, keeping their engineering team focused on Protera's core differentiators.