This article was originally published September 12, 2023 on Vator News.
Luna, a provider of in-home physical services, has been growing quickly through a series of recent partnerships, including ones with organizations and health systems like AARP, Providence, Emory Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Scripps Health, and MedStar Health.
The company, which operates a network of local physical therapists who provide the type of care administered in a traditional outpatient clinic, but in a patient’s home, announced its latest partnership on Tuesday, this time with Adventist Health Simi Valley, a nonprofit, integrated health system serving more than 80 communities on the West Coast.
The two companies first connected when Adventist was at an AVIA conference for healthcare innovation and met other Luna hospital partners there, Palak Shah, co-founder and head of clinical operations at Luna, told VatorNews.
"They wanted to expand their geographic coverage in the LA market, without investing in more PT facilities. They saw a partnership with Luna as the best, fastest, most cost-effective way to expand their care capacity, and at the same time differentiate themselves in the market via at-home delivery of care," she said.
"We expect this service to scale to tens of thousands of patients across LA annually."
Luna's platform matches eligible patients to therapists based on factors such as specialty, geography, and schedules. Luna's network of local physical therapists then provides care from the comfort of a patient's home. The same therapist treats the patient for the entirety of the treatment plan; between visits, patients can use Luna to communicate with their physical therapists, set appointment times, and perform therapist prescribed and monitored exercises.
The company currently operates across 50 markets in 27 states and has treated more than 40,000 patients in their homes, and performs an in-person visit every 25 seconds in the home.
Adventist Health Simi Valley is a 144-bed acute-care hospital in Ventura County, Calif., serving the communities of Simi Valley, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and the west San Fernando Valley.
As part of the partnership, Adventist Health patients will be matched with a local Luna therapist at the time and location of their choosing, based on specialty, geography, schedule, and other factors. For consistency of care, the same therapist will treat patients for the entirety of the treatment plan, and patients and therapists will be able to communicate with each other and discuss care needs between visits.
"We are now adding one new health system per month to our platform. This is very significant validation of the need hospitals have to expand care, while avoiding investing in capital intensive facilities," said Shah.
"Patients can now get at-home delivery of care at the same co-pay price of getting outpatient facility based care. It’s the same price!"
Through partnerships, such as the one with Adventist, Luna expects to become the largest provider of outpatient services, regardless of facility-based or home.
"With 3,000 therapists today, and adding two new therapists an hour to our platform, we expect our service to scale to over 10 million visits per year nationally over the coming years," said Shah.
