PUGET SOUND BUSINESS JOURNAL

 

From the June 24, 2005 print edition

Health care

 

Medical group opens its eighth surgical center

BY PETER NEURATH

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

 

            Proliance Surgeons Inc., a group of 126 physicians, is opening its eighth ambulatory surgery center, this one in Seattle.

            Proliance officials expect the new surgery facility, called Seattle Orthopedic Center, to begin operations by the end of this month at 2409 N.E. 45th St., in the Wallingford neighborhood.

            Proliance has invested a total of $6.6 million in the 30,000-square-foot building, which formerly was an automobile repossession building.

            The medical group last expanded with the addition of an ambulatory surgery center in Issaquah in April of last year.

            Proliance is always looking to grow, said CEO David Fitzgerald, but only as its surgeons need more operating space.

            Proliance is a professional service corporation owned by the group’s doctors. Only Proliance doctors staff the group’s surgery centers, so the medical group has been able to invest in new facilities without first having to obtain state permission through applying for a certificate of need.

            Besides Issaquah and now Seattle, Proliance runs ambulatory surgery centers in Renton, Edmonds, Everett, Mount Vernon and in Kirkland, where it owns two centers.

            The Seattle facility will house two operating rooms, doctors’ offices, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) equipment and space for physical therapy.

            Proliance doctors specialize in orthopedic and general surgery. “We do a lot of knees, shoulders, feet and ankles,” Fitzgerald said.

            Proliance claims status as one of the nation’s largest surgical practices, with doctors seeing patients at 33 offices across King, Snohomish, Pierce and Skagit counties.

            Founded in early 2002, Proliance is the result of a merger of two medical groups, Surgical Associates of Washington and Orthopedic Consultants of Washington.

            Orthopedic Consultants formed in 1993 with the merger of several local orthopedic clinics. The group began seeing patients in early 1994 with 50 doctors at eight orthopedic care centers.

            Surgical Associates of Washington opened for business in 1998, with 24 physicians and eight general surgery clinics.

            Fitzgerald said Proliance plans to add a few more physicians in September.

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