About Ryan Grant, MD
Ryan A. Grant, MD, MS, MBA, FAANS is the Founder of Vori Health. Dr. Grant is a serial entrepreneur and board-certified, Yale-trained neurosurgeon who was most recently at Geisinger Medical Center practicing complex spine surgery. He left his surgical practice to start Vori Health and drive value-based healthcare transformation in the musculoskeletal and orthopedic sector – which includes treatment for back, hip, and knee pain. Additionally, Dr. Grant co-founded Nomad Health, an award-winning online marketplace that directly connects healthcare clinicians to healthcare jobs, has participated in medical device development, and taught at several medical schools and universities. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from the University of Michigan, his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his neurosurgical residency and complex spine fellowship at Yale University.
About Vori Health
Founded by leading surgeons from Yale and Mayo Clinic, Vori Health is revolutionizing musculoskeletal care as the first nationwide physician-led practice delivering integrated virtual and in-person care. The company’s comprehensive approach combines board-certified physicians, physical therapists, registered dietitians, and health coaches who work collaboratively to eliminate unnecessary care while delivering superior clinical outcomes and validated cost savings for employers and health plans. Learn more at www.vorihealth.com.
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Medical Travel & Digital Health News (MTDHN): Please share an overview of Vori Health and your current role.
Ryan Grant (RG): Vori Health is a nationwide medical practice, active in all 50 states, that focuses on treating back, neck, hip, knee, shoulder, hand and foot pain or dysfunction across all age groups. We launched during the pandemic with a virtual-first model but also provide in-person care where needed.
Our mission is simple: deliver high-quality, evidence-based care while reducing unnecessary interventions and driving down healthcare costs. Most people in the U.S. receive the wrong treatment for back pain, even at top hospitals. Our goal is to correct that by offering personalized, appropriate care through a physician-led model.
I’m a board-certified complex spine neurosurgeon. I trained at Yale, Penn and Geisinger and spent the majority of my practice doing spine surgery. I left the operating room to build Vori because too many surgeries, especially spine surgeries, are inappropriate. And given surgery can have significant complications, we must make sure that the people taken to surgery are appropriate. These are people’s loved ones at the end of the day. It is really impossible to justify someone dying from an unnecessary surgery.
Data from the Harvard Business Review, JAMA and other sources consistently show that at least 50% of spine surgeries in the U.S. shouldn’t happen. That’s unacceptable. So, I shut down my surgical practice to focus entirely on this work.
MTDHN: How is your clinical model different from what most people experience in traditional musculoskeletal care?
RG: The first thing we do is flip the starting point. When someone experiences back or joint pain, they’re often routed straight to a surgeon. That’s like sending someone with chest pain straight to a heart surgeon instead of a cardiologist. It doesn’t make sense.
We built Vori around non-operative specialists, board-certified physicians in physical medicine and rehabilitation, sports medicine, physical therapists, health coaches, dietitians—all working together. We reduce surgery rates by about 80%. I am not anti-surgery – I am a surgeon – but is needs to be used responsibly. Surgery has a place but it’s being pulled in far too early.
A lot of patients believe they need imaging like MRIs or X-rays to diagnose their pain. Imaging often shows “normal” wear and tear—arthritis, bone spurs, degeneration—that isn’t actually the cause of pain.
People mistake aging for pathology. Just like everyone gets wrinkles, everyone develops some internal changes over time. Gray hair, wrinkles, and arthritis are just part of being human. Just because you get them does not necessarily mean you need to do anything about them. We help patients understand what’s normal and what’s not, so they don’t get pushed toward unnecessary procedures. It is also about helping people understand optionality and empowering them to help make decisions on what is best for their lives, especially when surgery is often an option and rarely a necessity.
MTDHN: What is the philosophy behind how you work with patients?
RG: We meet each patient where they are. Our job is to educate and empower them, not to push them toward surgery unless it’s absolutely necessary. We explain what worsens pain, like stress, poor sleep, inactivity and posture and we personalize care plans around their goals.
For example, if a 68-year-old patient wants to walk the mall with her grandkids, we focus on making that possible, not making her pain score zero. That’s a very different conversation than with someone training for triathlons.
We also emphasize that most procedures for back and joint pain are quality-of-life decisions. In most cases, you don’t need surgery, you choose it. We help patients understand risk, reward and what outcomes really look like.
MTDHN: How do you work with employers? What is your business model?
RG: Vori is a value-based care organization. That means we get paid based on delivering results, both clinical and financial. We’ll take financial risk tied to functional improvement, pain reduction, surgery avoidance, imaging reduction, patient satisfaction and total cost of care.
We work directly with self-insured employers, health plans, brokers and TPAs. Our value proposition is aligned with all stakeholders, better outcomes for patients, reduced cost for plans and employers and better navigation support for brokers and TPAs.
MTDHN: Are you currently working with brokers and third-party administrators?
RG: Yes. In fact, nearly all self-insured employers are connected to a broker and they also use TPAs to manage plan administration. Brokers and TPAs are essential partners in this ecosystem.
We also engage with TPAs as distribution partners, they can offer Vori to their employer clients as part of a bundled solution. We’re actively growing these relationships to expand our reach and help more people.
MTDHN: Do you work with large self-insured employers directly?
RG: We do.
Some of our clients include Fortune 200 companies, as well as mid-size and smaller employers. While it’s harder to take risk on a group of 20 employees, we still offer access regardless of group size. With larger employers, we can offer more creative contracting models and deliver measurable impact at scale.
MTDHN: How is your clinical team structured across the country?
RG: Our care team is employed—no contractors.
We cover all 50 states and D.C. through a virtual-first model. Our team includes physicians, physical therapists, registered dietitians, health coaches, exercise physiologists, nurses and assistants.
For patients who need in-person care, we’ve built a strategic network across the top 200 metro areas. We offer the full clinical toolkit, ordering imaging, writing evidence-based prescriptions (excluding narcotics), delivering second opinions and coordinating procedures when necessary.
Our model is multimodal. For the right patients, we may incorporate acupuncture or chiropractic care. Injections are rare and used only after non-invasive options have been exhausted. If surgery is appropriate, we also offer preoperative optimization and postoperative support.
MTDHN: Do you address workers’ comp?
RG: Yes.
Our care model is well suited for workers’ comp but it’s a separate buyer group with different needs. We’ve brought on dedicated sales resources to serve that space. Our care protocols and outcomes translate well, it’s just a matter of navigating a different channel.
MTDHN: Is behavioral health integrated into your care?
RG: Completely.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is embedded throughout our clinical model. We don’t believe in separating the brain from the body. Fear and catastrophizing are some of the strongest predictors of chronic pain and we address that head-on.
We train our clinicians to ask what matters to the patient, not just what’s the matter with them. For example, if a patient says the most important thing is walking her son to school, then that becomes the care goal.
We use pain reprocessing therapy and fear-reduction strategies to help people reframe their experience. These are evidence-based approaches that traditional systems struggle to deliver consistently. It’s one of the reasons we’re able to help so many patients who haven’t responded to prior care.
MTDHN: How many individuals do you currently serve?
RG: We currently provide access to over 6 million individuals through our health plan and employer partnerships. For each client, we scale our staffing to match their population, whether that’s 50,000 lives or 500,000.
Care delivery varies by need. Some patients just want a quick second opinion or to know if they can go on vacation. Others need a comprehensive plan after decades of chronic pain. We meet all those needs with flexibility and clinical integrity.
MTDHN: How is your pricing structured?
RG: For self-insured employers, we typically use case rates or bundles given that is the clients’ preferred choice.
PMPM (per member per month) or PEPM (per employee per month) is still an option, especially for groups that prefer predictable budgeting. On the health plan side, especially with Medicare Advantage, we often take on value-based care population risk, both upside and downside.
We’re flexible and can tailor the model to the client. Overall, our pricing is tied to value, not volume.
MTDHN: Who do you consider your main competitors?
RG: In the self-insured space, some companies deliver virtual physical therapy, like Hinge, Sword and Kaia. However, none of them are physician-led medical practices. That’s a key differentiator to be a full-fledged medical practice that practices differently, can render a medical and functional diagnosis, can write prescriptions, order imaging and labs, as well as provide second opinions.
Our care teams are fully employed, interdisciplinary and collaborative. Physicians and therapists examine patients together. We practice differently, especially with chronic and complex cases. About 40% of our patients come to us after failing in traditional systems and we get them better.