Arete Health is a fast-growing outpatient physical therapy organization spanning North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Led by CEO Eric DeYoung, Arete has scaled quickly, opening 11 clinics in just 4 months, with a clear plan for continued expansion. And from day one, Eric built the company around a single premise: scaling requires a modern, integrated foundation.
Arete started with Prompt as a core requirement. As Eric put it, “We started on Prompt. And our entire investment thesis is really a non-negotiable. So all of our partnerships roll into a Prompt relationship, too,” he said.
For Arete, that commitment is part of the value they bring to acquired practices: a platform that supports growth, operational consistency, and a better day-to-day experience for clinicians and staff.
Eric describes Prompt as more than software. “It’s more than just a partnership. It’s kind of an integrated relationship that is the growth engine behind our success,” he said. That integrated approach matters because Arete isn’t optimizing one workflow in isolation. They’re building a scalable operating system across clinical care, operations, and revenue cycle.
Across 3 decades in PT and OT, Eric has seen technology evolve, but one pain point has stayed stubbornly consistent: documentation. Clinicians don’t burn out from patient care, Eric says, but from everything else that gets in the way of that care. “Therapists don't necessarily complain about the number of patients. It's the documentation that surrounds the number of patients, and that is what weighs them down,” he said.
Arete’s bet is that reducing that burden is foundational to quality care, retention, and growth, which is why they use Sidekick in their clinics. “ That's what we're trying to solve for, because that's 75% less time that [clinicians are] doing documentation. They're seeing more patients and they're being able to create access,” he said.
The most powerful early signal for Eric came directly from clinician feedback. With Prompt’s AI-enabled workflows, Arete clinicians saw documentation time drop fast, and the human impact was immediate.
“My therapists tell me, and this is the greatest feedback, ‘Hey, in the last 2 weeks I didn't have to take a laptop home with me and do documentation over the weekend, or I was able to be with my family.’ That to me was a selling point, immediately,” Eric said.
Arete Health is scaling in a competitive labor market, where recruiting and keeping great clinicians is a constant challenge. Eric sees Prompt as a meaningful edge, especially with newer grads who expect modern tools and are excited about AI.
“Prompt is a differentiator. It allows us to recruit really innovative and smart, sophisticated young therapists that are eager and excited about AI,” he said.
Aside from seeing the benefits of attracting great talent, Eric also sees Prompt as an investment in his hiring and retention efforts.
“If I can use Prompt as a solution to drive a candidate into my business, and they're sold on that technology platform, and I have less concerns about paying them $10,000 more a year because they're willing to come into a company that's innovative and technology driven … that pays time and time again,” he said
Arete uses Prompt’s integrated approach to align the front office, clinicians, and billing functions so that information is captured correctly the first time and flows cleanly through the system.
If they can minimize the unnecessary front desk tasks, Eric says, then they can focus on being what he calls “patient engagement coordinators.” Clinicians are less burdened because they aren’t taking notes home, making them “happier, culture-driven people that are really just giving great clinical care.”
All this means that Eric has been able to truly focus on growing the business. “From an investment standpoint with the revenue cycle team, my collections have gone up over 200%,” Eric said.
Arete Health chose Prompt because it supports the kind of business Eric is building: scalable, integrated, and clinician-first. From reducing documentation burden to improving day-to-day workflows and enabling repeatable integrations, Prompt is embedded deep in Arete’s operating model.
As Arete continues to expand, the foundation stays the same: a single platform that helps clinicians focus on care, helps teams run smoothly, and helps leadership scale with confidence.
To see how Prompt can help your clinic scale sustainably, connect with one of our experts today.
