Skevington Starts Another Business, This One Running Front Office Services For Clients

By Jill Nagy

A local company ptSource (pronounced “patient source”) has taken over the front office operations for OrthoNY, an orthopedic medical practice with several offices in the Capital District.

The company schedules appointments, answers telephone calls, provides information, and performs similar tasks on an around-the-clock basis.

“We provide a much better patient experience than any practice can do themselves” at a reduced cost, said company president Craig Skevington.

His company has been in business for about 20 years providing services to some 60 clients, mostly providing after-hours telephone coverage. OrthoNY is the first client to sign up for 24-hour service.

“The Monday morning and late afternoon stress” are gone, he said.

“Everything is working great so far,” said OrthoNY CEO Michelle Brinkman. “The partnership has helped us achieve our goal of easier patient access.” 

She said the practice will save about 20 percent of its front-office costs. The service also allows the practice to accept more patients.

Skevington said ptSource hired 20 additional employees, bringing their total staff to around 30 . Almost half of those new hires were former OrthoNY employees.

Skevington started his first company, Synquest, in 1986. That company made software to help operate a factory. He entered the healthcare field with Flow Management Technology. ptSource grew from Flow Management. It was spun off as a separate entity “and the rest of it is gone,” he said.

Another of his companies, Steadfast IT, provides software that enables ptSource employees to work from home.

All of ptSource’s employees are local, Skevington said. After a couple of weeks of training,  employees are ready to take on some of the simpler tasks involved in keeping a practice going. They pick up the rest while they are working and, after about six weeks, are fully trained, he said.

Skevington foresees other clients moving to full-time service. “We are looking forward to some pretty good growth.”

ptSource can be reached at 518 581-7200.