When Stu Jones, PA-C, and his colleague, Brant Bell, PA-C, decided to leave an orthopedic group in order to open their own practice, their employers told them there was no way they'd make it.

"In our minds, we were saying, listen, we're not doing anything different than what we're doing here," Jones says. "We're just going to do it under our own auspices, and not yours."

And while the idea of PA-owned clinics still borders on heresy at some levels of the PA profession, so far the Jones and Bell's plan has been a success. As Jones says, "We're just doing what we can do within the confines of what we know." 

Jones and Bell opened Seven Springs Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Brentwood, Tenn., on Aug. 7, 2006. Under Tennessee law, the practice had to be established as a professional limited liability company (PLLC). Jones and Bell own 99% of the practice, while their supervising physician, part of Premier Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine (the practice's affiliated surgical group in Nashville), owns 1%.

In fact, since their business model has been so successful in such a short time-Jones expects the clinic to become profitable after only a year, by this August-Premier Orthopaedics has asked Jones and Bell for help in opening three more PA-owned clinics in the future.

A number of people told Jones and Bell they were taking a risk, but the two PAs were fine with that. "We can take a risk and have ownership and really start to change the way PAs are thought of," Jones says. "There are a lot of old-school people out there, and they didn't think it would work."

When Jones and Bell gave their previous practice notice that they were leaving to start their own, they were told they were crazy. But they got the last laugh: In addition to an all-new patient load, a number of their previous patients have followed them to their new practice-in a new town.

"We couldn't ask (patients) to (follow us), because of our no-compete clause. We couldn't talk to them," Jones says. "And the other practice wouldn't even tell them where we were. But they found us over time. It's amazing."

The Brentwood practice boasts about 4,000 square feet of space. Either Jones and Bell's supervising physician or one of three other surgeons are available for surgery and postoperative appointments.

In addition to the two PAs, the practice employs three office staff. The two co-owners share patient and practice duties 50-50.

"At any given time, one of us can spend half the day working on office stuff, and the other one's seeing patients that half," Jones says. "Then the second half (of the day), we swap it around."

Besides working at the office, the two have been invited to speaking engagements to talk about their experiences and encourage other PAs to open their own practices.

"It's a big step, I think, for our profession," Jones says. "We really want to help other people get to that level where they feel comfortable and confident to do it."

It's been nearly 15 years since Jones graduated from the University of Oklahoma and started his PA career, and he's happy to be at a place where he can focus on family, both at the practice and at home.

"We are really family-focused at this practice," he says. "We want to raise families and be a positive influence in a lot of other ways other than work."

Jones also considers himself lucky to have such a supportive wife in Denise, who is a vocalist in the contemporary Christian music group Point of Grace , and who also is the mother of their two sons, Spence and Price.

"I just tell her," he says, "she owes me for all those late nights with the girls (in the band), and she's in Hawaii, and I'm home and the kids are crying."