Meeker Becoming a Medical Destination

The Colorado Sun recently featured us in an article about Meeker transforming into a medical tourism destination. We are very thankful for the entire community embracing our patients from both near and far for advanced orthopedic treatment. We also thank Nancy Lofholm for writing such an excellent article about our community.

Please take a moment to read the full article and learn about the positive impact medical tourism is making here in Meeker.

An excerpt follows from “How Meeker, a small hunter’s haven, became a medical destination,” The Colorado Sun, Nancy Lofholm.

When Rich DiPaola needed new hips this year, the retired engineer headed north. He lives in Grand Junction — the regional medical center of western Colorado — but he chose to travel two hours to an out-of-the-way town long known as a hunters’ haven, not a medical destination.

He had heard from friends and acquaintances that he could get top-notch orthopedic care in Meeker, a town of 2,600 people, 100 miles up Colorado 13 in the middle of some of the emptiest land in Colorado.

His choice to make that trek put him among more than 6,900 “medical tourists” who have traveled to Meeker in the past two years for treatment for their creaky knees and unstable hips.

Since 2020, when Pioneers Medical Center in Meeker added a full-fledged orthopedic wing to the small county-owned hospital, Meeker has become a go-to place for orthopedic care. More than 11,480 patients have sought joint replacements and other orthopedic treatments at Pioneers’ Colorado Advanced Orthopedics, Sports Medicine and Spine Center.

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