Case Studies

How Upperline Health Manages 150 Clinics Without Vendor Chaos

Upperline Health's Results at a Glance

$500K+ Total Identified Savings

$500k in total identified savings across the program

400+ Hours Saved Annually

400+ hours a year handed back to the Upperline team

50% Clinic Growth Supported

50% clinic growth without requiring new internal IT hires

What This Client Said:

“Advisory undersells it, because an advisor gives an opinion and moves on. Bluewave is beyond a vendor. They’re beyond an advisory firm. They’re beyond a partner. They become an extension of my own organization, part of how we function. You don’t have to hire people to care about your company. You can contract with Bluewave, they care just as much.”

– Lindsey Lance, VP of Information Technology

One Front Door: How Upperline Health Manages 150 Clinics Without Vendor Chaos

Upperline Health is a specialty care network of podiatry and lower-extremity clinics serving patients across multiple states. It grew from roughly 100 clinics to 150 in about fourteen months, with more clinics on the horizon.

Upperline kept their team lean through that growth with support from Bluewave. Our Client Advisory and Customer Success teams serve as Upperline’s single front door to technology vendors. They handle vendor escalations and billing disputes, taking that work off the Upperline team while holding providers accountable for agreed outcomes.

Industry: Healthcare

Need: A scalable way to manage telecom, connectivity, and vendor relationships across a growing network of clinics.

Constraint: Inherited internet contracts with inconsistent pricing, billing spread across different due dates and formats, and vendor escalations and billing disputes.

Bluewave Role: Served as a single front door to technology vendors, handled escalations and billing disputes, standardized phone and network services, and helped build a repeatable integration playbook for new clinics.

From Fast Replies to More Responsibility

The Challenge & Opportunity

Standardizing Technology Across a Growing Clinic Network

Every clinic Upperline acquired came with its own internet contract, with inconsistent pricing and bills scattered across 150 due dates and formats.

Moving to one standardized network model was essential. Upperline’s existing phone system had room for improvement, and acquisitions brought a mix of unfamiliar vendors and contracts.

The Bluewave Solution

From early in the relationship, Bluewave’s responsiveness impressed Lance. Even without an immediate answer, the team confirmed requests and made clear that work was underway.

As Bluewave delivered, Lance handed over more contracts and harder problems. Over the next three years, Bluewave’s role deepened as Upperline grew and its needs changed.

150 clinics onto one phone system in under two months. Alongside Upperline’s IT team, our telecom specialists project-managed the RingCentral rollout without dropping a single call.
One standardized network across every clinic. Bluewave consolidated accounts onto a single aggregator, replacing 150 bills with one and adding uptime SLAs.
An M&A playbook built to scale. Lance built an integration playbook with Bluewave that makes each new clinic a routine step.

More Than an Advisor

For Upperline, the point of all this was never the phone system or the network on its own. It was keeping clinics open, phones answered, and patients seen while the organization doubled in size.

With the back office handled, the Upperline IT team can spend their time where it matters most: making sure patients have positive experiences and can focus on receiving the care they need. That is the experience Upperline is after, and it is the reason the work behind the scenes matters.