Movement care for rural America.
In much of rural America the nearest physical therapist is an hour's drive and the waitlist runs weeks. Spiral Health has worked on that problem since 2018, starting in rural Wyoming, years before any of today's federal funding existed.
Not a concept written for a grant.
Most digital-health companies discovered rural health when the funding appeared. Our first rural deployment was in 2018. This is the longest-running thread in the company, and the one we are least willing to overstate.
What actually happened, year by year.
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2018
Gillette: the first rural deployment
Spiral's mobile scanning unit brought 3D postural screening to the Wyoming Health Fair in Gillette. Attendees queued for free scans; a screening most rural residents had no local access to arrived in a truck. It confirmed something we have relied on ever since: rural communities show up for preventive musculoskeletal care when it is actually put in front of them.
Gillette, August 2018. The line for free 3D scans. 
The rig that made it possible: a mobile scanning studio on a truck. -
2019
Buffalo, and a community partnership that stuck
The program returned to Wyoming for the health fair in Buffalo. Working through Wyoming Health Fairs, a statewide community-health-screening nonprofit, meant reaching residents through an institution they already trusted, rather than asking them to trust a newcomer. That remains the model.
Buffalo, 2019. A full house for the free scan and wellness program. 
Results explained on the spot, by someone local. -
2021
Formalized as the Rural Health Initiative
The scattered rural work was consolidated into a named program with Wyoming as its base, and with a distribution model built around the community institutions rural residents already belong to. F.E. “Wally” Wolski joined as Rural Health Ambassador, anchoring the state and cooperative relationships.
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Today
The rig becomes a phone
The constraint that ended the scanning-truck era is exactly what makes the initiative scale now. Everything the cage did in a parking lot, Flexa does through a camera on a phone the resident already owns. The aim is unchanged and simple: reach rural residents through funded programs: state rural health projects, Medicare's ACCESS Model, and provider partnerships, so the resident pays nothing.
The problem money now exists to solve.
Rural populations are older, farther from care, and carry a heavy musculoskeletal burden. A camera-only program with no hardware and no drive is built for exactly that gap.
The federal Rural Health Transformation program, created by Section 71401 of Public Law 119-21 and administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is now funding all fifty states to close it: $50 billion across FY2026–2030. Wyoming's award is $205 million, the second-highest in the nation per resident. Roughly 19.8% of Wyoming residents are 65 or older.
Built for the last mile.
- Any phone is the clinic. A camera-only assessment: four posture photos and six guided movements, plus a personalized daily program. No hardware, no wearables, no drive.
- $0 to the resident in funded programs. Through state rural health projects and the CMS ACCESS Model the program is paid for, not billed to the patient.
- Prevention where it counts. Movement and strength coaching for the older rural populations who carry the heaviest musculoskeletal burden.
- Measured, reportable outcomes. Progress tracked on validated instruments such as PROMIS, NPRS and ODI, which is what a state program or provider actually has to report.
- Support that is described accurately. AI guidance in chat around the clock, plus scheduled video sessions with the care team. We do not claim a human is waiting in the chat window.
Rural roots, not rural marketing.
F.E. “Wally” Wolski
A lifelong Wyoming native and U.S. Coast Guard veteran, Wally is Spiral Health's bridge to rural America. He served as Wyoming State Director of USDA Rural Development, as president of the national rural electric cooperative association and of the Wyoming Rural Electric Association, and gave 27 years of service on rural electric cooperative boards, alongside two decades as an independent health-insurance agent and an early advocate of telehealth. He champions last-mile healthcare for rural America because he has spent a career on the last mile.
Wyoming Health Fairs
A statewide community-health-screening nonprofit, and our partner since the first Gillette event. Wyoming Health Fairs hosted the Gillette and Buffalo scanning programs and remains the trusted local channel for reaching residents where they already are, which is the only way rural screening has ever worked.
Program figures: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Rural Health Transformation program and state awards). Demographics: U.S. Census Bureau; KFF. The social-return figure is from Impact Analysis and Social Return on Investment: Technical Document for Spiral Health (v1.5.2, 15 December 2020) by Ecotone Analytics GBC: Will Nielsen, MPA; Tim Roman, MBA; Stephanie Shekels, BA. Ecotone is an impact-accounting firm; the analysis is a benefit-cost model projecting $10.71 of social value per $1 spent ($1.99M annual cost against $21.3M of projected annual benefit), accruing to taxpayers, individuals and private insurers. It is a prospective projection built on external literature, not a measured outcome, and it models the scanner-era hub-and-spoke service (four hubs, thirteen digital care navigators) rather than today's phone-based programme.
States, providers & rural programs
If you are building a rural health program, whether a state project, a provider network or a community partnership, we would like to help you put movement care in it.