Coeur d'Alene-based Kootenai Prosthetics & Orthotics Inc. plans to expand its presence to Spokane Valley and Post Falls with new branch clinics, both of which are set to open this fall.

Kootenai Prosthetics owners Robert Miller and Linda Hagen Miller are developing an 8,500-square-foot standalone building at 1160 E. Polston, in Post Falls, that will house the company's new clinic there. Robert Miller says that building will cost just over $1 million to construct and that Kootenai Prosthetics will occupy about 5,500 square feet there. Hayden-based MB Builders Inc. is expected to break ground on the building in early July.

Miller says he and his wife will own that building and plan to lease out the remaining portion of it to other medical service providers.

The Spokane Valley clinic is to be located in leased space at 1424 N. McDonald, in a building that's also home to Spokane Valley Ear, Nose, & Throat PS, Linda Hagen Miller says.

Kootenai Prosthetics currently operates its main clinic in Coeur d'Alene, at 1321 Northwood Center Court, and a satellite clinic in Sandpoint. It also provides inpatient services at Kootenai Medical Center and at nursing homes in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area.

Once the Post Falls clinic is complete, Robert Miller says the company will move some of the clinic's operations there from Coeur d'Alene, though that clinic will remain open and will continue to serve as its headquarters.

He says he sees a need to expand Kootenai Prosthetics' presence west of Coeur d'Alene because of a growing patient population in the Post Falls and Spokane Valley areas that would be better served with a closer office.

Miller estimates that the new Spokane Valley clinic will employ three people and that the Post Falls clinic will employ seven, some of whom will be new hires and some of whom will move from other offices. Some of the provider's practitioners also will travel between its offices to see patients.

Kootenai Prosthetics works with doctors, physical therapists, and rehabilitation specialists to meet the prosthetic and orthotic needs of patients such as amputees, sufferers of muscle or bone impairments who need foot and leg support braces, and women who have had mastectomies.

The company currently employs 13 people, including Robert Miller and three amputees.

It not only fits patients with custom prosthetic and orthotic devices, and makes ongoing adjustments to them as needed, but it also fabricates them at an on-site facility connected to its Coeur d'Alene clinic. When the Post Falls clinic opens this fall most of that fabrication work will take place there, Miller says.