The Story Behind Harmony Health Partners
We Built the Practice We Wished Had Always Existed
I had become the provider I never thought I would be.
There was a moment, a specific, ordinary Tuesday, that changed everything.
A patient sat across from me. She was frightened. She was bleeding and she didn't know why. She needed answers, reassurance, and time. She deserved all three.
I had 15 minutes.
I had 20 patients waiting after her. I was running behind. I was exhausted. And in that room, in that moment, I didn't give her what she needed. I was rushed, distracted, and if I'm being completely honest, I wasn't kind.
Later that evening I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the provider looking back at me. Somewhere between the scheduling pressures, the insurance requirements, and the impossible patient loads, I had become exactly what I had always promised myself I would never be. A provider who didn't have time to care.
I wasn't angry at her. I was angry at the system that had made that moment inevitable. A system built around throughput, not people. Around 15-minute appointments, not actual answers. Around seeing as many patients as possible instead of truly seeing the patient in front of you.
That was the day I decided to build something different.
— Kristen Stehle, Founder & Clinical Director
What We Built Instead
Harmony Health Partners was founded on a simple belief. Meaningful healthcare requires time. Time to listen. Time to investigate. Time to build the kind of relationship where a patient feels safe telling the whole truth about how they feel.
We are a practice serving women and men across Connecticut. We specialize in hormone therapy, metabolic health and medical weight loss, autoimmune and rheumatologic care, and cancer survivorship. But our specialty isn't really any of those things.
Our specialty is the patient who has been dismissed. The one who has been told their labs are normal when they know something is wrong. The one whose joints ache and nobody can explain why. The one who has gained weight despite doing everything right. The one who survived cancer only to find that the system had nothing left to offer her. The one who stopped believing that a provider could actually help them.
We built this practice for that person.
Why This Team
When I built Harmony Health Partners I knew I couldn't do it alone. Not because of capacity, but because the patients we serve deserve more than one perspective.
I found Crista Prates and Ally Pitman the same way I found my own path here. They weren't looking for jobs. They were looking for a place where they could practice the way they had always believed medicine should be practiced. Patient first. Every time. Without apology.
Crista brings 25 years of clinical experience and 7 years of specialized rheumatology expertise to patients who have spent years searching for someone who could finally explain what was happening in their bodies. She came to Harmony Health Partners because she believed her patients deserved a practice that gave her the time and space to actually help them.
Ally brings triple certification in oncology, breast care, and menopause to cancer survivors navigating a chapter that most of medicine ignores entirely. The after. She came here because she had walked alongside women through their hardest moments and refused to abandon them when treatment ended.
I didn't hire them because they were qualified. I hired them because their patients deserved the chance to see them in a practice that honors everything they have to give.
That's the team we are. And that's the practice we built.
— Kristen Stehle, Founder & Clinical Director
The Team Behind the Practice
Three providers. One shared belief. Care the way it should have always been.
Kristen Stehle, Ally Pitman, and Crista Prates built Harmony Health Partners around something the traditional healthcare system wasn't designed to offer. Time, collaboration, and genuine partnership with every patient.
Between them they bring over 60 years of clinical experience across hormone health, cancer survivorship, and autoimmune care. And they talk to each other, so your care is never fragmented, never falls through the cracks, and never depends on you coordinating between specialists who have never spoken.