Irvine-based Alteer Corp. is in a hot business: helping doctors lose the paper trail.
The privately held company helps practices with 10 or fewer doctors convert to electronic records with its software and services.
Venture-backed Alteer is small. But like others in the market, it’s growing. The company is set to post $6 million in sales this year and expects to more than double that to $13 million in 2007.
Alteer plans to do a lot of hand-holding with doctors by offering service for its software. Many doctors, especially in small practices, have been slow to switch from paper to software.
“The major problem in healthcare today, and probably everywhere, is not the lack of technology, it is the lack of using it properly,” Alteer Chief Executive Gene Barduson said.
Alteer’s software combines several features into one, such as practice management, electronic patient records and billing. It offers ongoing training and coaching with it.
Barduson describes his company’s approach as putting a “service wrapper on the technology” that can help doctors improve the way they manage payments and patients.
Alteer has more than 1,200 doctor clients serving 3.2 million patients across the U.S.
The company’s seen favor with venture capitalists. This past summer, Alteer raised $25 million in a round led by MedVenture Associates, Sanderling Ventures and Skyline Ventures. That followed a $16.5 million investment late last year.
The company could look to go public but not anytime soon, according to Barduson.
“We’ll be building additional value for the next couple of years before we do that,” he said.
The company plans to raise more money, Barduson said.
Competitors,other companies that focus on small practices,include Carrollton, Ga.-based Greenway Medical Technologies Inc. and Westborough, Mass.-based eClinical Works LLC.
Alteer could be tapping into what Barduson called a “huge market.” The company believes there are about 390,000 American doctors who fall into its target market.
Rob McCray saw that market potential. A partner in San Diego investment bank TripleTree, he advised Alteer in its $16.5 million venture capital round.
“There is much skepticism in investor circles about the market of small and midsize physician practices,” he said. “But yet this market is very large.”
Orange County counts some larger companies in Alteer’s business. They are Newport Beach-based TriZetto Group Inc. and Irvine-based Quality Systems Inc.
They target different segments.
Quality focuses on larger doctor practices as well doctor groups that form independent practitioner associations,in which doctors may work together but don’t share any ownership in a practice.
As for TriZetto, the company helps health plans and benefits administrators manage data through software and Web sites.
Alteer was founded 10 years ago and counts 52 workers.
In 2003, Barduson came to the company, succeeding Charlie Hearn, who now is an executive vice president.
Barduson started his career at IBM Corp. He’s also had a stint as an executive at Shared Medical Systems, now a unit of Siemens AG.
Shortly before coming to Alteer, Barduson was chairman and chief executive of Apexion Technologies Inc., a San Francisco company that sells supply management and tracking software for surgical instruments. Apexion was bought by St. Paul, Minn.-based Lawson Software Inc. in 2003.
