Cogent Healthcare Inc., a venture-backed company that provides doctors for hospitals, is moving its headquarters from Irvine to Nashville.
The move should be done by October, said Gene Fleming, Cogent’s chief executive.
Cogent is moving to be closer to hospitals in the South and East and to try and lure new customers.
Fleming also lives in Nashville.
When Fleming became Cogent’s chief executive two years ago, “One of my requirements was that I remain in Nashville,” he told the Tennessean newspaper.
Before becoming Cogent’s head, Fleming ran Surgical Alliance Corp., a Nashville developer of outpatient surgery centers and surgical hospitals.
Cogent had been based in Laguna Hills and later Irvine since its start in 1993. Its top executives have lived across the country.
The company is privately held and doesn’t disclose financial information. Fleming said revenue has risen about 35% a year on average since 2003.
Raised $35 Million
Cogent, which provides doctors who exclusively work in hospitals, has raised more than $35 million in venture funding. Investors include Versant Ventures, which has an office in Newport Beach.
The company expects to employ 50 people at its Nashville office.
Only a handful of people, including Russell Holman, Cogent’s chief operating officer, are moving to the Nashville area from Orange County, Fleming said.
“Most of the employees will be recruited locally,” Fleming said.
Nashville has some 300 healthcare companies to draw from.
Cogent provides doctors known as hospitalists in 16 states, mainly in the South and East.
Its rivals include a combination of locally run, smaller hospitalist programs started by hospitals as well as IPC,The Hospitalist Co.
IPC is a privately held, venture-backed company out of North Hollywood that has about $150 million in yearly revenue and is mulling an initial public offering. IPC has raised more than $47 million in venture funding.
Early Issues
Cogent and other hospitalist providers have had to deal with some issues, particularly in the 1990s during the business’ early days.
Some primary care doctors have charged that hospitalists come between them and their patients, reducing the quality of care. A bid by health maintenance organizations to make hospitalist programs mandatory was beaten back by organized medicine opposition.
Earlier, Fleming said breaking down other doctors’ resistance to hospitalists is “like anything you do. It takes education, it takes proven examples.”
The country “is moving rapidly in the direction of physicians who only do inpatient care,” he said.
More than half of hospitals with 100 beds or more have adopted hospitalist programs, according to Cogent. Cogent is benefiting from younger doctors who want more predictable hours, according to Fleming. Hospitalists on average work 16 to 18 days a month. Cogent’s doctors don’t have to take calls or handle patient issues on off days, Fleming said.
