Cogent buys Endion

Cogent Healthcare, the hospitalist company based here, announced its acquisition of Endion Hospitalist Systems in western NY State. Brentwood-based Cogent's revenues are believed greater than $100MM, annually.

Cogent in pact with Seton

Brentwood-based Cogent Healthcare today announced a hospital medicine affiliation with 375-bed Seton Medical Center, located in Daly City, Calif., and the Daly City Hospitalist Medical Group, a Seton physician group, to develop a "distinctive hospitalist care delivery system." Release here.

Team Health IPO shelf

Knoxville-based Team Health Holdings, which staffs Emergency departments and supplies hospitals with hospitalist physicians, this morning filed its S-1 shelf registration with the SEC, explaining it'll use up to $100MM of the proceeds for repayment of corporate debt and other purposes. Updated Oct. 10: KNS story.

Hospitalists get more ammo

With the pressure-trifecta of transparency, accountability and outcomes bearing-down on providers, Cogent Healthcare is touting a new study that shows hospitalists' patients have 'profoundly lower' re-admission rates. This is the kind of 'meaningful difference' for which all payers are increasingly scouting. Cogent's release is here. Related Cogent stories, here.

Nashville's hospitalist secret is out

'Don't remember for sure, but the first time I heard someone refer to the hospitalist specialty as the 'fastest-growing segment' in medical history, I was probably tempted to file that factoid in the hyperbole bin. However, eventually I looked into the numbers -- including hospitalist-centered Cogent Healthcare's 35 percent compound annual growth rate. At that point, earlier blurry events came back into focus: There was, for example, Cogent's move to Nashville from Irvine, Calif., 15 months ago. And, earlier this year, there was the hospitalist industry's first IPO -- for LA-based IPC The Hospitalist Company. That offering had set VC radars a'whirring, here and elsewhere. Paradoxically, though, it's the relative quiet around "hospitalists" here in town that has caught my attention. It's the kind of quiet that surrounds a business concept that has been deeply accepted. Is the so-called hospitalist trend in fact fait accompli, and we're just waiting Big Money to book its flight to BNA? We'll see. Meanwhile, what do you think? Here's the story.