It was 2019, and David Paschall was something akin to a judge on a network TV talent show.
Contestants on those shows audition — pitch themselves, in a sense — to successful professionals who’ve already “been there and done that” in show business. So it was for Paschall, who’s not to be confused with the Chattanooga Times Free Press sports writer of the same name.
By 2019, he had helped launch and run for 16 years a company that he says became one of the nation’s foremost in health care contract management. He left that business in 2018 and helped start Transparency Health.
“Our thought there was to find passionate founders who needed help scaling” health care-related businesses, he says. One day in 2019, the founders of a small company called Ntracts pitched their business to Transparency Health.
“It was really exciting,” says Paschall, a Paris, Tennessee, native who earned an MBA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2009. “These were heroic people in a business doing what they could, but without the backing and investment they really needed.”
As it turned out, Transparency Health did more than invest in Ntracts — it bought the company, and Paschall took the reins as CEO. The company’s headquarters was moved from Indianapolis to Chattanooga and, according to its leader, has grown by 40-60% in each of the last two years.
“We’ve had a lot of help here over the years from the Chamber (of Commerce) and (President/CEO) Charles Wood,” Paschall says. “For years, we’ve resisted moving to Nashville or Atlanta. I’m glad we stayed. Our relationship with the Chamber has been a big part of our success.”
Another big reason for Ntracts’ recent flourish, Paschall says, is a November 2023 investment from Accel-KKR, an investment firm with five locations worldwide, one of which is in Atlanta.
“That allowed us to bring on missing pieces of the puzzle,” he adds. “We’re continuing growth even faster now.
“When we started Transparency Health, I had no plans on going back” to his former field, Paschall says. “But with Ntracts, it was so exciting to think again of focusing on solving health care problems. There’s infinite growth opportunity in health care because there’s so much to fix in health care.”
Paschall says Ntracts works with health-care providers — mainly health systems and stand-alone hospitals — to help those institutions better manage contract arrangements of varying types, including personnel, real estate and supply chain.
“Every contractual arrangement a hospital has,” he says, adding that Ntracts is only about half the size of his former company, “but I guarantee we’re the fastest-growing.”
He says the company has deals in place with entities including Chicago-based Advocate Aurora Health, Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and the Prisma Health system in South Carolina.
When he reentered the health care contract management business with Ntracts, many of Paschall’s customers remembered him from his previous run.
“I was solving problems at their hospitals 20 years ago,” he says. “When you treat people the right way, they tend to remember it.
“We’re going to continue to be a premier solution — saving hospitals money, protecting them from regulatory risk and making those institutions efficient at a time when efficiency in health care has never been more needed.
“But to us, it’s all about people — so many fantastic people, making a difference. That’s the biggest element.”