Pamplona Capital Management appoints CEO for merged entity of MedAssets and Precyse

Two months after Pamplona Capital Management and MedAssets announced plans to merge, the company has named J. Joel Hackney as its CEO.

Hackney is among numerous executives from MedAssets, health information management company Precyse and AVINTIV, Inc., to make the transition to Pamplona. Hackney was most recently the president and CEO of AVINTIV, which he joined in 2013. Hackney has also held executive leadership positions with General Electric, Nortel Networks Corporation and Avaya.

Hackney's appointment takes effect following Pamplona's buyout of MedAssets, a $2.7 billion deal announced in November that is expected to close later this month, the company said.

[Also: MedAssets sold to Pamplona Capital for $2.7 billion, will sell off GPO, merge with Precyse]

MedAssets has 2,700 hospital clients for its revenue cycle products, managing more than $450 billion in patient revenue annually. It will combine with the expertise of Precyse, which Pamplona bought in July.

The two companies have been running under a partnership agreement.

The combined enterprise offers an end-to-end RCM and HIM solution to meet the needs of an evolving reimbursement model that requires a clinically integrated revenue cycle, Pamplona said.

In a separate agreement, MedAssets' Spend and Clinical Resource Management segment is being divested to member-owned healthcare company Vizient, Inc., formerly VHA-UHC Alliance NewCo, Inc., following the completion of the acquisition of MedAssets, Pamplona said.

Pamplona Capital Management is a London and New York-based specialist investment manager established in 2005.

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In addition to Hackney, others on the leadership team include AVINTIV CFO and Executive Vice President Dennis Norman as CFO; Chris Powell, CEO of Precyse, as president of health information management; Amy Amick, in her current role as president of MedAssets' Revenue Cycle Management;  Steven Huddleston, a senior advisor at Pamplona Capital Management as chief strategy and transformation officer; and Barry Murash, president of Global Operations and Business Excellence at AVINTV, as senior vice president, Business Excellence.

"Joel has extensive experience in transforming companies into leaders within their industries," said Jeremy Gelber, M.D., partner at Pamplona Capital Management. "We are drawing upon the strong talent within Precyse and MedAssets, with the experience of additional outside executives to create a team that will ensure a smooth transition and continuity in key areas while positioning the MedAssets-Precyse enterprise to operate as a national leader in the end-to-end revenue cycle technology, outsourced services and education market." 

Twitter: @SusanJMorse