Private equity-backed doctor firm takes over some services at Fresno hospitals
The Central Valley’s largest healthcare provider is partnering with a national firm to provide staffing services for certain physician positions, officials confirmed.
Effective Sept. 1, Community Health System will start a partnership with Sound Physicians for hospitalist services. Sound Physicians is a multi-specialty physician staffing company co-owned by a private-equity firm.
“Like many health systems, Community has long contracted with a third-party physician organization to provide hospitalist services,” Danny Davis, Community Health System’s division president of hospitals, said in a statement.
Hospitalists are physicians that specialize in caring for patients throughout their stay at a hospital. They perform procedures, design treatment and communicate and coordinate with patients and hospital staff, among other duties, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Community Health System — the fifth-largest healthcare system in California — is a private nonprofit that owns and operates downtown Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center, Clovis Community Medical Center and several other healthcare sites.
Davis said CHS issued a request for proposals for hospitalist services after more than a year of quality improvement efforts and feedback regarding the services from physicians across the system, including hospitalists.
“Sound (Physicians) was the strongest fit. It stood out for its clinical data and benchmarking capabilities, physician performance metrics, operational support and experience helping hospitals improve quality outcomes,” Davis said.
It’s not immediately clear how many physicians are impacted by the change. A spokesperson for CHS would not confirm which physicians group lost a contract to provide hospitalist care and referred questions about how many physicians would be hired to Sound.
Attempts to reach Sound Physicians for comment were unsuccessful.
“This decision was carefully considered and not made lightly. We are grateful to our hospitalists, who are valued members of our medical team, and we sincerely hope that many will choose to continue caring for patients in our hospitals,” Davis said.
In a viral July 3 video on Instagram, doctor-influencer and ophthalmologist Will Flanary, estimated 120 physicians have been impacted. The Bee could not independently verify this information. Flanary criticized the deal, calling it a “massive healthcare private equity takeover.”
Sound Physicians is not the first national staffing firm to take over hospitalist services in Fresno. Another large national medical group, Vituity, signed a contract with Saint Agnes Medical Center to provide hospitalist services in December 2024, which prompted a lawsuit from a local physicians group.
Speaking generally about the trend of national hospitalist firms moving into town, Dr. Ali Rashidian, a critical care medicine specialist in Fresno, said: “I don’t think changing the structure is in the best interests of patient care.”
What is Sound Physicians?
Sound Physicians is a national, physician-led staffing firm made up of more than 4,000 physicians, Advance Practice Providers, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists and nurses who practice in more than 400 hospitals across 45 states, according to the group’s LinkedIn page.
In 2018, the 22-year-old company was acquired by private equity firm, Summit Partners and OptumHealth, which is part of UnitedHealth Group.
Sound Physicians is hiring for several positions at CRMC and Clovis Community, including a hospitalist medicine program medical directors, hospitalist physicians, hospitalist nurse practitioners, hospitalist physicians assistants and registered nurses and practice coordinators. Salaries for the co-director and hospitalist physicians range from $315,000 to $420,000, depending on the location and shift schedule.
Similar staffing change at Saint Agnes, other hospitals
According to a January report on San Joaquin Valley’s Regional Market produced by the California Health Care Foundation, some hospitals in the region experienced a financial downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic, largely brought about by declining inpatient volumes and higher staffing costs. Chronic under-staffing across the healthcare industry remains a challenge in the region.
One significant development in the region’s medical ecosystem in recent years has been the entry of national staffing firms into the market.
Three hospitals are contracting with two large national hospitalist groups to provide inpatient services, per the January report.
In addition to the agreement between Saint Agnes and Vituity, the OB Hospitalist Group, a firm with hospital partners in 39 states, has contracts with CHS and Kaweah Delta Medical Center to provide inpatient OB/GYN services, according to the report.
This story was originally published July 17, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Private equity-backed doctor firm takes over some services at Fresno hospitals."
