Tessellate targets a costly problem in physician hiring: turnover
The startup operates like a talent agent for physicians, letting them browse roles and negotiate offers anonymously, with no placement fee.
For the last several years, Paul Vernich has been obsessed with solving one problem: physician hiring, attraction, and retention.
He has seen firsthand how physicians get evaluated on their credentials alone, rather than their personalities, passions and how they would fit a hospital system’s culture.
Hiring has also grown more competitive as demand outpaces supply. Vernich has built his career, and his latest venture, Tessellate, around finding the incentives that help a physician choose one hospital over another.
The problem for hospitals is retention. The problem for physicians is alignment.
According to the American Medical Association, nearly 60% of physicians leave their initial post-training job within three years, and data show the mean duration for recent graduates is under two years.
“This happens because residents are not trained on how to look for a job that’s going to be a good fit for them. They’re initially looking for two things: location and compensation,” Vernich said.
After that first experience, physicians broaden their scope, and other factors come into play. Some care most about pay, while others weigh workload, staffing, culture, career progression and geography.
“The problem is that physician recruiters are measured to get bodies and seats; they’re measured to fill roles as quickly as possible,” Vernich said. “Every vacancy is going to cost a hospital about a half a million dollars. Both sides of this marketplace are suffering right now.”
Building a better model for hiring
Current fixes, from job boards and postings to various physician hiring marketplaces, all miss the mark, Vernich said.
According to Vernich, Tessellate is not a job board. Not a marketplace. And not a hiring agency. Instead, the platform operates like a virtual talent agent for physicians.
“We help validate the opportunities they’re considering and negotiate the contract,” Vernich said.
One feature that sets it apart: physicians stay anonymous until they formally apply. They can browse roles, message hospital systems and ask hard questions before an interview.
“Here in Tennessee, we’ve already had physicians come through. One used our platform to find five offers,” Vernich said. “Then we were able to help them negotiate all of them, one by $85,000 and another by $65,000. They decided not to take the highest offer, which proves the exact point of our platform.”
How to monetize this platform?
Many platforms charge a matchmaking fee when the hospital and candidate formalize the hire. But Vernich wanted to do things differently. It does not charge a placement fee.
“Physicians are saying they can’t believe they’re not having to pay for this, and the value has been unreal,” he said.
Tessellate uses about 100 criteria to gauge alignment between physicians and hospitals. Physicians share their preferences, needs, values and non-negotiables across categories, and the company’s data helps hospitals understand what candidates respond to. From that, Tessellate is building a paid physician hiring intelligence platform to show employers where they’re winning, why they’re losing and how to attract the candidates they want.
The intelligence platform uses aggregate data and does not disclose any individual physician’s responses or information.
Vernich and his team have secured five contracts with hospital systems, he said, with about 20 more in “advanced stages.”
A history of solving this problem
Vernich has spent more than 15 years in health care, most of it at GE Healthcare. Over the past five years, he has focused on the hiring process through a pair of startups.
The first was Winnow, a Nashville startup acquired by Aya Healthcare in 2023. Winnow was an artificial intelligence (AI) platform for clinician recruitment that used predictive analytics to source, recruit and retain health care workers. Vernich said the sale returned 23 times investors’ money.
Now, Tessellate is a venture-backed enterprise as well. Market Square Ventures, a Knoxville-based firm, was one of the early-stage investors.
“We had a very successful pre-seed at the beginning of the summer, and now we’re working on our seed raise,” Vernich said.
He said the core mission has not changed.
“Our goal is to align incentives. That’s really the heart of all of this. We believe we can really break down some traditional barriers and win fast,” Vernich said.
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