Dr. Prem Reddy
Dr. Prem Reddy was born in India and immigrated to the United States with his wife, Venkamma Reddy, M.D., in 1976. After completing his residency training in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease at Down State Medical Center, S.U.N.Y., Brooklyn, New York, he moved to the High Desert area of So. California and started his medical practice in 1981.
Dr. Reddy is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiology, and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Chest Physicians. During his 25 years of practice in the High Desert, he has performed more than 5,000 cardiac procedures, such as coronary angiography and angioplasty and permanent pacemaker implantations.
Dr. Reddy founded Desert Valley Medical Group, a multi-specialty medical services group, in 1985, which later became PrimeCare International, Inc., a physician practice management company with operations in several states including New York, Florida, Oklahoma, and California. PrimeCare, with over 250,000 managed care patients and annual revenues of over $400 million, was sold in 1988 to PhyCor, a publicly traded Tennessee-based company. Dr. Reddy repurchased the failing operations of Desert Valley Medical Group and Desert Valley Hospital from PhyCor in January 2001 and turned them into the highly successful entities they are today.
Dr. Reddy built an 83-bed acute care hospital, Desert Valley Hospital, from the ground up in Victorville, California in 1994. Desert Valley Hospital received unprecedented accreditation with a “commendation” ranking in its first year of operation, and the high quality of its services allows it to continually lead all hospitals in the area with its high survey scores.
Dr. Reddy also founded and served as Chairman and CEO of a pharmacy management company, PrimeRX.Com, Inc. (PrimeMed Pharmacy Services, Inc.), from 1998 to 2000. Headquartered in Las Vegas, NV, PrimeRX.Com operated nation-wide with annual revenues of over $100 million.
In 1989 Dr. Reddy established the Desert Valley Charitable Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization, with an initial gift of $1 million. He has continued to support the foundation since its inception, and has currently donated over $5 million to help fund their charitable operations. The Desert Valley Charitable Foundation serves the healthcare needs of the High Desert communities in many ways, including a free public health library, a scholarship program for students in the healthcare field, and the primary support of many other healthcare-related charities.
Dr. Reddy is an active philanthropist and is involved in many additional charitable causes. He supports several students with annual scholarship grants to assist them in completing their education in the healthcare field (i.e., nursing, physician assistant, physical therapy, etc.), and the Victor Valley Community College honored Dr. Reddy’s donation of $1 million by naming its allied health programs the “Dr. Prem Reddy School of Health Sciences”. Victor Valley College had previously honored Dr. Reddy when they named their student health clinic the “Dr. Prem Reddy Student and Staff Health Center”. The Western University of Health Science in Pomona, CA, named its largest lecture hall the “Dr. Prem Reddy Lecture Hall” in honor of his many contributions to education in the healthcare field.
Dr. Reddy has also received several social awards, including:
- Entrepreneur of the Year -- Ernst & Young Accounting Company, Inc. Magazine, and Merrill Lynch Financial Company (1994)
- Republican of the Year Award -- San Bernardino County, Republican Central Committee (1995)
- Distinguished Service Award -- Victor Valley College Foundation (1996)
- Member of the Order of William Harvey -- American College of Cardiology
- Life Time Achievement Award -- Inland Empire Leaders of Distinction (comprised of the business communities of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties - 2003)
- Friend with a Heart (1996) and Honoree of the Year (2004) -- The American Heart Association
- Distinguished Citizen of the Year -- Boy Scouts of America, Inland Empire Council (2005)
- Special Honor for $1 million Contribution -- The Circle of Care Foundation and Children’s Burn Foundation of Sherman Oaks, Ca. (2006)
Prime Healthcare Services, Inc. (PHS), founded by Dr. Reddy, acquired Desert Valley Hospital and Desert Valley Medical Group in 2001 from PhyCor and turned the failing operations into a successful enterprise. PHS also acquired Chino Valley Medical Center, a 126-bed acute care hospital, through the US Bankruptcy Courts and made it profitable enough to be out of bankruptcy within a single year. PHS acquired Sherman Oaks Hospital and the world renowned Grossman Burn Center, a 153-bed acute care facility in Sherman Oaks, California in January, 2006. PHS acquired a 102-bed acute care facility in Montclair, the Montclair Hospital Medical Center, in July 2006, and in October 2006, PHS acquired three acute care facilities in Orange County from Vanguard Health Systems: a 141-bed Huntington Beach Hospital, a 131-bed La Palma Inter-community Hospital, and a 219-bed West Anaheim Medical Center. Prime Healthcare Services most recent acquisition was a 301-bed Paradise Valley Hospital located in National City, California.
Dr. Reddy’s wife, Dr. Venkamma Reddy, practices General Medicine in Victorville, CA. Their oldest daughter, Kavitha, is a graduate of UCLA’s Medical School and is currently a pediatrician on the faculty at UCLA. Kavitha's husband, Sunny Bhatia, MD, served his residency in Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and is currently doing a fellowship program in cardiology at USC Medical Center. Their son, Ashok, is a graduate of USC, and their youngest daughter, Sunitha, is a freshman at UCLA.
For further information, please refer to www.premreddy.com