Nashville-based nTelagent Inc. said today it has signed 20 new contracts with hospital systems, propelling the health information technology company toward what CEO Earl Winter calls “exponential growth.”

With the new contracts, nTelagent is poised to grow revenue by 400 percent this year over 2009, Winter said. Bookings, a measure of reoccurring revenue, were also up 400 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago. Halfway through the current quarter, bookings have increased five fold over the second quarter of 2009, he said.

“Not only are we signing more contracts, but the size of the contracts are getting bigger,” said Winter, who founded the company in 2003 and launched its first product four years ago.

nTelagent’s technology helps hospital systems settle patients’ accounts on the front end, regardless of whether the patient is insured, uninsured or charity. Similar to applications used in the retail industry at the point of sale, nTelagent’s technology provides registrars and financial counselors with real-time scripts that tell them exactly what to do and what to say to each patient regarding their financial responsibilities.

The new contracts take nTelagent’s technology into five additional states: Florida, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky and Oklahoma. It was already present in about 15 states, primarily in the Southeast and Southwest.