NATCHEZ — One week after announcing plans to hire a firm to seek out a new CEO to run Natchez Regional Medical Center, hospital officials have selected a Georgia-based company to lead the search.

Natchez Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees Chairman Dan Bland said the hospital board has agreed to contract with Coast-to-Coast Healthcare Recruiters to find Regional’s new CEO.

Since April, the hospital has been run by Healthcare Management Partners, which was hired to run the hospital during its restructuring period.

Bland said, once signed, the contract between the hospital and Coast-to-Coast will hire the firm on a “contingency fee basis.”

“If they can’t find someone to run the hospital, they’re not getting paid,” Bland said.

In the event Coast-to-Coast can locate a new CEO the company’s fee will be 20 percent of the CEO first year’s salary.

Original estimates projected it would cost up to $90,000 to hire a recruiting firm.

But exactly what the new CEO’s salary will be has not been decided, Bland said.

“That depends on their experience,” Bland said. “We’re going to go for the best person out there, a top notch administrator.”

Bland said once signed the contract will also provide some security for the hospital.

Bland said if Coast-to-Coast finds a CEO that cannot meet the hospital’s needs within one year, the company will locate a second CEO for no additional cost.

But current HMP administrators at Natchez Regional have said it could be as much as eight months before the yet-to-be-hired CEO is running the facility.