View from the top: Jay Krueger, One Call Corp.

Jay Krueger was named CEO of One Call Corp. in 2022, after a one-year stint as president of the company, which provides workers compensation services. He first joined the company as a board director in 2019. He began his career in health care and branched into workers compensation in 2008, including serving in leadership roles at pharmacy benefits manager OptumRx Inc. His pharmacy benefits background led him to One Call at a time when the industry was seeking alternatives to opioids for pain management. He spoke with Business Insurance Assistant Editor Louise Esola about those changes and other industry trends. Edited excerpts follow. 

Q: The workers compensation industry has lauded the insurance segment’s stability over the past few years. What does that mean for injured workers? 

A: I have the opportunity to talk to our new hires every two weeks. What I tell them is no one goes to work expecting to get hurt, and when they do get hurt, it can be life-altering. What I love about this industry is that companies help these individuals at a critical point in their lives. Stability in workers compensation is a good thing. It means that fewer people are getting hurt at work, and when they do get hurt they recover more quickly than they used to. I’ve been in this industry almost two decades now, and we as an industry have gotten much better at getting people back to work faster, in ways that are much less costly. Medical management across the industry has seen so many improvements with concepts such as early intervention, thinking about individuals holistically, and making sure individuals see the highest-quality providers.

Q: How does your business fit in the advocacy approach to treating injured workers? 

A: Looking at the word advocacy in the dictionary, you see words like “serve” and “support.” In our industry, we’re in the business of serving. What we do, in honor of our clients’ trust, is take care of injured workers. We’re a service organization; our business approach is very focused on our purpose, which we describe as getting injured workers back to work and back to life. Oftentimes, we are one of the first points of contact in the workers compensation system for an injured worker. While points of entry for an injured worker vary, it’s very common for physical therapy and diagnostic imaging to be among if not the very first services that an injured worker needs. PT and diagnostics together is the largest player in the industry; that really creates a unique opportunity for us to be an advocate very early on in the injury life cycle.

Q: One of the biggest changes we’ve seen in the industry is the move away from opioids, which you have been witness to. Where does physical therapy fit in as an avenue to treat pain? 

A: I started in this industry on the pharmacy benefit management side, so something I know a lot about is the decline in opioid utilization. It’s a very, very good thing and something we all should be very proud of as an industry. We have worked very hard to achieve these declines in opioid utilization. Of course, there are other effective ways to alleviate pain, physical therapy being one of them. Musculoskeletal injuries, such as ligament or muscle sprains, carpal tunnel, herniated discs, all of those very clearly respond very well to physical therapy. PT also provides a safe, drug-free method of treatment that allows us all as people to heal naturally and for individuals to learn self-management techniques to mitigate future painful episodes. 

Q: What are some effective ways to get workers involved in taking on physical therapy, which can be painful at first? 

A: Having the right provider is essential. We’re very focused on trying to connect with injured workers quickly, and one of the nice things that we’ve done as an organization is develop a variety of different ways to interact with and communicate with injured workers. Some injured workers prefer phone calls or prefer texts. We’ve really tried to develop the communication mechanisms to meet people where they are and to interact with them in the ways that best connect with them. 

Q: What are some other challenges in the industry?

A: Labor and labor market pressures. All of our clients are very focused on return to work. The quality of our provider network, as well as the investments we’ve made in our customer service platform, allow us to get injured workers the care they need, very quickly. Those two things are the biggest drivers in my mind of how quickly someone returns to work. 

Q: Where do artificial intelligence or similar technologies fit in? 

A: Carefully. We all recognize there is vast potential in next-generation technologies such as artificial intelligence, but we all also recognize the significant concerns and potential pitfalls. We’re spending a lot of time on this area at One Call, and we’re focused on two things: improving the efficiency and consistency of our customer service experience. We’re in the process of automating part of the experience. It allows our colleagues to focus on the more important parts of the customer service experience. One example is appointment confirmation. How many times have you forgotten when an appointment is scheduled? By the end of this year we’re offering that ability. Another example is on the consistency side, as it will allow us to measure the effectiveness of each of our phone calls through something called sentiment scoring. Sentiment scoring measures empathy and emotion during a customer service interaction, and each interaction is given a score. Now, depending on the score, steps are taken to help ensure a better customer experience in the future, such as care coordinator coaching or changes to underlying processes, or direct follow-up with a specific injured worker.