Why - and How - Compass Group partners with Plethy to help injured workers

Engagement + Caring = Employee recover and retention.

I recently caught up with Jeremy Yingling of Compass Group; Jeremy fully manages CG’s workers’ comp program.

CG is a giant services company serving 14 million meals and maintaining 1.4 billion square feet each day. Much of Compass’ workforce is in food services, one of the higher-severity, higher-frequency industries.

Jeremy was kind enough to relate his experience with Plethy’s Recupe program - he notes Plethy’s value is not just a return on investment…its the personal connection with the worker to help them through the entire recovery process.

Here’s our conversation…

1. (ManagedCareMatters) MCM - Hi Jeremy, thanks for making time to connect and share your experience. To start, please tell our readers about Compass Group.
   JT - Compass World HQ is in England with our domestic HQ in Charlotte, NC. We provide food service and shared services for schools, stadiums, businesses and, hospitals…we have 325,000 employees in the US and a total of 600,000 worldwide.
   

2. MCM - I noticed Compass Group received an award for best places to work for Disability Inclusion this year – the third consecutive year - congratulations! I noticed this as a guiding principle…”Never compromise on the health and safety of our customers and our people..” Please tell me about that.
   JT – Our current CEO was in our Finance Group, Safety and Risk Management reported up through him over the years at CG as he worked his way up through the company. His approach to a safe environment has given us a baseline for what we do in risk management.
   

3. MCM - what’s your role at CG?
   JT - I fully manage our Workers Compensation program. We focus on helping our people RTW, staying focused on being medically healthy and happy. We focus on our injured workers having a good experience with their WC claim. We want our injured workers to continue to work for CG.

4. MCM - I understand you’ve been working with Plethy for some time; Why did you bring Plethy on board? What was/were the problem(s) that you wanted to solve?
   JT - We have worked with Plethy for a little over two years…999 employees have been in the program to date…we introduced Plethy’s Recupe to augment PT services [for our injured workers] – there’s a lot of lifting, our people work in kitchens, sometime very cold or very hot – we talk all the time about what can we do better, how can we improve without burdening adjusters and our operations managers who are running the business and not always WC focused. When considering augmenting our WC process with outside vendor programs, we ask ourselves how manyof the traditional boxes can we check? With Plethy we are checking all of them…it saves money while providing additional support to our injured worker – It is a true benefit to the company and the injured worker. It is rare to find a program that provides this.

2. MCM - How does the process work?
   JT – we pass the referral thru our PT provider - MOI - so the adjuster doesn’t have to do it – once MOI has the referral then our injured worker gets introduced to Recupe. Importantly, the IW decides if they want to participate in the Plethy Recupe program - it is not mandatory. Adjusters therefore aren’t managing the mechanics of the process – they are reacting to feedback and results and can stay focused on one thing – closing the claim.
   The IW is connected with Plethy’s coach – they build a relationship focused on helping the IW through the rehab process – helping to get them from a place where they are consumed with their Injury and getting better isn’t possible – to understand they can get better…Recupe keeps IWs on track to [full] recovery – this is more than just fixing the shoulder – it’s [addressing] other issues…[the IW answers] 3 or 4 questions…if answers show a need for behavioral health, the coach responds by contacting IW or manager in a conscious way to show them they have choices in what they want to do.
   

5. MCM - What value has Plethy brought to Compass?
   JT – I’m a huge believer in Plethy…There’s been a definite return on our Investment…Recupe has led to some interesting types of insights…this is a high turnover industry – we found workers that use Plethy don’t quit and find another job – they stick w CG – we interviewed workers with claims closed for a year – one of the brilliant things is the psycho-social evaluation [incorporated in Recupe] – Plethy asks “how are you feeling “and goes from there, indicates if any psychosocial risks…if there are, we offer a referral to our EAP [Employee Assistance Program] – Recupe is more complete [rehab] than just PT – it guides them to other resources like behavioral health where they can get help. [This] helps in different ways, sometimes an injury is a turning point in their life…for some of our workers Recupe has helped them get better at many things– it shows the potential impact of really caring for IWs and getting them resources.
   

6. MCM - How does Plethy help identify delayed recovery cases?
   JT - Plethy is doing a lot of work on that…it is definitely part of the equation – [the] team builds relationship with the IW from [both a] data and human standpoint to identify and situation that needs additional attention. We work with Sedgwick…every TPA has controls and AI driven things to alert to traditional early intervention – we weave info from Recupe [into that process].

Note - Plethy is an HSA consulting client; also this was lightly edited for clarity.