Over a decade of disciplined, incremental building, Essentia Health transformed a fragmented, claims-only workers’ compensation program into a fully integrated system of prevention, early intervention, and purposeful return-to-work — one that now serves caregivers across three states with the consistency and care they deserve.

By building a comprehensive, technology-enabled safety and risk management program specifically designed for school districts, the Georgia School Boards Association has turned a statewide self-insured fund into a model of prevention — delivering dividends, lowering costs, and reaching the school communities that need it most.

Emerging from the pandemic with an exhausted workforce and a stalled safety culture, Aspirus Health rebuilt its workers’ compensation and employee safety programs from the ground up — one hospital, one relationship, one conversation at a time.

By consolidating a fragmented workers’ compensation program and embedding dedicated case management resources, Continental Tire transformed a structurally inefficient system into a model of consistency, accountability, and measurable results — without losing sight of the injured employees at the heart of it.

When a post-pandemic claims crisis threatened to overwhelm its workers’ compensation program, Kelly overhauled its approach — forging a data-driven partnership that dramatically reduced litigation, accelerated claim closure, and put injured workers back at the center of the process.

Over 17 years, Larimer County’s Risk Manager Jeff Green transformed a bare-bones, deficit-ridden worker’ compensation program into one of the most consistent and cost-effective in the public sector — by making transparency, partnership, and getting people back to work the cornerstones of everything.

When two of the country’s largest health systems merged to form Advocate Health, the challenge of unifying their workers’ compensation programs fell to Melinda Daniel — who built a single enterprise program for 150,000 teammates across six states, guided by one simple principle: teammates taking care of teammates.

After 23 years in safety, Lee Pyfrom found the most effective program of his career at a safety conference — and it cost about $40 per person.

Panda Restaurant Group tackled a workers’ compensation crisis hiding in plain sight — building an in-house investigative team that cracked down on fraud and abuse while simultaneously making it easier than ever for genuinely injured employees to return to work.

By asking “why” one more time than most organizations are willing to, Professional Contract Services built a nurse triage program that dramatically reduced lost time and claim volume — while proving that caring for employees as whole human beings is the smartest risk management strategy of all.

By treating every injured employee like a family member — and finding vendor partners willing to do the same — Rumpke Waste & Recycling built a workers’ compensation program with sustained cost reductions and a 98% return-to-work rate that reflects something deeper than good claims management.

By building a disciplined, multi-layered opioid management program from the ground up, Nevada’s Risk Management Division has dramatically reduced opioid prescribing across its Workers’ Compensation plan of more than 900 open claims, protecting workers from addiction while cutting costs and improving recovery outcomes.

By unifying its approach to risk across workers’ compensation, auto liability, and general liability — and backing it with predictive analytics, behavioral safety training, and aggressive early intervention — Verizon achieved tens of millions of dollars in savings while building a stronger culture of care for its workforce.

By consolidating legacy systems into a single, integrated national model, Walmart Claim Services delivered enterprise-level consistency and meaningful improvements in the experience of injured associates, provider payments, and pharmacy oversight across one of the largest workers’ compensation programs in the country.

By rebuilding trust from the firehouse up — through transparency, creative accommodations, and an ad hoc committee that put all the right people in the same room — Metro Fire’s HR team transformed a strained workers’ compensation program into one of the most proactive and collaborative in the fire service.

By building a seamless system that puts the right information in front of injured employees the moment they need it — and backs it up with a rigorously tested ergonomics program — State Farm’s workers’ compensation team has made early intervention a reality, not just a goal.

In a profession defined by caring for others, Benchmark Senior Living has built a workers’ compensation and safety program that turns that same ethic inward — treating injured associates with the same commitment to human connection that defines care for its residents.

By asking a simple but powerful question — why should an injured employee receive better benefits on short-term disability than on workers’ compensation? — Fox Corporation built a salary continuation program that transformed its workers’ comp experience and gave injured employees something rare: the freedom to focus entirely on getting well.

By deploying dedicated telephonic case managers, systematically using injury video evidence, and tackling Medicare exposure head-on, First Student transformed the workers’ compensation program supporting the largest school bus fleet in North America — and proved that doing right by injured employees and achieving strong financial outcomes are not competing goals.

At National Comp 2025, Save Mart’s Rosie Partida reveals the strategy that transformed a workers’ comp program—and the safety culture for 12,000 employees.