IAIABC Perspectives

NextGen Profiles: Stephanie Arkelian

Perspectives / December 2019

NextGen Profiles: Stephanie Arkelian PRODUCT MANAGER, HEALTHESYSTEMS

Quick Facts • First Job: Westfield Nursery, watering plants at the age of 15. • FirstWork Comp Job: Adjuster • FavoriteTravel Destination: Santorini, Greece • Favorite Social Media Platform: Facebook • Hashtag: #liveeverydaylikeitsthelast appointments, facilitates discussions amongst multiple MDs, and is there to listen and support you. This role was critical tomy experience and recovery and I see it similar to the role of the adjusters and nurses working with the injured workers who not only have to navigate the healthcare systembut also potential lost time fromwork, lost wages, fear of losing their job and the corresponding stress that puts on a family. It has fueledmy passion as a product manager ten-fold to identify solutions that can enhance the experience for the injured worker and give adjusters and nurses the tools they need to better support them . Often, adjusters and nurses are spending a lot of their time on tactical administrative work, and we need to free up their time as much as possible to be the injured worker’s advocate. Personally, I’ve learned that every day in life is truly precious, and tomorrow is never promised. I try not to take the small stuff for granted. I try to extendmore kindness and understanding to others because you have no idea what the person sitting next to youmay be going through and I’mpassionate about spreading awareness to this all too common disease. I want to thank the IAIABC for givingme the opportunity to share my experience during Breast Cancer Awareness month and encourage everyone to do their self- exams once a month, take any changes or symptoms seriously, and get your annual screenings – the earlier you can catch breast cancer the more treatable it is.

analyze andmanage the large amount of unstructured data that exists in worker's comp and apply it towards driving better insight into billing practices -- improving accuracy and identifying areas of fraud, waste and abuse. By applying AI technology we can automate this process with humanmonitoring and scale a system to any size. liaisons, or through objectivemetrics, such as examining vendor utilization data to understand claims staffbehavior.” - Sandy Shtab, Healthesystems How has being a breast cancer survivor shaped you both personally and professionally? Navigating the healthcare system throughmany tests, doctors, multiple surgeries, medications and all of the insurance complexities that come with it gave me a new empathy and keen awareness to how much help people in need when it comes to navigating our complex healthcare system. Luckily, duringmy breast cancer journey, I was introduced to the role of the nurse navigator – a nurse navigator is an advocate of the patient and helps explain things in understandable ways, helps coordinate medical “Stephanie is a big-picture visionary, onewho can connect the dots and gain the consensus and buy-in necessary to orchestrate a large-scale project according to plan. Stephanie’s dedication to quality, to customers, and patients sets her apart; and through her stewardship our organization ensures that user validation is a part of our day-to-day process, whether by interviewing adjusters andmanaged care program

Stephanie Arkelian is the Director of Product Management for Healthesystems’

Ancillary Benefits Management Program. She is responsible for

exploring innovative, strategic, and transformational opportunities and partnerships to deliver products and features that solve customer problems. Stephanie has nine years of experience in the workers’ compensation industry, including two years as a claims adjuster. She works closely with industry stakeholders to fully understand their current challenges, providing invaluable insights into the design of newproducts and features through her front-line perspective. Passionate about launching user-driven solutions to solve everyday challenges, Stephanie has recently been instrumental in the development of innovative solutions for physical medicine and transportation management, which improve service quality for patients, while increasing efficiency for claims professionals and payers. challenges and use the rich pool of data that exists within workers’ compensation to drive better decisionmaking, automate processes, and fuel predictive and prescriptive models. This is a major area of focus for me right now – one of the current projects I have in flight is to use AI to better

How do you see advances inmedical technology (AI, blockchain, advanced healthcare techniques – genetics, exoskeletons, personalized drug regimens) shaping treatment in workers’ compensation? I think it’s important that workers’ compensation embrace medical technology and innovation to help solve industry problems that we’ve been challenged with for years (e.g. cumbersome processes/procedures, inefficient use of adjuster time, vague coding/edits, lack of transparency, etc.) I think the challenge that we face with all the new innovation is to determine what to pursue and how to apply it. Often times, workers’ compensation is behind the curve in reacting to the medical advances being tested out in healthcare which canmake sense from a patient safety standpoint, but we need to start taking advantage of innovative technology such as block chain to apply it to everyday

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