Russ:  Hi I’m Russ Capper and this is BusinessMakers USA, brought to you by Insperity, inspiring business performance.  Checking in today with business people here in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and I’m very pleased to have as my guest Salo Sredni, Co-founder and President of Chronwell Inc.  Salo welcome to the show.

Salo:  It’s great to be here.

Russ:  You bet.  Tell us about Chronwell.

Salo:  Chronwell is a startup that’s very much focused on helping injured workers have a better experience, a better relationship with their insurance company and their workplace as they get injured in the workplace.

Russ:  So who are you working for; the employee, their insurance company?

Salo:  What we’re doing is we’re providing technology enabled services or the insurance company and allowing them to process those claims more efficiently, quicker and creating a better experience or the injured worker.

Russ:  And are you talking about medical claims there?

Salo:  Well it could be medical claims or it could be anything that happens as the result of an injury at the workplace.  Normally if an employee falls or has an injury in the workplace they’re not eligible for healthcare insurance, they have to go through the Workman’s Comp insurance.  And what we’re doing is helping process those claims more efficiently and faster.

Russ:  So say I fell, injured my knee, what would the process be?

Salo:  The way this works is you immediately have to notify your supervisor and then the supervisor has to report that to the insurance company or a third party that works for the insurance company.  And what we’re doing is we’re bringing technology to the forefront and allowing technology to basically automate and facilitate a lot of the process.

Russ:  So describe the of technology you use in that process.

Salo:  We’re taking advantage of the latest and greatest technology.  Eventually we will even use artificial intelligence to help process those claims, but what we’re doing is really providing, between mobile and web technology and ability, for that supervisor to report that claim.  It will also provide an ability for that worker to be in touch with that insurance company to know the status of that claim.  Again, we’re just a startup – we’re just getting started – but that’s the vision of what we’re going to do.  We really want to make a difference in the life of these injured workers.

Russ:  So you have partners maybe?  You have any employees yet?

Salo:  We’re at 7 employees, we just launched about a month ago and we’re currently working on two pilots that are going to really launch this and bring this forward.  We expect to launch something in the next 12 months or so.

Russ:  So you’re servicing sort of the employees, they’re connected to the company and then there’s the insurance company as well – are all three of those happy to see what you’re doing?

Salo:  Yes.  The Workman’s Comp space has been neglected for the most part with technology and there hasn’t been much innovation or much disruption.  And when we talk to insurance companies they’re very excited about using technology to become closer to the employees, better serve them.  And when we talk to employees – nobody is satisfied.  The insurance companies aren’t happy, the injured workers are not happy and our goal is to use technology to bridge that gap.

Russ:  So what triggered the idea to start Chronwell.

Salo:  So I stepped down at a job I had for 20 years, I was CEO of one of the largest brokerage firms in America.  My partners worked for an electronic health records company where they also had a successful exit like I did.  And we’re bantering around and going through and trying to decide what we’re going to do next and we looked at AI, which is sort of the next wave of technology and we realized that hospitality – medical hospitality – is an area that is not very active right now.  And we picked the Workman’s Comp space because one, it really needs help.  And two, if you fall and you hurt your knee that insurance company owns that knee or the problems with that knee for the rest of your life.  So it’s a place where there’s a great interest in doing things efficiently and making things happen the right way.

Russ:  Wow, can you share with us a way that you’re going to use artificial intelligence.

Salo:  Yeah, sure.  Eventually what we’ll do is we’ll be able to process claims.  If right now you submit a claim to the insurance company it takes 2 to 3 days for the insurance company to really get to that claim.  With artificial intelligence we can look at that claim and we can also make sure that if God forbid it’s something that’s life threatening, something that’s paralyzing somebody, that the insurance company can get to that employee right away.

Russ:  Wow, very impressive.  And so I guess the way that you, that Chronwell, makes money – how does that happen?

Salo:  We’ll get compensated by the insurance company.  What we’re doing is making things more efficient for the insurance company and at the same time we’re making employees happier.  That’s the goal and that’s something where there’s a win-win, and something that over time will save money for the insurance company.  Something that we want to do also with the use of technology is improve outcomes.  So we can look at best practices and if we see a way to for example make sure that a worker who has an injured arm gets back to work in 2 weeks instead of 4 weeks, those are all things that save the employer money and save the insurance company money.

Russ:  I would probably assume today there’s no competitors in this space, is that right?

Salo:  Correct.  As far as we know we haven’t come across anybody that will be competing with us.  We think obviously success breads competition and I’m always a big fan of competition because competition always makes you better.  But it’s something that we’re very excited about and quite frankly when we talk to all the 3 pieces of our puzzle everybody is excited that we’re looking into this space and we’re really trying to solve a problem.

Russ:  Great.  Well Salo I really appreciate you sharing your story; sounds real interesting.

Salo:  Thank you.

Russ:  You bet, and promising.

Salo:  Thank you, thank you for having me.

Russ:  You bet.  And that wraps up my discussion with Salo Sredni, Co-founder and President of Chronwell Inc.  And this is BusinessMakers USA.