The phone started ringing
Two weeks ago I wrote about what Tim Ross built: a direct-to-employer access model layered onto an existing urgent care and occupational medicine network, now serving 250 employer clients and 16,000 covered lives. The response told me something. Health systems are actively trying to stand this up right now.
One large rural health system came in directly off that article. The leader who reached out oversees both occupational health and urgent care, and she brought six people to the table — primary care, rural health, convenience care, and their employer-health initiative. Tim joined the call. You don't convene that many stakeholders for a topic you're idly exploring. You do it when you've decided the access model is a priority and you're looking for the operating blueprint.
That's the part worth sitting with. These systems already own the front door. They have occupational health relationships with local employers. They have urgent care capacity, the physical footprint, and the payer conversations. What they're missing is the operational model that turns those assets into a direct-to-employer access point — the staffing, the contracting, the patient flow, the economics. The pieces are already in the building. Nobody has connected them.
So we're building the connector. Working from Tim's model and a discovery assessment we've been developing with a large academic health system, I'm putting together a readiness tool for members. A structured way to look at your own footprint and answer one question: can what you already run carry a direct-to-employer access model, and if not, what's missing?
It's in development now. If you want to help shape it — or you're already fielding these conversations inside your own organization — reply to this email and tell me where you stand. I'm building the assessment around what members are actually running into. We'll also work through the strategy live in Office Hours, so bring your situation and we'll map it in real time.
The employers are asking. The systems that move first will own this category in their market. Let's make sure NAOHP members are the ones who move first.
Larry Earl, MD
President, NAOHP
🎓 Build the Provider Side of the Stack
The core provider actions, the Dashboard domains, and the clinical decision standards behind them are the curriculum of the OccMed Providers Course — and the working agenda of the twice-monthly Provider Office Hours.
If your providers are the ones making the calls that drive your employer outcomes, this is the program built for them.
New Vendor Member Spotlight: Data Dimensions
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paper-based processes with automated, EHR-connected workflowsEDI Clearinghouse, with a robust network of over 4,500 electronic payor
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Together, these scalable tools save clinical and administrative teams time
managing documents, accelerate reimbursement, and allow for more time
focused on patient care.
🫂 2026 conference plans
We're gauging interest in a conference this fall (a Thursday evening through Saturday in mid-October to early November, likely in the midwest, possibly Ohio).
Please answer below—this is not a commitment to register, just a read on interest.
Purpose Built Occupational Health EMR
🗓 Upcoming Events
Prove Your Value: Hardwiring Client Communication & ROI in Occ Med
Client communication is essential to a successful Occ Med program.
How timely and thorough is your communication process?
Does your EMR assist you in that process?
Can you demonstrate a value/ROI to your clients?
Becoming a Safety Leader in Healthcare
The Expanding Role of the Nurse in Health Care Safety
Goal: Master the evolving intersection of occupational health and safety leadership.
Key Topics:
• Shifting expectations of OHNs: from clinical care to system safety oversight.
• Understanding the dual lens of employee and patient safety.
• Introduction to Total Worker Health® principles in hospital settings.
• The business case for nurse-led safety programs (ROI, risk reduction, engagement).
Target Audience:
Registered Nurses, Occupational Health Nurses, and Employee Health professionals transitioning into or expanding safety leadership roles in healthcare systems.
Free Intro Class:
Speaker: Shanna Dunbar
The first cohort for the full course is coming this fall.
Recent Events:
🏭 Occupational Health Industry News & Signals
Workers' comp stays profitable — but the cost story is moving from frequency to severity
NCCI released its 2026 State of the Line at the Annual Insights Symposium last month. Workers' comp posted a 91% calendar-year combined ratio for 2025, its twelfth straight year of underwriting gains. Underneath that stability, the trend lines are diverging. Lost-time claim frequency fell 2% in 2025 — a slower decline than the long-term average — while medical and indemnity severity each grew 4%. Net written premium slipped 0.2%, making comp the only major property-casualty line to shrink. Workcompwire + 3
Source: NCCI, 2026 State of the Line (ncci.com)
Fewer claims, but each one costs more. That shifts where an occupational health program proves its value. The leverage is on the front end of the claim: how fast an injury gets reported, and whether there's competent medical triage at the point of report. A claim that's triaged and managed early doesn't become a severity claim. When premiums are soft and severity is climbing, employers feel every avoidable lost-time day — and that's exactly the gap a structured injury management program closes.
→ The injury management program framework is in the Member Library (naohp.group.app/library).
MSHA's silica rule hits metal and nonmetal mines — and medical surveillance comes with it
Metal and nonmetal mine operators were required to be in compliance with MSHA's respirable crystalline silica rule as of April 8, 2026. The rule sets a uniform PEL of 50 µg/m³ and an action level of 25 µg/m³, and it requires medical surveillance at MNM mines modeled on the existing coal program. Coal enforcement remains paused while the rule is litigated, but the MNM deadline stands. MSHA + 3
Source: MSHA, Respirable Crystalline Silica Health Alert (msha.gov)
That surveillance obligation lands on occupational health providers. Operators need baseline and periodic chest imaging and spirometry, with results handled confidentially — the operator is told only whether the miner is cleared for respirator use. Any clinic serving quarries, aggregate, sand, stone, or other MNM operations in its market is now the natural home for this program. The clinical competence to run and interpret these exams is what separates a surveillance partner from a body-shop. Conn Maciel Carey
Measles is on pace to break last year's record — and immunity documentation is back on employers' desks
As of June 11, the CDC had confirmed 2,073 measles cases across 40 jurisdictions in 2026, tied to 30 outbreaks. That already outpaces 2025, and CDC is warning of additional spread tied to summer travel. The U.S. is at risk of losing its measles elimination status, with a review meeting set for later this year. CDC + 2
Source: CDC, Measles Cases and Outbreaks (cdc.gov)
For employers, this moves presumptive-immunity documentation from afterthought to active task — especially in healthcare, where staff are routinely expected to show evidence of immunity. Occupational health is where that work happens: confirming MMR history, running titers where records are missing, boosting where indicated, and standing up a response plan before a case walks through the door. Two MMR doses run about 97% effective, so the clinical task is mostly about finding and closing the gaps in a workforce's records. Direct Relief