Mark Pew is a renowned educator, well-known as the RxProfessor. He is a prominent speaker at workers’ compensation, insurance, legal, and healthcare conferences around the country. Mark is a strong advocate for the workers’ compensation industry to #CleanUpTheMess, a movement he created to drive attention to the importance of individualized appropriate treatment for injured workers.

Mark believes in whole-person treatment and is an advocate of the BioPsychoSocialSpiritual treatment model. He is primarily focused on the intersection of chronic pain and appropriate treatment.

In this interview, Mark talks about his journey in the workers’ compensation domain and the creation of his alias – RxProfessor.

Early Days in the Tech Industry

Before working at The Preferred Medical, Mark spent 20 years at Equifax and one of their spin-offs, ChoicePoint.  He did mainframe development with COBOL and Assembler, mini computer programming in C, PC programming in C++ and Basic. As his expertise in the field increased, Mark grew to be a team lead, followed by project management, and finally management of a division.

In 1990, he got into the workers’ compensation domain doing consulting with PRIUM, joining them full-time in 2000. Coming from a technology background, Mark believes his inherent qualities of logic and rationality helped him advance in product development. He developed several medication peer review services that simplified the complexities of the system.

‘Whether you’re creating software or you’re creating products and services, it’s the same concept.  You run into somebody with a problem, you understand the problem, you articulate what the potential solutions are, you work through solutions that make the most sense and then you develop something that delivers that solution.’

Starting out in Workers’ Compensation

Mark first got introduced to the workers’ compensation domain in 1990 when he worked as a consulting developer for a Utilization Review company (PRIUM) that needed case management software. At the time Mark had no prior knowledge of the industry. In order to get the technology right, he began to learn various aspects of the industry such as the concept of treatment guidelines, the process around utilization review and utilization management. The complications of the system and its diverse nature across states were a challenge that Mark was eager to work on and simplify.

Mark signed up his first account while at PRIUM. He believes that having created the products and services himself and having full faith in their value helped him with his sales.

‘I knew exactly what their intention was, what the deliverable was going to be, and how we were going to try to approach delivering that service and so it was kind of a natural outgrowth when I was given the opportunity to present.’

Mark recalls his early travel days where he would carry an empty suitcase with him to fill up with copies of medical records. Every place he visited – Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas and Houston – he would go into offices and make photocopies of all medical records.

Mark would study the first report of injury, the diagnostic reports and the surgical notes, and the ongoing progress reports. This helped him learn the crucial aspects of the domain along with valuable interactions with management, claims adjusters, nurse case managers.

‘I got to understand, first hand, what was valuable to them, what was and was not helpful, what was redundant, what was the red flag that actually would help a physician reviewer.’ 

Becoming an Educator as the RxProfessor

Mark is a passionate educator and advocates for individualized appropriate treatment for injured workers through his movement #CleanUpTheMess. He is a vocal advocate of the BioPsychoSocialSpiritual treatment model and is widely recognized as the RxProfessor.

For Mark, the term ‘Professor’ helped identify his role in speaking and writing as a form of education, with ‘Rx’ indicating his focus on prescription drugs.

‘I’m not a professor or even an adjunct professor, but I do consider myself an educator having spoken over 630 times since 2012.’

Mark began educating people about the overprescribing of opioids and other painkillers in 2003 before it became a concern in the workers’ compensation domain. This furthered his work in diving into the intersection of chronic pain and appropriate treatment with prescription drugs.

Recognition and Acclaims in Recent Years

For his immense contributions to the field, Mark’s work has been recognized through several prestigious awards. He received the 2016 Magna Comp Laude award, which is the second-highest award from WorkCompCentral. Their annual Comp Laude event is an attempt to identify and reward people that are making a difference.

In 2017, he was awarded the IAIABC’s Samuel Gompers Award, the second-highest award at IAIABC which is about thought leadership.

For Mark, these acclaims have served as a propellant to continue his work in the future. He takes these awards as an affirmation for the efforts he has made while also looking for new ways to push the system and better the industry.

‘I believe that things happen for a reason and so I think everything that I went through early in my career and through different portions in my career prepared me for who I am and what I do now.’

Standout Moments along the Way

An ongoing milestone for Mark is the opportunity to interact with the smartest doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, nurses, claims adjusters, attorneys and executives around the country. His platform offers him the chance to understand how these top professionals manage pain and the different options available such as virtual reality, prescription medications, deep diaphragmatic breathing, yoga, acupuncture, CBT, and cannabis, among others.

A lot of times, a presentation of 60 minutes contains only a portion of the information that was discussed. For Mark, the research and investment for every panel discussion along with the personal interaction are extremely valuable in learning different perspectives.

‘I think I’m an aggregation of all those conversations with what I believe are the smartest people in the country and kind of assimilating that into my own somewhat down-to-earth, non-clinical way to address these complex circumstances and conditions so other people can learn from that.’

 Proud Achievements in Workers’ Compensation

One of Mark’s moments of pride was the creation of various products and services at PRIUM that ultimately led to the success and recognition of the company. During his tenure there, Mark created several programs in regards to evaluating drug regimen appropriateness, tapering regimens, and engaging ongoing case management. These innovative programs paved the way for PRIUM to go from a lesser known business to a respected and popular company.

Currently, in his position with Preferred Medical focused on product development and marketing, Mark is once again eager to leverage his personal brand to enhance the visibility of the company through valuable products and services that are the need of the hour in the workers’ compensation domain.

Overcoming challenges in the workforce

For Mark, one of the biggest challenges he faced was talking about clinical aspects while being a non-clinical person. His lack of a medical degree could have impacted the credibility of his information, especially when competing against people that studied to become clinicians. However, Mark managed to overcome this challenge by assimilating and retaining huge volumes of information.

Another aspect Mark believes helped him along the way is his ability to grow and evolve. As new information emerges in the general healthcare and workers’ compensation domain, Mark integrates it with his understanding to move forward.

‘An important lesson for everyone is don’t get stuck in the status quo. You always need to be pushing forward and evaluating the new ideas that are coming and then use your best judgment, evidence-based medicines, and scientific methods, to validate it.’

Future Business Plans

Moving forward, Mark hopes to continue his proven success in his work. He believes in constantly evolving and looking for options and different alternatives, but at this juncture, he isn’t planning any massive changes. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of his conferences have shifted online. But with webinar fatigue settling in, Mark is looking at creative ways to progress forward.

Talking about the marketing aspect of his work, Mark states that it is ultimately about creating brand recognition and visibility. This may be due to a webinar or podcast, a direct marketing campaign, leveraging personal brands, or various other alternatives.

His company doesn’t spend a lot on magazine or conference ads as he believes a lot of alternatives offer the same value. These include networking, attending conferences, being the smart person up on the stage, or writing articles that are thought-provoking.

‘There’s a lot of ways that you can do stuff that doesn’t cost a lot except for time and effort that can have tremendous value.’ 

Top Philosophies and Core Values

One of Mark’s philosophies is being authentic. He believes it is very easy in business to hide behind masks and have different personas for different environments. However, true leaders and influencers that people would be willing to listen to need to be authentic.

Another important aspect is to have a well-educated opinion on your product or service. It shouldn’t be just another commodity to be sold but something that is well-researched and offers value.

‘My idea of life is to leave the place better than I found it.  I’ve always believed in authenticity and being true to who I am at every moment in time.’

Advice for Newcomers in Workers’ Compensation

An important consideration is to understand that there are several options in this field that go beyond claims adjusting. There is actuarial science, risk management, technology, management, and several diverse options that make this industry a great fit for a lot of people.

To work in this field, however, a critical component is the desire to help other people. This industry is all about helping someone who got injured in the occupational environment. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The injury may have been something relatively benign that healed very quickly or it could be something catastrophic that is life-changing, which changes not only their physical capabilities but also their job, financial life expectancies for the future.

It is a tremendously complicated system, especially with the additional layer of healthcare on top of it. Workers’ compensation is helping someone navigate through that so that they can get back to work, back to their quality of life, restore their function and be who they were before that occupational injury happened.

‘I think for it to be career sustaining you need to understand that you’re having either a positive or negative impact on someone who may be going through the most challenging time of their life. That means you need to understand what’s important to you, you need to understand your personality, you need to understand what’s going to get you to wake up in the morning and be excited about going to work.’

Two Learnings over the Years

1. Your success is on you

Mark believes no one is a victim of their circumstance or their environment or culture. ‘You are whoever you make yourself to be.’ He feels it is important to get past the victimhood concept and get to the point where a person does what they need to do and overcome the barriers.

2. Find something at the intersection of passion and competence

There are no shortcuts in life. It is important to pick a field where one is passionate about waking up every morning and putting in the work with a certain level of competence.

‘If you find something at that intersection of passion and competence and it is something that can drive you, you are authentic to who you are, and you don’t let your surrounding circumstances however negative they might be dictate a negative outcome for your life, you’re going to be successful.’ 

Vision for the Workers’ Compensation Domain

Mark feels that the workers’ compensation domain is changing. Over time the number of claims is declining and the number of service providers is declining because of mergers and acquisitions. With workers’ compensation already a small portion of the general healthcare industry, these changes seem to lessen the space further.

However, with the rapid adoption of technology, Mark believes there is going to be an increasing emphasis on analytics. People are going to try and analyze the large volumes of data currently available to try and come up with innovative ways to use it.

The COVID-19 pandemic put a lot of companies out of business and then the number of claims dropped significantly because 20 million people were unemployed overnight. That had a dramatic impact on the number of work comp claims.

‘With work comp shrinking, with prescription drugs shrinking I think you have to work smarter not necessarily harder and I think you need to be very focused on your core competency.’ 

Mark believes that the companies that have survived the pandemic are the ones that have figured out ways to evolve and engage their client base. They worked on their fundamentals, their financials, they’ve become much more stringent and focused on the return on investment from a variety of activities and they’re making hard decisions.

Moving forward, Mark believes that the companies that are going to succeed and survive are going to be focused on automation, focused on the use of technology in data analytics, and focused on really understanding what their core competency is and then managing it to make sure that they are good stewards of their talents.

Another important aspect is to prioritize the important things. It is important to recognize things that are no longer important or valuable to your ongoing progression and get rid of them. Focus on the stuff that’s providing value and then get rid of the stuff that’s not.

‘I think there are lessons to be learned from that prioritization and that brutally honest objective viewpoint of value that you’re going to do as both an individual and an organization that’s going to make you more successful overall.’

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