In life and work, Troy Cassel aspires to help people. Over time, this has meant advocating for human rights in third world countries, fundraising for political candidates, and supporting the LGBT community. At Mobile Health, helping translates to foster a positive client and patient experience. “I love that we help get people to work — people who ultimately take care of sick patients,” says Troy, Chief Operating Officer.
However, helping doesn’t prevent the Gettysburg College graduate from stepping back to determine where he can affect substantive change in an organization and even question the status quo.
Once he’s achieved that change, he’s eager for the next challenge. Troy’s trajectory at Mobile Health reflects this attitude. Hired in 2015 as Director of Special Projects, Troy broadened the company’s geographic reach beyond its New York brick and mortar clinics. To launch this Network Office Location (NOL) function, Troy recruited potential healthcare provider partners and built the technology to support it in only a few months. The other challenge? Making the expansion transparent to clients.
Troy and his team succeeded. Today, the number of NOLs stands at 2,700 and counting. “From the first appointment, NOLs opened the door to all sorts of employers who need an occupational health solution with broad geographic results,” he says.
Trusted Client Relationship
A year later, while still overseeing NOL, Troy became Director of Operations and Technology. In that role, he took over the IT and customer service teams, still determined to enhance the client experience. To that end, he wove LabCorp into the Mobile Health platform, which added 1,800-2,200 collection sites around the country for clients to choose from.
In becoming COO in 2018, he handed the NOL reins to Chief Sales Officer James Anderson. As COO, Troy has redoubled his attention on the company’s seven New York clinics. His focus includes key metrics like patient wait times and clinic profitability. “We view New York as our core market, where we serve our most important clients. New ideas and initiatives originate here.”
New York proved a source of inspiration during the pandemic when the city became its epicenter for a period. Feeling shell-shocked initially, Troy spent hours each day talking to clients to assess their future needs. “That trusted client relationship is key,” he says. “We leaned on them to learn what was happening in the market, and they spent so much time with us.”
He considers it time well spent. “Ultimately, we realized we are a high-volume provider who knows occupational health really well. We’ve been screening for communicable diseases for 35-plus years. And we already have an electronic health record infrastructure.” They would offer employers three or four timely solutions, the company decided and very quickly built a platform to support it.
COVID-19 Screening and Testing Program
And in eight weeks, they did. Troy credits Mobile Health’s stellar internal team, including customer service, account management, and IT, for the rapid roll-out of the company’s COVID-19 Screening and Testing Program. They designed the customizable program for any industry or business seeking to safely return staff to work.
The newly announced offering already operates at several New York work sites. There, Mobile Health provides daily symptom monitoring, online health assessments, and on-site temperature screening and COVID-19 testing to returning workers.
“We know we’re just at the beginning,” says Troy, noting that only 8-10% of New York businesses have returned to offices. Also, because COVID-19 screening and testing technologies evolve rapidly, his team built a highly flexible platform. “We’ve intentionally designed it to take advantage of new screenings and testings as they become available. We can also introduce other products or services that provide long-term value, like wellness.”
Ultimately, the company views the program as a vehicle to introduce occupational health to businesses that haven’t needed those services until now. For example, when a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, Mobile Health can add that option. It’s an easy lift for a company already providing vaccines, immunizations and titers to employers.
While the COVID-19 program targets the centralized workplace, Mobile Health also heavily focuses on solutions for decentralized workforces, he notes. “With so many businesses working remotely, services like telehealth will become a priority.”
The COO’s Road to Normalcy
For someone used to helping, program development during the pandemic unexpectedly aided Troy. “I underestimated how useful it would be to spend every day doing something that was part of the solution and helping people get back to work.”
Today, outside of work, the ‘new normal’ for Troy Cassel entails restoring a 140-year-old farmhouse in the Catskills with his husband, Zeke Stokes. “We want to breathe life back into the house in a way that honors its history,” the COO says. Construction proceeds under the watchful eye of their cat, Mr. Alexander ‘Trufs’ Truffles.
