Insurance service firm grows presence in Valley: One Call moves to bigger office while planning to hire more staff.

DESPITE the region's trained work force, employers with extensive call center operations have increasingly fled for the South and Midwest where business costs are lower.

But specialty health insurance services firm One Call Medical Inc. is one company bucking the trend--and more.

The growing Parsippany, N.J., company is not only keeping its West Coast customer service operations in the San Fernando Valley, but over the weekend moved into a 17,000-square-foot facility in West Hills that is nearly twice as big as the one it had in Woodland Hills. The company also began recruiting its first wave of trainees for a program intended to increase its 100-person work force to 170 over the next year or so.

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"California is a very big part of our market," said Chief Executive Kent Spafford, who was in town last week for the relocation. "We can afford to stay here because we run very efficient operation with a very experienced staff. And, of course, we've been able to take advantage of the depressed real estate market."

One Call Medical began 15 years ago as a third-party provider of medical imaging testing and scheduling services, primarily to workers' compensation carriers that didn't want the expense of setting up their own provider networks across the country. When a patient needs testing, One Call finds the closest imaging center, makes the appointment, handles billing and payment, and then bills the insurer.

In recent years, One Call has expanded into the general health care market, particularly third-party administrators for self-insured employers. Also being targeted are discount health care programs used by individuals who either have no insurance or are enrolled in high-deductible plans and want to cut out-of-pocket costs.

The company, which has other call centers in New Jersey and Atlanta, handled 560,000 MRIs alone in 2008, about 2 percent of all such procedures in the United States.

Local business boosters, who have worried about the increasing number of empty store-fronts and office buildings in the Valley since the recession hit, are delighted by the expansion.

"Given all the people who have been losing their jobs here, the fact that a company not only wants to stay here but expand is a real boost for our community," said Jack Dawson, president of the Canoga Park/West Hills Chamber of Commerce.

Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached [e-mail] or at [phone], ext. 232.