MatrixCare Speeds Up Post-Acute Strategy Under New CEO Jonathan Lujan

Post-acute care software company MatrixCare’s newly appointed CEO, Jonathan Lujan, sees home health providers increasingly operating in a technology ecosystem rather than a closed environment — making interoperability even more crucial.

Lujan wants MatrixCare to support an ecosystem resembling Apple’s App Store, where the company can integrate with partners offering specialized solutions rather than trying to develop everything itself. The goal, he said, is to move data more seamlessly across care settings and technology platforms while reducing friction for providers operating on thin margins.

“Home health, hospice, skilled nursing facilities, these providers face enormous workforce pressure, reimbursement complexity, regulatory burden and fragmentation across the care continuum,” Lujan told Home Health Care News. “Every additional click, every aspect of workflow, every administrative task has a real cost.”

MatrixCare provides software solutions to over 15,000 providers in the home health, hospice, skilled nursing, senior living and life plan industries. The company announced on Sept. 1 that it had become an independent company and named Lujan its CEO.

ResMed (NYSE: RMD), a medical device and digital health company, acquired MatrixCare in 2018 for $750 million. In July, Frazier Healthcare Partners agreed to buy MatrixCare, carving it out as a standalone company.  

The transaction means that MatrixCare will no longer have to compete internally with a large parent company for attention and investment. The change will allow the company to make faster decisions, invest with greater focus and organize itself around customer priorities, Lujan said.

Lujan most recently served as CEO of Sight Growth Partners and previously served as vice president and general manager of Lifeline Vascular Care at DaVita, among other roles.

Faster decisions, new initiatives

MatrixCare’s new CEO has identified several priorities for the company’s next chapter, including aligning product investments more closely with customer needs, improving interoperability and using AI and automation to reduce administrative work.

The largest opportunity, Lujan said, is creating a tighter connection among what customers need, what MatrixCare builds and how customers ultimately realize value from its technology.

AI has the potential to reduce administrative burden in clinical documentation, revenue cycle support, and other workflows, but MatrixCare is not looking to simply maximize its AI usage.

“The question isn’t how much AI can we put into MatrixCare,” Lujan said. “Really, the question is: Where can the technology eliminate administrative work for our customers?”

Lujan contrasted that approach with what he described as AI “vaporware” elsewhere in the technology market — announcements that invoke AI without delivering tools that work or solve meaningful customer problems.

“We’re going to make sure that what we’re developing here actually solves our customers’ problems,” he said.

While aiming to reinvigorate MatrixCare’s processes and investments, Lujan has identified the post-acute workforce shortage, regulatory complexity and interoperability.

The workforce shortage is the most immediate concern, he said. Post-acute providers need technology that lets a limited pool of clinicians and caregivers focus on the highest-value activities instead of spending valuable time on documentation and administrative work.

At the same time, MatrixCare must help providers navigate state and federal regulations, revenue cycle management, government and commercial payers and extensive documentation requirements, Lujan said.

While contending with those hurdles, the new CEO is focused on developing the tools that help post-acute care providers, including home health agencies, to help with high-stakes scenarios.

“Financial tools and the revenue cycle are critically important across the entire continuum because cash is their lifeblood, and oftentimes many home health agencies are going out of business,” Lujan said.

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