An eye appointment begins long before anyone reaches the examination chair. Someone must understand why the visit matters, find a ride, remember the date and make the rest of life cooperate. A clinic sees the empty slot when this arrangement collapses. Lumata Health works on the arrangement.
The story in three points
- Certified eye-care coaches help patients between appointments.
- Data helps direct outreach; people handle the obstacles.
- The business runs through practices and reimbursable care management.
Its Continuous Care Program supports people living with chronic eye conditions, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration. The work sounds almost stubbornly ordinary: coordinate transportation, help obtain prescriptions, explain instructions. Yet each task sits between a doctor's recommendation and a patient receiving care. For an ophthalmology practice, that interval can become an operational blind spot.
A person behind the prediction
The founding frustration belonged to Stephen Fransen, a retina specialist with more than three decades in practice. He was seeing patients arrive after losing vision to treatable conditions. His biography describes that experience as the reason for building Retinal Care, the business now called Lumata Health. Founded in 2017, the company took the problem outside the examination room.
The team acquired an unusual combination of skills. CEO and co-founder Landon Grace is also a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at North Carolina State University. Matt Wills, who joined the founding team in 2019, brought experience building a specialty infusion pharmacy. Together, the backgrounds cover a diagnosis, a system and an operation that has to function every day.
Lumata pairs its Intelligent Engagement platform with dedicated Care Coaches. Clinical and behavioral information helps identify people at risk of missing treatment. A coach then does the practical work that follows: find out what is getting in the way and help resolve it. The company's provider materials describe certified ophthalmic assistants with an average of 12 years of in-clinic experience.
This places Lumata in a specific corner of healthcare technology: an outside care team working alongside an existing practice. A reminder system can announce an appointment. A trained person can ask whether the patient understands it, has the prescription or can get there. The relevant alternatives include doing that work in-house, buying general care-management support or relying on automated reminders.
“This is a huge unmet need for ophthalmology.”
Leila Vajzovic · Duke Eye Center
Quoted in Lumata's patient and provider perspectives
For a patient, the service can feel like a regular call from someone who knows the plan. California Retina Consultants describes check-ins on vision and general health, help with paperwork and questions about the doctor's instructions. Patients can opt out. That flexibility matters: a support program needs participation, and participation has to earn its place in someone's routine.
The number is a kept appointment
Lumata's September 2025 white paper examined 1,431 engaged patients across four private retina groups. Researchers compared changes in their attendance with those of matched patients who had never been contacted about the program. Over a year, the analysis found roughly 89 additional retina visits and 72 additional injection visits per 100 participants relative to controls.
2025 study / Annualized difference
More appointments kept.
Per 100 patients, per year.
The useful detail is underneath those gains. Participants' visit frequency stayed approximately steady, while the comparison group attended fewer visits than in the preceding year. Much of the result was retention. The study was retrospective and selected participants who met engagement thresholds. It measured attendance, rather than directly proving that the program prevented blindness. Those boundaries matter when judging the numbers.
Who pays for the phone call?
The customer proposition connects three interests. Patients receive help following their plans. Practices get support for work that otherwise falls to office staff. Reimbursable care management can generate practice revenue. Lumata's current provider page describes Principal Care Management coverage; its 2024 financing release described Chronic Care Management billing. This is a service business with software and reimbursement woven through it.
Patient cost deserves a closer reading than a bright “free” button. California Retina Consultants, which publicly offers Lumata's program, says it typically costs nothing for patients with Medicare plus supplemental coverage or managed Medicare. It also says benefits vary. Eligibility and coverage therefore belong in the enrollment conversation. The same practice makes clear that urgent care stays with its clinical team.
Expansion has required capital. Lumata announced a $4 million Series A in 2022, followed by a $5.5 million Series A+ in 2024. In March 2025 came a $23 million Series B, co-led by LRVHealth, McKesson Ventures and Cencora Ventures. That announcement put total funding since inception at $36 million. The stated purpose was to meet demand and improve the technology behind patient adherence.
Scale also needs careful language. In February 2024, Lumata described more than 300,000 contracted patients as its eventual reach. Those were people it planned to onboard, rather than a count of active participants. The difference is substantial for a company whose service requires an ongoing relationship with each person it supports.
Give the obstacle an owner
Some obstacles require expertise beyond an eye practice. A 2023 partnership with Hadley connected Lumata patients to free learning resources for everyday life with vision impairment. Another, with Prevent Blindness, began with training and mental health resources. The partnerships acknowledge something a schedule cannot show: losing confidence, independence or a familiar routine can become part of the care problem.
The mechanics include closing the loop with the practice. Lumata's white paper describes coaches recording encounters directly in the electronic medical record, with outreach typically scheduled monthly and adjusted for risk. An explanation or a rearranged appointment can then become part of the care team's shared record.
Lumata strengthened its leadership in September 2025, announcing Annu Singh as chief technology officer and Nastran Andersen as chief growth officer. The announcement described an ambition to build scalable, AI-assisted eye care. The operating challenge remains concrete: making useful support repeatable as more practices and patients join.
There is a lesson here for anyone managing a complicated service. Look at what happens after the instruction. Ask which obstacle is recurring, who owns it and whether the person actually makes it to the next step. The model depends on reachable patients, capable coaches, cooperative practices and access to treatment. A phone call cannot supply a missing clinical service. It can help a patient reach one that exists.