Third time's a charm

Since he set out on his own nearly 15 years ago, Steve MacDonald failed in one business he began, and promptly started another — only to later be fired from it. But now, armed with somewhat painful yet powerful lessons, he's running a business the way he's always wanted to with his current company, myMatrixx.

myMatrixx, which had $72.84 million in revenue in 2012 and has more than 140 employees, specializes in providing services for workers' compensation benefits. This includes everything from medications and home nursing services to medical equipment. But the scalable key to the company's fast growth is how it does this: It provides an interface to streamline the payment processing system to “make sure patients are getting the services they need in the timeline they need them,” MacDonald says.

The company negotiates discounts for medications and supplies, while at the same time monitoring activity for insurance companies to help its clients, who are mostly self-insured employers. It serves as a “safety net,” checking to find if there are indications of fraud, abuse, or overutilization of workers' compensation, MacDonald says. It varies by state, but typical cost savings from using myMatrixx is around 30-35%, according to his figures.