More Than a Check-In: How Journey of Care uses Claris Companion to help people live safely and independently at home

For Medicaid clients trying to remain independent at home, the problem is rarely a missed appointment or a medication reminder. It may be a ride request that expired. A broken piece of medical equipment. Food that is hard to get. Paperwork that is hard to navigate. Or simply not knowing whom to call.

Journey of Care was built for those moments. Founded in 2025 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Journey of Care is a healthcare company providing Medicaid-funded virtual care coordination and remote supports to help older adults and people with disabilities live safely and independently at home. The company operates in Colorado and is expanding into Montana, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Iowa. The organization supports people who need ongoing help to live safely and confidently at home. Its team coordinates care, connects members with practical resources, and follows through until the next step happens.

Technology makes that support easier to reach. But the team is clear that technology is not the service. The relationship is.

Claris Companion, from Claris Healthcare, helps put that philosophy into practice. Members get a simple connection to their support network. Care coordinators get one place to manage communications, reminders, alerts, documentation, and engagement as the program grows.

Between January 1 and August 27, 2026, Journey of Care supported 48 active members through Claris Companion. The platform recorded 20,094 member interactions, 1,214 secure messages, and 1,676 clinical notes. Behind every number is the same goal: helping a person stay connected, supported, and in control of life at home.

At a glance

Results reflect Journey of Care’s Claris Companion usage from January 1 through August 27, 2026.

The Challenge: Life happens between appointments

Journey of Care’s members are primarily people with low incomes who qualify for Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS). Many are older adults. The program also supports younger people with disabilities.

Members generally need to be able to live independently. But independence does not mean navigating every obstacle alone.

Traditional healthcare and social-service systems can leave gaps between providers, benefits, and day-to-day life. A physician may identify a medical need without having the time or resources to solve a transportation problem. A case manager may authorize a service without seeing the small barriers that keep a member from using it. Family members may want to help but cannot coordinate every call, form, and follow-up.

Journey of Care works inside those gaps. Its care coordinators help members arrange transportation, plan meals, access food, understand eligibility, and connect with providers and community services. They work through the practical barriers that make living alone at home hard to manage.

The team also offers regular check-ins, reassurance, and conversation — an important source of connection for people who spend much of their time alone.

Todd Hockenberry, Journey of Care’s COO and co-founder, describes the approach as “virtual care coordination”. It intentionally goes beyond a conventional remote-support model. The organization invests in skilled care coordinators and provides help it may not bill for directly, because that work serves the member and supports its larger mission.

The Journey of Care difference: Staying with the problem

A member is not expected to know the name of a government waiver, the right provider, or the exact service to request.

The work includes real, practical interventions. Journey of Care reports helping members:

• Restore access to needed breathing equipment
• Obtain more manageable oxygen tanks
• Arrange food and grocery delivery
• Connect with new healthcare providers
• Access home-repair benefits
• Resolve problems with medical equipment
• Work with case managers to secure additional support at home

The common thread is follow-through. Members do not receive another list of phone numbers and get left to coordinate the rest. The team identifies the next step, connects the relevant people, and stays involved as the issue is addressed.

This approach strengthens the circle around each member:

• Members gain a familiar team that listens and helps solve problems without taking away their agency.
• Families gain another dependable layer of support for coordination and follow-up.
• Case managers and healthcare providers gain a partner that can carry important work falling outside a visit or a reimbursable clinical encounter.
  

The Role of Claris Companion: A connection point and an operational backbone

Journey of Care uses Claris Companion as a central connection point for its members. It supports communication with the care team. It also serves as a practical, approachable hub in daily life.

The experience is deliberately flexible. When appropriate, the team helps members use the tablet for familiar services and activities, not only care-related tasks.

For the care team, Claris Companion is much more than a member-facing device. The organization does not rely on a separate electronic medical record for its core remote-support workflow. It uses the Claris console to keep the program operational.

That makes the platform central to how the team works. Care coordinators use it to:

• Communicate securely with members and their care networks
• Manage medication reminders and wellness activities
• Support live audio and video contact
• Receive and act on alerts and member requests
• Document member interactions and care activity
• Deliver wellness, social, and engagement content
• Track program-level engagement for internal review and partner reporting

Journey of Care reinforces this through continuous staff training. Standing internal meetings answer questions, review platform changes, and help care coordinators fold new Claris capabilities into their workflows.

Engagement that goes both ways

The usage data shows members are not simply receiving reminders or being passively monitored. They are actively participating.

Across the reporting period the platform logged 20,094 member interactions — roughly 52 per member per month, or near-daily contact.

Of the 1,214 secure messages exchanged, members initiated 45% (545). Forty of 48 active members recorded at least one platform interaction, and 35 completed at least one scheduled wellness activity such as a survey response, medication confirmation, or care-program activity.

Live communication also became a meaningful part of the model, with 197 answered video calls, 86 answered audio calls, and 236 “Call Me” requests. These give members several ways to reach a familiar person when they need help, reassurance, or a next step.

Families are participating too. Family and member-contact caregivers made up 32 of 43 active caregivers and sent 472 messages during the period. That extends the care network without turning the platform into a substitute for family relationships or in-person services.

Supporting medication routines and proactive awareness

Medication support is one of the clearest examples of Claris Companion fitting into a member’s daily routine. Across 661 scheduled medication events, 92% were confirmed as taken. Another 7% were marked for later. Skipped and missed events together accounted for less than 2%.

The platform also helps the care team see where attention may be needed. Journey of Care generated 3,652 clinical and operational alerts during the period, and 83% (3,041) were closed by the end of August.

This is not a count of emergencies. It shows a growing organization using one shared system to surface, document, and resolve a substantial volume of member activity.

AI helps with documentation

As the program grows, consistent documentation matters for continuity, internal review, and audit readiness. Staff logged 1,676 clinical notes during the reporting period, covering 44 of 48 active members.

Journey of Care uses Claris’s AI-assisted text cleanup as an internal editing step, to make caregiver notes more consistent and easier to review. It does not replace human documentation or clinical judgment.

Caregivers write the notes. The workflow standardizes the narrative so lead care coordinators can find relevant information, understand care tasks, and prepare for possible audits.

Growing with purpose

Journey of Care moved quickly from an early-stage program to 48 active members supported by 43 active caregivers. Its member base grew more than fourfold from January through August 2026. Logged platform interactions rose from single digits in January to 4,668 in August.

The organization is also expanding beyond Colorado into Montana, Wisconsin, and Kansas, with Iowa in progress. The model adapts to the populations, benefits, and waiver rules of each state.

Growth brings new operating questions. The team is already working to combine Claris data with information from other systems, so it can give case managers and referral partners clearer reporting.

It is also reviewing group-program scheduling. Completions increased in absolute terms as membership grew, but missed events grew faster. That suggests the volume or timing of scheduled activities may need adjustment.

That willingness to examine what is not yet working perfectly is part of responsible scaling. The goal is not engagement for its own sake. It is the right support, at the right frequency, in a way that fits each member’s life.

A technology-enabled relationship, not technology for its own sake

Journey of Care believes its work can help people remain at home longer and may reduce pressure on more expensive forms of long-term care. A formal Medicaid savings analysis is in development. No validated savings figure was available when this case study was prepared.

What the current evidence does show is a care model in motion: near-daily member contact, active two-way communication, strong medication-confirmation rates, extensive human-authored documentation, and a growing network of family and professional caregivers using one shared platform.

Claris Companion makes that relationship-based service operational at scale. It gives members a direct connection to people who know them. It gives care coordinators a common place to communicate, document, respond, and follow through.

And it extends support into the space where so much of life happens: between appointments, inside the home, and in the everyday moments when one resolved barrier can make independence possible.