Photos by Ava Kitzi

When hospitals discharge patients, the assumption is that healing continues seamlessly at home. But for many aging adults and their families, that’s when the confusion starts. 

Who follows up? What medication are they supposed to take? Who helps Mom understand her new diagnosis — or even make it to her next appointment?

For Ryan Hopper and Janie Bailey, the co-founders of Navigate Wellness, those lingering questions weren’t just theoretical. They were real, persistent problems they witnessed over and over again in the traditional health care system. And they knew it was time for a different approach. “I was part of a sinking ship of nursing home care, and I saw people in the community who had no one guiding them,” Bailey says.

Hopper spent several years as a travel nurse, then transitioned into ICU nursing and hospice care; Bailey has a degree in gerontology and worked in senior living as a care coordinator. They met over coffee and realized they were noticing deficiencies in both their lines of work.  “We were both pretty spicy toward the health care system, and we were primed to do something about it,” Bailey says. 

Navigate Wellness was born out of this shared frustration with the traditional health care system. Hopper and Bailey saw how often patients — especially older adults — were falling through the cracks. “It’s jolting … it’s confusing … it’s overwhelming for everyone involved,” Hopper says.

The two decided there had to be a way to bridge the gap between doctor’s visits, hospital discharge and long-term wellness — without a nursing home. So they built it. 

Navigate Wellness is all about allowing adults to age in place. “Most of the people we work with are scared of losing control, scared of the vulnerability of things they might be hiding from loved ones,” Hopper says. “But I find that what scares them more than anything is being forced out of their home or losing control of their decisions.”

Oftentimes, nursing homes or senior living facilities manage the well-being of roughly 50-75 patients, trying to offer palatable care for each of them. This just isn’t possible.

“The dirty little secret of senior living is that these are some of the most regulated businesses in the world,” Bailey says. “They can put whatever they want on the brochure, but at the end of the day, the book of rules they have to operate under makes it difficult to do much else.”

However, the goal of Navigate Wellness isn’t to dismiss senior living; they aim to be complementary to the system and fill the void between. “I don’t think anybody argues that the medical system is broken,” Hopper says. “But we’re utilizing the system through our care managers as a way to take some weight off the shoulders of aging adults and caregivers.”

As the patient load grew, so did the services offered to meet the needs of aging adults. As of now, Navigate Wellness offers care navigation, concierge nursing, mobility, companion care, wound care, infusions and end-of-life care at home with 24/7 availability.  It all starts with a free Clarity Call. 

“Because of the knowledge we have from working in the system, we know what to ask and what to recommend,” Bailey says. From there, the team will meet to determine next steps, and an Aging Roadmap will be built alongside the patient and their caregiver. 

This assessment goes beyond looking at how a person is doing medically; it also works to obtain the overall goal of care. “If staying at home for the duration of life is the goal, then we’ll build a plan that allows us to fix a dynamic list of problems,” Hopper says. 

Currently, the weight of health care is on the unpaid caregiver — i.e., the spouse or children of the aging adult. Navigate Wellness differentiates itself by supporting caregivers along the way. “You’re probably missing your dad, who’s sitting right in front of you, because every time you’ve seen him this week, it’s to take him to an appointment,” Bailey says.  “We like to take that stuff off of people so you can have lunch with your dad or play Uno with them. We give you back the time you might have lost with them.”

None of what Hopper and Bailey are doing is monumentally new. But Bailey describes themselves as “rogue rebels,” as they continue to provide excellent service, without the red tape. “We like to do the things that other people don’t do,” she says. “We like to have the conversations that people don’t have.”

The team at Navigate Wellness is made up of these rogue rebels: high achievers who are burned out, taken advantage of or disconnected from why they even got into the health care field. “Part of the best moment is getting to see that reignition of passion for helping people,” Hopper says. 

For Bailey, the most rewarding parts of this are in the small moments, just doing what needs to be done. From helping clean a house to having difficult conversations about death, the team at Navigate Wellness does it all. “People will say ‘there’s no village’ — but we’re creating the village,” she says. “You have people in your village you’ve never even met, and when someone anticipates that we’re going to tell them ‘no,’ we get to tell them ‘yes.’”

Most of Navigate Wellness’ clients aren’t excited about having to make that initial call; they want to stay at home and remain in charge. If this sounds familiar, Hopper says Navigate Wellness is probably the right option. “We don’t represent what you’re scared of,” he says. “We’re the people who are going to stand beside you and make wherever you’re at the best version of what it’s going to be.”

Visit mynavigatewellness.com to learn more.