A paid patient navigator for every new cancer diagnosis, reimbursed as a service
Every newly diagnosed patient gets a named person whose job is to get them through appointments, tests, paperwork and money problems. Insurers should pay for it because it prevents delays and dropouts.
Patient navigation programmes improve time to treatment and completion, particularly for disadvantaged groups, and randomised evidence exists. In the US, Medicare began paying for principal illness navigation services in 2024, creating a reimbursement route. Elsewhere navigation depends on charity funding. The proposal is to make navigation a reimbursed service from diagnosis to end of treatment, with standard training, caseloads, and outcome reporting.
- Fragmented care and guideline gaps · Patients fall between specialists, wait for referrals and often do not get the treatment guidelines say they should.
- Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency · Most patients cannot understand their options, find trials, or push back, so decisions are made for them.
- Trials do not represent the people who get cancer · Older, Black, Hispanic, Asian, rural, poor and multimorbid patients are under-represented, so results may not apply to them.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaA health-literacy certification standard for oncology portals, letters and apps
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Trials do not represent the people who get cancer.
- IdeaPatient navigation as a legal entitlement from the day of diagnosis
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Fragmented care and guideline gaps.
- IdeaPaid community advisory boards with power to change protocol burden
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Trials do not represent the people who get cancer.
- IdeaDecision aids built into the record for every preference-sensitive cancer choice
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Fragmented care and guideline gaps.
- IdeaA defined pathway for patients with both dementia and cancer
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Fragmented care and guideline gaps.
- PersonAudre Lorde
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Trials do not represent the people who get cancer.
- InstitutionVCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Fragmented care and guideline gaps.
- IdeaA dedicated clinic for people whose blood test says the cancer is back
Shares Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency, Fragmented care and guideline gaps.