Care coordination
Oncology care coordination after the visit
Care coordination after an oncology visit means each next step in the plan, such as a prior authorization, a lab order, a referral or a call to the patient, has a person responsible and a due date. The provider's plan from the visit is what guides it. OncoNexus turns that plan into owned tasks. Your provider approves them, and your team carries them out.
Where follow-through slips
A cancer visit ends with a plan, and the plan usually lives in a note. Between that note and a finished task, someone has to notice it, decide who owns it, and check that it happened.
In a busy community practice, that someone is often whoever saw it last. Most dropped steps have no villain. They happen when the plan, and who owns each step, isn't clear to patients and staff.
Who does what after a visit
Practices divide the work differently. A typical split looks like this.
- Provider: makes the plan, signs orders and approves the tasks
- Nurse or navigator: symptom check-ins, patient teaching and calls to patients
- Medical assistant: lab scheduling, records and referral packets
- Scheduler: infusion appointments, imaging and follow-up visits
- Authorization and billing staff: prior authorizations, payer follow-up and financial assistance applications
- Patient and family: the appointments to keep, the medicines to take and who to call
Coordination is making sure each piece of that work has a name next to it before the patient leaves.
What different visits leave behind
Each kind of visit creates different work. Here are examples of what a plan can need.
- New patient consultation: staging imaging orders, pathology requests, referrals and prior authorizations
- Chemotherapy follow-up: labs before the next cycle, infusion scheduling and a symptom check-in call
- Start of an oral cancer drug: the authorization, the pharmacy handoff, and a call to confirm the patient received it
- Immunotherapy visit: lab monitoring and a check-in on new symptoms
- Survivorship visit: surveillance imaging, scheduling, and a note to the primary care doctor
- Palliative care request: the referral, and who follows up
What a clear handoff includes
After a visit, your team needs five things.
- A named owner for each task
- A due date
- Your provider's approval before anything moves
- One place where staff can see what is still open
- A plain-language version of the plan for the patient
That last one matters more than it sounds. A review of the research on patients' memory reports that 40% to 80% of the medical information practitioners provide is forgotten immediately, and almost half of what is remembered is incorrect.1 A plan with what to do, when, and who to call gives patients and the family helping them something to hold onto.
How OncoNexus suggests an owner
OncoNexus suggests an owner based on the type of task. These are the usual matches.
- Clinical decisions go to the provider: reviewing results, ordering labs or imaging, changing a medication, deciding on treatment or a referral, signing forms and letters
- Check-in calls, symptom and vitals checks, injections and patient teaching go to a nurse or medical assistant
- Booking, rescheduling and cancelling appointments go to a scheduler
- Insurance verification, prior authorization and financial assistance go to billing staff
- A task that doesn't clearly fit goes to a nurse or medical assistant to sort out
Within a role, the suggestion starts with the patient's own care team, then looks at who has the lightest load. These are suggestions. Your provider sees each owner and due date, and can change them before anything moves.
How OncoNexus works with your clinic
Three steps after each visit.
Record
See patients as usual. With the patient's consent, the visit is recorded.
Approve
We draft the action plan, with a suggested owner and due date for each task, along with the note and ICD-10 codes. Nothing moves until your provider approves.
Assign
Each task gets an owner and a due date. Your team carries it out, and everyone can see what's open.
Your EHR stays in place. OncoNexus works alongside it.
Questions clinics ask
What is oncology care coordination?
It is the work of making sure the steps in a patient's plan actually happen: the authorizations, orders, referrals, scheduling and patient calls that follow a visit. It depends on each step having a clear owner and a due date.
Who handles care coordination in a community oncology practice?
It differs by clinic. Nurse navigators, nurses, medical assistants, schedulers and billing staff each take part. Trouble starts when the plan doesn't say who owns a step. OncoNexus suggests an owner and due date for each task, and your provider can change either one before anything moves.
Does OncoNexus replace our nurse navigator or care coordinator?
No. Your team still carries out the tasks. OncoNexus drafts the plan from the visit and shows who owns what and what is still open.
Do we have to change our EHR?
No. OncoNexus works alongside your current EHR.
More on how we work with clinics
A 3-month pilot for community oncology practices.
1 to 5 providers, whatever your clinic's size. No charge, with hands-on support. Clinics in the pilot get a discounted price after it ends.