What a 90-Day Pilot with Beacon Looks Like — And What Changes

There's a moment that happens in almost every oncology practice.

A front desk staff member finishes a 45-minute call with a patient's family member trying to understand an Explanation of Benefits. Or a nurse spends her lunch break tracking down a financial assistance program for a patient who can't afford their co-pays. Or a physician ends a clinical appointment and realizes the last ten minutes were spent on logistics that had nothing to do with the patient's treatment.

These moments aren't unusual. They're not the result of a poorly run practice. They're what happens when patients receive a cancer diagnosis and don't have a dedicated person to help them navigate the non-clinical side of their care.

The Beacon 90-Day Pilot is designed to change that — in a way that's low-risk, structured, and built to demonstrate real value before you commit to anything.

The 90-Day Pilot is a structured partnership between Beacon Cancer Navigation and your oncology practice. For 90 days, Beacon provides dedicated non-clinical navigation services to patients your team refers to us.

That means your patients have someone to call — someone who isn't your front desk — when they have questions about insurance paperwork, financial assistance, transportation, appointment logistics, or the emotional weight of a cancer diagnosis.

No long-term contract. No added clinical staff. No disruption to your existing workflows.

Just a dedicated navigator handling the non-clinical side of cancer care, so your team can focus on what they do best.

The most immediate change practices notice is a reduction in non-clinical calls.

When patients receive a cancer diagnosis, they have an enormous number of questions that have nothing to do with their clinical care. What does this Explanation of Benefits mean? Are there financial assistance programs I qualify for? How do I get transportation to my next appointment? Who do I call when I'm scared at 2 AM and I don't know what to do?

When there's no one else to answer those questions, patients call your front desk. And your front desk staff — who are already managing a full workload — spend significant time on calls that fall outside their clinical scope.

During the pilot, Beacon becomes the number patients call for those questions. Your front desk staff get that time back. They can focus on scheduling, clinical coordination, and the work they were hired to do.

Practices that have worked with Beacon describe the change as immediate and noticeable. The calls don't stop — patients still have those needs. But the calls go somewhere else.

The second change is harder to quantify but just as significant: patients feel more supported.

A cancer diagnosis is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can have. The clinical side of care — the oncologist, the treatment plan, the monitoring — is handled by your team. But the non-clinical side of cancer care is enormous, and most patients navigate it alone.

They figure out insurance on their own. They search for financial assistance programs on their own. They manage the logistics of getting to appointments, coordinating with other specialists, and understanding paperwork — on their own.

When patients have a dedicated navigator, that changes. They have someone who knows the landscape, knows the resources, and knows how to help them move through it. They show up to appointments more prepared. They're less overwhelmed. They're more engaged in their own care.

That's not a soft benefit. It's a measurable difference in the patient experience your practice delivers.

The third change is one that physicians and clinical staff often don't anticipate until they experience it.

When patients are better supported outside the exam room, the time inside the exam room changes. Appointments are more focused. Patients ask better questions. The conversation stays clinical.

Your team went into oncology to provide exceptional clinical care. The 90-Day Pilot is designed to protect that — to make sure the non-clinical weight of a cancer diagnosis doesn't land on the people who are trying to treat it.

The 90-Day Pilot follows a structured four-stage process:

Stage 1: Discovery call. We spend 30 minutes understanding your practice — your patient population, your front-desk pain points, and what success looks like for your team. This is also where we determine whether the pilot is a good fit.

Stage 2: Onboarding and integration. We establish a simple, HIPAA-compliant referral process. Your team learns exactly when and how to connect patients with Beacon. This stage is designed to be low-friction — we adapt to your existing workflows, not the other way around.

Stage 3: Active navigation. For 90 days, Beacon handles non-clinical needs for your referred patients. Insurance questions, financial assistance, transportation, appointment logistics, emotional support resources, care coordination across specialists — all of it goes to Beacon.

Stage 4: Outcomes review. At 90 days, we review what changed: call volume, patient feedback, staff experience. You decide whether to continue based on real results, not projections.

During the pilot, Beacon manages the full range of non-clinical needs that cancer patients typically bring to their care team:

• Insurance and Explanation of Benefits questions
• Financial assistance and co-pay fund navigation
• Transportation and lodging coordination
• Appointment logistics and preparation
• Emotional support and resource connection
• Care coordination across multiple specialists
• Paperwork and prior authorization guidance
• Language access and interpreter coordination

These are real, urgent needs. Patients don't stop having them because your team doesn't have time to address them. The pilot gives them somewhere to go.

It's worth being clear about what the 90-Day Pilot doesn't include.

Beacon is not a clinical service. We don't provide medical advice, clinical assessments, or treatment recommendations. We don't replace your clinical team or your existing care coordination processes.

We handle the non-clinical side of cancer care — the logistics, the paperwork, the resources, the emotional navigation — so your clinical team can focus on the clinical side.

We also don't require a long-term commitment. The pilot is 90 days. At the end of those 90 days, you decide whether to continue based on what you actually experienced.

The 90-Day Pilot is designed for Colorado oncology practices that are experiencing one or more of the following:

• Front desk staff spending significant time on non-clinical patient calls
• Patients who are struggling to navigate the non-clinical side of their care
• A gap between the quality of clinical care the practice provides and the overall patient experience
• Interest in improving patient outcomes without adding clinical staff

If any of those describe your practice, the pilot is worth a conversation.

The pilot begins with a 30-minute discovery call. No obligation, no sales pitch — just a conversation to understand your practice and determine whether Beacon is a good fit.

If it is, we move to onboarding. If it isn't, you've spent 30 minutes and learned something useful about what your patients need.

Most practices that schedule a discovery call move forward with the pilot. Not because we're persuasive, but because the problem we're solving is real — and once you've described it out loud, the solution tends to make sense.

Schedule a discovery call to see what 90 days looks like for your practice.