Every oncology program is pursuing the same outcomes: informed patients, efficient encounters, scalable navigation, and guideline-concordant care. Those outcomes are often determined before treatment begins, and Before Treatment Starts is infrastructure for that interval: better-prepared patients, more productive conversations, and greater leverage from existing navigation.
Early direct-to-patient deployment. While preliminary, the depth of engagement, repeat usage, and question volume suggest patients are using the platform as intended: to prepare for decisions rather than consume information passively.
Most cancer centers have invested extensively in diagnosis, treatment delivery, navigation, and survivorship. Relatively few have infrastructure dedicated to preparing patients for the decisions that determine those downstream activities.
The period between diagnosis and treatment initiation is one of the most operationally important, and least structured, intervals in cancer care. Patients are expected to participate in complex decisions while processing a life-changing diagnosis, navigating testing, coordinating logistics, and learning an unfamiliar clinical language.
Patients frequently arrive at treatment discussions:
The consequence is predictable: physician time shifts toward information gathering, navigators spend capacity on preparation rather than guidance, and patients struggle to participate fully in decisions that affect treatment trajectory. Before Treatment Starts was built specifically to close that gap.
Walk through a complete sample session, the same one a patient runs. It adapts to where they are and ends in the structured brief the care team receives. This is the clearest way to evaluate what it does.
A sample session with a fictional patient. Educational only, not medical advice.
Seen enough? Run it yourself on a cancer type common in your program. Request full access
Guides patients through diagnosis, treatment context, concerns, priorities, goals, and upcoming decisions, using language designed for comprehension and action.
Surfaces areas that may warrant further discussion, including testing considerations, unresolved questions, logistical barriers, and patient concerns.
Generates a concise, patient-controlled summary: clinical context, priorities and concerns, questions identified for discussion, and topics requiring clarification. The patient determines whether, when, and with whom it is shared.
Each effect traces from a concrete input to the metrics it bears on, the outcomes every program already measures.
Better-prepared patients
Less contextual reconstruction
Visit efficiency, throughput, patient experience
Structured intake before navigator engagement
Less time spent gathering history
Navigator caseload leverage, PIN utilization
Questions and priorities surfaced earlier
Better-informed treatment discussions
Experience scores, quality measures, guideline concordance
PIN: Principal Illness Navigation (CMS codes G0023 and G0024), separately reimbursable under Medicare since 2024. These are mechanisms and the measures they bear on, not guaranteed outcomes.
Most patient-facing AI tools answer questions. Before Treatment Starts focuses on preparation. The objective is not to replace clinical expertise, but to help patients arrive ready to benefit from it.
It is designed around how oncology decisions are actually made:
The system focuses on helping patients recognize what still requires attention before decisions are finalized.
No new staffing model. No EHR implementation project. No additional documentation burden. Cancer centers determine which patients receive access; patients engage independently and choose what they share with their care team.
New-diagnosis programs, nurse navigation workflows, disease-specific service lines, high-risk treatment pathways, and value-based oncology initiatives. It sits upstream of the navigator and the physician, not between them.
The system funds patient access; it does not add headcount, a documentation requirement, or an EHR project. The operating effects land on services the program already runs and, in the case of navigation, already bills.
You've seen a session. Access is to the complete platform, not a limited trial. Evaluate it on a cancer type common in your program, then record your clinical assessment.
We'll review and send platform credentials to the email you provided, typically within one business day.
Any deployment turns on one question first: is it clinically sound and appropriate for patients? The evaluation is scoped to that, and is best completed by a qualified clinician. It saves as you go.
So we can follow up with the right context.
1 = strongly disagree · 5 = strongly agree
Your judgment on what the tool produces for the cancer type you evaluated.
From a clinical standpoint, where is it appropriate, and who benefits most?
Select all that apply, and add anything you'd want raised.
Would you vouch for this clinically and bring it to the right people in your organization?
Thank you. We'll follow up directly to discuss your findings and next steps.
Together4Cancer is a patient decision-readiness platform developed by NeedleSpotter, an oncology-focused company founded by Shruti Agarwal, PhD. The platform was developed through experience across medical affairs, commercialization, patient engagement, and cancer caregiving, and is designed to help patients participate more effectively in treatment decisions.
Learn more about NeedleSpotter →