Blog Post
A practical approach to cancer care for health plans
Alexandra Anderson, Head of Health Plan Partnerships
Cancer touches nearly every part of a health plan’s strategy, from care management to network design, member experience, and cost containment. But when it comes time to act, it’s often unclear where to begin.
How do you improve early detection without duplicating your oncology case management efforts? How do you support primary care teams without disrupting existing workflows? And how do you invest upstream in a way that still aligns with your broader network and value-based care goals?
This is where many plans get stuck. The problem is large, so they try to solve all of it at once, and end up boiling the ocean.
Here’s how we help health plans of all types—national, regional, and provider-affiliated—make measurable progress in cancer care without starting from scratch.
How do we improve early detection without duplicating existing programs?
We don’t replace your case management. We make it more effective. Our focus is upstream, targeting the members who haven’t yet entered the traditional oncology pipeline.
These are the people who are overdue for screening, missing follow-up, or showing early signs of risk but haven’t yet been flagged for intervention. We help identify, engage, and guide them before case management typically begins.
A key part of this is Color’s Medical Team, which includes oncologists and other specialists who follow evidence-based early detection guidelines. They design our tests, manage our protocols, and oversee our wholly-owned labs, which provides a vertically integrated, fully managed delivery program that lowers risk, closes gaps, and keeps every step under one accountable team.
This leads to fewer late-stage cases and more members reaching your case management team earlier, when outcomes are better and costs are lower. Detecting cancer even a single stage earlier can reduce treatment costs by an average of $63,000 per patient.
How does this work with primary care and care coordination?
Whether your primary care providers (PCPs) are employed, contracted, or part of a delegated network, they’re stretched thin. We help reduce their burden by:
- Delivering screening results and risk data directly to PCPs
- Providing missing context (e.g., family history, prior labs)
- Enabling visibility of cancer risk across patient panels so they can be proactive with the right patients at the right time
- Supporting next-step coordination (imaging, referrals, follow-up)
- Closing the loop when members fall off the care path after a test or referral
This reduces the coordination burden and supports your clinical teams where they need it most.
How does early detection support your broader cancer strategy?
Early detection improves everything that comes afterwards:
- Stage distribution shifts earlier, strengthening value-based oncology performance
- Navigation becomes more effective because patients are engaged sooner
- Member experience improves by reducing stress, delays, and avoidable escalation
- Total cost of care comes down, without disrupting your network
We’re not building a standalone solution. We’re helping you make the system you already have—care navigation, oncology pathways, case management, network contracting—work as intended, starting upstream.
What about speeding up time to diagnosis and treatment?
One of the biggest breakdowns in cancer care is between an abnormal screening and a confirmed diagnosis. Members often get stuck in that gap, waiting for imaging, orders, or answers.
We reduce that delay by managing next steps immediately. That includes test orders, scheduling, results follow-up, and referral into in-network care.We cut time to diagnosis by up to 55%.
Faster diagnosis leads to faster treatment, better outcomes, and reduced financial risk. Every month of delay in treatment increases the risk of death by up to 13% depending on cancer type and treatment modality. That delay often comes from uncoordinated follow-up. Avoiding that not only saves lives but prevents high-cost escalations like ED visits or hospitalizations.
Will this work within our network and value-based care model?
Yes. Our model is built to work within your network, support your provider relationships, and align with your population health goals.
Whether you own your delivery system or contract it out, we help:
- Keep referrals in-network
- Make provider handoffs smoother
- Deliver more complete patient information at every step
- Strengthen the performance of value-based contracts
Final thoughts
Driving better outcomes in cancer care doesn’t require overhauling your entire system. It requires starting upstream, acting early, and supporting the care infrastructure you already have.
At Color, we help health plans act earlier in the cancer journey, strengthen existing care programs, and reduce the long-term impact of cancer on your members and your bottom line.
When we intervene upstream, before case management begins, we help prevent late-stage diagnoses, reduce unnecessary hospitalizations (which average over $20,000 per event), and cut down on avoidable gaps in care.
Want to see what practical cancer care could look like for your plan? Email us at learnmore@color.com
