CLINICAL PARTNERS
The work between appointments is real. It just isn't anyone's job.
Peony partners with cancer centers, oncology practices, health systems, and mission-aligned organizations to extend continuity into the space clinical encounters can't reach — without adding to clinical workload or duplicating existing roles.
THE PROBLEM YOU ALREADY KNOW
Your team sees it every week.
A woman calls the nurse line with a question that isn't clinical. She arrives at an appointment having researched something alarming at midnight. She hasn't started the referral you made six weeks ago. She's managing side effects she didn't mention because the visit was short and she didn't want to seem difficult.
None of this is a failure of care. It's the predictable result of a continuous illness meeting an episodic delivery model.
Your navigators and social workers already carry more than their caseloads allow. The gap isn't caused by a lack of skill or commitment. It's structural.
WHAT A CANCER COMPANION™ ADDS
Non-clinical support, inside a defined scope.
A Cancer Companion™ is a trained, non-clinical professional who extends continuity between encounters — facilitating a woman's own care planning, preparing her for appointments, coordinating non-clinical resources, and supporting follow-through.
Within scope, a Companion:
- Conducts non-clinical whole-person discovery and identifies navigation and support needs
- Facilitates the woman's own Peony Care Plan™
- Provides general, evidence-informed navigation education using approved resources
- Supports self-advocacy and shared decision-making
- Coordinates non-clinical resources and follow-through
- Prepares her for clinical encounters and supports her afterward
- Documents navigation in the appropriate record
- Escalates clinical concerns and psychosocial crises to the appropriate licensed professional
A Companion never diagnoses, interprets results, recommends or discourages treatment, evaluates whether an intervention is appropriate for an individual, delivers clinical or psychotherapeutic treatment, triages symptom severity, or authors clinical content.
Non-duplication is a standing rule: one activity, one owner, one time entry. Where your staffing model assigns an activity differently, your assignment governs and the Companion documents accordingly.
HOW THE ROLE FITS
Nurse navigator
Typical primary focus
Clinical navigation and triage
How a Companion differs
Non-clinical; extends continuity between encounters without triage
Oncology social worker
Typical primary focus
Licensed psychosocial assessment and crisis intervention
How a Companion differs
Supports and refers rather than assesses or intervenes
Community health worker
Typical primary focus
Community-based access and navigation
How a Companion differs
Breast-cancer-specialized, across the full continuum
Patient advocate
Typical primary focus
Advocacy; sometimes billing or insurance
How a Companion differs
Structured navigation through a single method, within a defined non-clinical scope
Complementarity is what makes the role integrable. It fills the continuous, between-encounter space no existing role is designed to hold.
PRINCIPAL ILLNESS NAVIGATION
Where the work may align with existing reimbursement.
Under the CMS Principal Illness Navigation codes, certified or trained auxiliary personnel may furnish navigation services incident to a billing practitioner, under general supervision, in a non-facility setting.
The Cancer Companion™ scope was designed with those service elements in view. Where your practice engages a Companion as auxiliary personnel, the shape of the work aligns.
Stated precisely:
- The billing practitioner submits the claim. A Companion never bills directly, and holds no billing authorization.
- Auxiliary personnel may be employed by the billing practitioner or external and under contract — a practice may contract with an organization employing them, provided all incident-to requirements are met.
- Billing eligibility, supervision, consent, and documentation are your organization's determination, subject to current payer requirements.
- CMS requires auxiliary personnel to meet applicable state requirements, or where none exist, to be trained on a defined set of core competencies. The Peony curriculum was built with those competencies in view.
We provide a crosswalk between Peony navigation activities and PIN service domains for reference. It is reference only. It is not authorization for any party to bill.
WAYS TO PARTNER
Engage a Cancer Companion™
Employ or contract a certificate holder to extend navigation capacity within your service line. Pathway A partnerships include eligibility determination, supervision, documentation ownership, and any claim submission on your side.
Educate your team
Peony PRO membership for staff across disciplines — weekly multidisciplinary education, the Care Plan Toolkit, clinical protocols, and patient education your team can share. Group arrangements available.
Offer the Care Plan
Introduce the Peony Care Plan™ to women in your service line, in print or in the Peony App. She owns it; it travels with her; it arrives at your appointments already organized.
Host a Capstone placement
Certificate learners complete supervised engagements with women who opt in through the Peony platform. Partner sites can participate in matched placements.
Collaborate on research and evaluation
Implementation, outcomes, quality improvement, and future study design. We define meaningful outcomes before making outcome claims, and would rather build the evidence with you than assert it.
WHAT WE ASK, AND WHAT WE DON'T
- We don't ask you to change clinical practice. The Method is a framework for care planning and coordination. It is not a treatment protocol, a clinical pathway, or a scope expansion.
- We don't ask for access to your medical record. Three records stay distinct: the woman's Care Plan, which she owns; the Companion's non-clinical service documentation; and your clinical record, which you own and author. A Companion never authors clinical content.
- We don't ask the women you serve to choose. Peony complements clinical care. Every published boundary, every module, and every protocol says so.
- We do ask for honest feedback on fit. This is early work with early partners, and partner feedback on integration is part of how the model develops.
SAID PLAINLY
What the certificate is and isn't.
Peony awards an educational certificate. It does not license practitioners, hold accreditation, or operate as an independent personnel-certification body.
The certificate is not licensure, accreditation, independent certification, or authorization to bill. Peony's published standards are its own standards for its program and community; they carry no statutory, governmental, or national regulatory authority.
Certificate holders in Active Standing are listed in the Peony Directory, which is how an employer verifies that a Companion holds the credential they claim.
Peony educates. Peony does not employ, supervise, or place Companions, and carries no liability for their practice. Employment, supervision, insurance, and scope in any given setting rest with the engaging organization or with the Companion in independent practice.
MISSION-ALIGNED ORGANIZATIONS
Nonprofits, advocacy groups, and community programs.
Many organizations already deliver education, navigation, and support to women with breast cancer. We do not replace those programs. We strengthen them.
Partnership can include shared education, access to the Care Plan for the women you serve, professional development for your staff, and collaboration on reaching women who are currently underserved.
Start with a conversation.
We'll want to understand your service line, your existing navigation capacity, and where continuity is breaking down before proposing anything.