How a screening actually gets done.
Stage Zero runs on peer-reviewed risk models and national screening guidelines, with human navigators doing the follow-through. No proprietary black box, no AI making clinical calls. Here's each step.
Almost all of the lift is ours.
The fear with any new benefit is the implementation drag and the launch that nobody opens. Here's the actual division of labor.
Your team
- Share an eligibility file
- Approve and send a short launch communication
- Receive a quarterly population report
No clinic to build, no network to change, no claims integration required to start.
Stage Zero
- Run risk stratification across the population
- Build each person's screening plan and reach out
- Navigate every screening through your existing network
- Track results, escalate findings, and document delivery
- Report outcomes back, de-identified
Find the people screening helps most.
Employees complete a structured health assessment — personal history, family history, lifestyle and exposure factors. Validated clinical models turn those inputs into individual risk profiles and a population-level map.
| Model | Primary use | Provenance |
|---|---|---|
| Gail / BCRAT | Breast cancer risk (5-year and lifetime) | National Cancer Institute; validated across large populations and used in clinical practice for decades |
| Tyrer-Cuzick (IBIS) | Breast cancer risk incorporating extended family history and density factors | Peer-reviewed; widely used to determine eligibility for enhanced surveillance |
| BOADICEA / CanRisk | Breast and ovarian risk, multifactorial including polygenic inputs | University of Cambridge; prospectively validated, peer-reviewed |
| PLCOm2012 | Lung cancer risk; low-dose CT eligibility refinement | Derived from the PLCO trial; peer-reviewed and externally validated |
Risk models are decision-support inputs to guideline-based screening plans — they refine who is reached first and who may qualify for enhanced surveillance. They are not diagnoses, and they never replace clinical judgment. Where no validated risk model exists for a cancer (colorectal and cervical screening, for example), plans follow guideline age and history criteria directly.
A plan built for one person, and a human who makes sure it happens.
Person-centered plan
Each member receives a screening plan built from USPSTF, NCCN, and American Cancer Society guidelines for their age, sex, risk profile, and history — mammography, cervical screening, colonoscopy or FIT, low-dose CT, PSA shared decision-making — with plain-language explanations of why each one matters for them.
Person-to-person navigation
Navigators work entirely within your existing health-plan network — helping members find covered, in-network providers, book appointments, prepare for tests, and stay on schedule. No new network to stand up, no out-of-network surprises. Delivered virtually, a model the HRSA guidelines explicitly recognize; members keep their own doctors and we never insert ourselves into care decisions.
Follow-up through resolution
Navigation doesn't stop at the first appointment. We track results, navigate follow-up imaging or pathology when a screen needs completion, and escalate care gaps under defined clinical protocols overseen by our Chief Medical Advisor — an unresolved abnormal result is exactly what early detection is supposed to prevent.
What makes navigation work.
It shows up in two places a benefits team cares about: how many screenings actually happen, and what each one costs.
Engagement, not just outreach
Wellness nudges get archived unread. A person who calls, explains why it matters for you, books around your schedule, and follows up is how a screening plan turns into completed screenings. Lifting completion is the whole job. A benefit nobody uses doesn't lower anyone's spend.
At-home options, where appropriate
For the screenings where a clinically validated at-home test is an option, we offer it — removing the time-off, travel, and scheduling friction that stops many people from ever starting. Lower barrier, higher completion, lower cost per screen.
Site-of-care steerage
The same test can cost meaningfully more at one in-network facility than another. Navigators steer members to the high-quality sites that also cost less: better experience for the member, lower spend for the plan, same clinical standard, no benefit change required.
Measured like a program, documented like a compliance control.
What employers and brokers see
- Stratification coverage — share of the population assessed
- Screening adherence at baseline vs. current
- Navigations initiated and screenings completed
- Care gaps identified and closed
- HRSA navigation delivery documentation, audit-ready
All reporting is de-identified and population-level. Employers never see individual results.
What members see
- Their personal risk profile, explained in plain language
- A clear screening plan with the "why" behind each item
- One place to schedule, prepare, and track
- A navigator who follows up like a person, not a ticket queue
Explanations are educational. Diagnosis and treatment decisions always belong to the member and their clinicians.
Built around HIPAA from the first schema, not bolted on after.
Deterministic clinical logic
Risk calculation and screening recommendations are deterministic and auditable. AI helps explain — it never decides. The line between explanation and clinical decision-making is a hard architectural boundary, not a policy memo.
PHI encrypted at rest
Protected health information is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM envelope encryption and in transit with TLS. Access is role-scoped and logged. Employers receive de-identified aggregates only.
Light integration surface
Launch requires an eligibility file and a communications plan — that's it. Optional integrations (SSO, claims feeds for adherence baselining) deepen the program but never gate the start.
Weeks, not quarters.
Weeks 1–2 — Setup
Eligibility file exchange, communications planning with HR, program configuration (plan year, network, existing benefits to hand off to).
Weeks 3–4 — Launch
Member communications go out; assessments open; first risk stratification of the population completes; navigation begins with the highest-need members.
Quarterly — Stewardship
Population reporting to HR and your consultant: coverage, adherence lift, gaps closed, and navigation documentation for the compliance file.