MD Anderson’s Pre-Intake Navigation program helps patients address insurance, financial, and access barriers before their first visit. By embedding trained health information specialists into the call center workflow, the program supported over 33,000 prospective patients, improved first-visit completion, and reduced avoidable delays in care.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, developed a novel Pre-Intake Navigation (PIN) program, which identifies and resolves early financial and insurance barriers, enabling patients to access timely, high-quality cancer care with less anxiety and fewer delays. PIN shifts financial navigation from a late-stage, reactive task to an early, standardized, patient‑centered process embedded in the call center workflow.
In this episode, CANCER BUZZ speaks with 2026 ACCC Innovator Award winner Cathleen Hernandez-Vita, BSN, RN, ONN-CG, Associate Director of MDAnderson Navigation Services at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, about how her team worked to address these challenges. The program developed a novel Pre-Intake Navigation (PIN) program to identify and resolve early financial and insurance barriers, enabling patients to access timely, high-quality cancer care with less anxiety and fewer delays. Hernandez-Vita shares how PIN shifts financial navigation from a late-stage, reactive task to an early, standardized, patient-centered process embedded in the call center workflow.