Care Coaches: Your Steady Guides Through All Things Cancer and Recovery

Going through cancer treatment is a little bit like running a small city. You need to interface with different institutions and professionals, access insurance coverage, engage in financial planning, and make medical decisions. There is every aspect of personal health and wellness care to consider, from nutrition and mental health care to physical therapy and medication management. On its easiest day, this is a full-time job. Plus, it’s one that you’re pressed into doing during a time when you’re dealing with the exhaustion and illness of both treatment side effects and cancer. 

For many people, asking for help from caregivers with this mountain of administrative tasks can be challenging, because worries about burdening their loved ones make it hard to reach out. So folks tend to try to soldier through, doing their best to keep up with all the decisions, tasks, appointments, and concerns. 

If this seems like an impossible conundrum, that’s because it is. You need help, and the help you need might look different from one day to the next. Fighting cancer is hard enough, so we’ve put together a team of Care Coaches who can step in and provide a helping hand and a pressure release valve to patients and caregivers alike.

What is a Care Coach, and what do they do?

A Jasper Care Coach is a professionally trained advocate and support source who can serve as a bridge between you and the services and resources you need to access. Our Care Coaches come with diverse experience in the healthcare industry, with backgrounds in, for example, health and nutrition coaching, patient care, social work, case management, oncology nursing, and managed health care. They are not focused on making medical decisions, diagnoses, or clinical interventions)—rather, they are sources of psychosocial support. 

In cancer treatment, psychosocial support can take many different forms. Some days it might look like walking you through a complex Explanation of Benefits (EOB) form from a recent treatment. On others, it might be serving as a compassionate ear to listen to your fears and worries. The list of services your Care Coach can provide you is as long as the list of your needs. For some needs—like emotional support, nutrition advice, financial guidance, and self-care coaching—your Care Coach can help you directly. For others, like medical care, and mental health care, they will help you find the appropriate provider, program, or resource—and they will do more than just pass on contact information. They will stay with you, one step at a time, until you’ve gotten settled into the service you need. 

Leaning on a Care Coach is different from relying on a caregiver in several important ways. For one, there’s no emotional barrier with a Care Coach, and you don’t have to worry about managing or protecting their feelings (which can often come up with loved ones). For another, Care Coaches are formally trained and professionally connected to the oncology community, which gives them a leg up on accessing the care that you may need. Tasks that might take your loving caregiver months to become adept at, like finding a local resource that will fit your cancer needs, are second nature to a Care Coach, so working with them can also be a matter of efficiency. 

Think of your Care Coach as your coach for oncology care. They can provide you with education on how to manage your care, help you learn to build awareness around your symptoms, offer you nutritional counseling, and teach you about the importance of side effect awareness. They can guide you to financial resources like aid programs, grants, and advisors, address non-medical issues, and link you up with support groups (online or offline). 

Need some no-strings emotional comfort or support? Care Coaches do that, too. They can help you learn healthy coping mechanisms, support you through your survivorship, and connect you with resources within the oncology community. If there’s something you need and you don’t know how to get or do, ask your Care Coach about it. They’re there for you to streamline the complementary aspects of your care so that you can spend your precious energy on recovering. 

How to access your Jasper Care Coach 

Having direct personal contact with someone who is specially trained to help you with your problems sounds too good to be true—it must be expensive or exclusive, like concierge medicine, right? Nope. For just $99/year, you (and/or your caregivers) receive unlimited access to our team of Care Coaches, who are available 24/7.

To get connected with a Care Coach, simply sign in to your Jasper account at hellojasper.com and click on the Care Coach icon in the top menu (if using a desktop browser) or the bottom menu (if using a mobile browser or the Jasper mobile app). Alternatively, you can reach a Care Coach by emailing us at [email protected], or setting up a personal one-on-one session using this scheduling link. (If you make a connection with a particular Care Coach, you are always welcome to request to speak to them by name.) 

Let us help you navigate your treatment

Feeling lonely and overwhelmed is very common for people with cancer. There is so much new information to process, and there are so many different needs to meet. You are suddenly pushed to depend a lot on your friends and family—and much of what you need is outside the scope of their expertise. Learning to navigate treatment is like learning a new language, in a new country. A trusted Care Coach is exactly what the name implies: a well-traveled guide to walk beside you with support and expertise, lighting the way and reminding you that you are not alone.

The content on this website is intended to provide the best possible information for you, but should not be considered—or used as a substitute for—medical advice. If you have questions about your diagnosis or treatment, please contact your health care provider(s). For questions or comments about this content, please email us at [email protected].