What is a cancer survivorship care plan?
A survivorship care plan summarizes your treatment and outlines follow-up care, recommended tests, possible late effects, and healthy-living guidance after cancer treatment. It's a roadmap your care team builds with you for the years that come after.
The basics
What a survivorship care plan includes
A survivorship care plan is a written document created by your care team once active treatment ends. It usually has two parts: a treatment summary that records what you went through, and a follow-up plan that maps out what comes next. Survivorship care planning has long been encouraged by organizations including the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and ASCO as a way to make the transition after treatment safer and clearer.
Treatment summary
A record of your diagnosis and the surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or hormone therapy you received — useful for any clinician you see later.
Follow-up & surveillance schedule
When to return for visits, scans, and lab work so your care team can monitor your health over time.
Possible late effects
The late and long-term effects to watch for, so you know which changes are worth raising with your team.
Healthy-living guidance
Recommendations around nutrition, activity, sleep, and emotional wellbeing to support recovery and long-term health.
Why it matters
Why it matters after treatment ends
Active treatment is tightly coordinated — appointments, scans, and a team checking in constantly. When it ends, that structure falls away, even though questions about lingering effects and what to do next often don't. A survivorship care plan is meant to fill that gap: it gives you and any future clinician a shared reference for what happened and what to watch.
Having one written down means you're less likely to miss a recommended scan, more able to recognize a symptom that deserves attention, and better equipped to build steady routines for life after cancer treatment. It turns a vague "what now?" into concrete, scheduled next steps you can actually follow.
Getting yours
How to ask your care team for one
Not every clinic offers a survivorship care plan automatically, so it's worth asking. The goal is to leave your visit with a written summary and a clear follow-up schedule. A few questions to bring with you:
"Can I get a written survivorship care plan or treatment summary for my records?"
"What's my recommended follow-up and surveillance schedule, and who should I see for it?"
"Which late or long-term effects should I watch for, and when should I report them?"
"Is there a survivorship clinic or nurse navigator I can be referred to?"
For a fuller list, see our guide to questions to ask your oncologist after treatment and how to make the most of preparing for survivorship appointments.
Between visits
What to track between appointments
A care plan tells you what to monitor; the harder part is noticing patterns in the long stretches between visits. Keeping simple, honest notes across these focus areas gives you and your care team something concrete to discuss — not a diagnosis or a risk score, just patterns to discuss with your care team. Oncera organizes this across seven survivorship domains:
Physical Health
Energy, pain, and symptoms that come and go.
Emotional Wellbeing
Mood, anxiety, and how you're coping.
Sleep
Quality, duration, and changes over time.
Nutrition
Eating patterns, appetite, and weight changes.
Hormone Therapy
Side effects and how you're tolerating it.
Alcohol & Nicotine
Habits you and your team may want to revisit.
Environmental Health
Exposures and surroundings that affect wellbeing.
Working together
How Oncera complements your care plan
Oncera does not create, replace, or substitute for your official survivorship care plan — that comes from your care team and is part of your medical record. Instead, Oncera Continuum is a private, educational organizing layer that sits alongside it: a place to track patterns, make sense of how you're feeling, and arrive at appointments with doctor-ready questions. It's educational and non-diagnostic, and it never diagnoses, treats, or predicts relapse.
| Official survivorship care plan | Oncera Continuum | |
|---|---|---|
| Who creates it | Your oncologist and care team | You, with Oncera as your private organizing layer |
| What it covers | Treatment summary, surveillance schedule, late effects, and clinical guidance | Day-to-day patterns across seven survivorship domains, in plain language |
| What it's for | Your medical roadmap for follow-up care and monitoring | Staying organized between visits and preparing doctor-ready questions |
| Medical status | Part of your medical record | Educational and non-diagnostic — not a medical device |
Oncera is an educational and informational tool. It does not diagnose, treat, or predict disease or relapse, and it does not replace the medical survivorship care plan or advice your care team provides. Always follow your clinicians' guidance.
Survivorship care plan questions
What is a survivorship care plan?
A survivorship care plan is a document created by your care team that summarizes the cancer treatment you received and outlines your follow-up care — including recommended tests and visits, possible late effects to watch for, and healthy-living guidance for life after treatment.
Who creates a survivorship care plan?
Your oncologist or care team creates your official survivorship care plan, often with input from a nurse navigator or survivorship clinic. It is part of your medical record. Tools like Oncera do not create or replace this plan — they help you organize your questions and patterns between appointments.
What should a survivorship care plan include?
A complete plan typically includes a treatment summary, a follow-up and surveillance schedule, the late and long-term effects to monitor, and recommendations for nutrition, activity, and emotional wellbeing. Organizations like the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and ASCO have long supported survivorship care planning.
How do I ask my care team for a survivorship care plan?
At your next visit, ask your oncologist or nurse navigator whether a written survivorship care plan or treatment summary is available, and request a copy for your records. If your clinic uses a survivorship program, ask to be referred. Bringing a short list of questions makes the conversation more productive.
Is Oncera a survivorship care plan?
No. Oncera is an educational and informational platform — not a medical care plan, diagnostic tool, or medical device. It complements the official survivorship care plan from your care team by helping you organize symptoms, track patterns, and prepare doctor-ready questions. It does not diagnose, treat, or predict relapse.
How much does Oncera cost?
A one-time Snapshot is $8.99. Continuum, our ongoing support, is currently free for the first six months for founding-member survivors. No insurance required.
Further reading: the full survivorship care plan guide, late and long-term effects, and life after cancer treatment.
Organize your survivorship plan
Keep your follow-up questions and post-treatment patterns together in one place — alongside the care plan from your team. Continuum is free for the first six months for founding members.