How we build your plan
Last updated: July 2026
NeverMissHealth's catalog covers 71 cancer types across 97 guideline-backed items. Every one of them traces back to a named public source — never our own opinion, and never a generic checklist.
Primary sources
USPSTF — U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
The primary source for average-risk screening recommendations (colorectal, breast, cervical, lung, and more), including its letter grades (A/B recommend, D recommend against, I insufficient evidence).
ACS — American Cancer Society
Screening guidance where it differs from or extends USPSTF, and the primary source for cancers with no formal screening test — where ACS instead publishes warning signs to watch for.
NCCN — National Comprehensive Cancer Network
Genetic/familial high-risk assessment and surveillance protocols for people with a confirmed hereditary syndrome or strong family history — the source for most of the catalog's "high-risk" items.
Specialty societies
Rarer cancers and hereditary syndromes are covered by the specialty body that actually owns that area of medicine — not by stretching USPSTF, ACS, or NCCN past what they publish. The catalog currently draws on:
The four item types
Every catalog item is exactly one of four kinds. Across the full catalog that's 6 screening items, 39 surveillance items, 1 shared-decision item, and 51 awareness items. Your own plan is a subset of these — only the items that apply to your age, sex, and history make it onto your timeline.
Screening
Has a real due date and can go overdue — the tests most people picture: colonoscopy, mammogram, Pap/HPV test, low-dose CT for smokers, and so on. These are guideline-recommended for people at average risk.
Surveillance
Also dated, but only for people who meet a specific, confirmed high-risk criterion — a genetic syndrome, a strong family history, or a diagnosed precursor condition. Ungated surveillance items don't exist in the catalog on purpose: nothing fires for everybody by default.
Shared decision
A "talk to your doctor about whether this is right for you" item — most commonly prostate PSA testing. Never dated, never overdue, because the guidelines themselves leave the decision to you and your doctor.
Awareness
No test and no date. For most cancer types, no organization recommends a screening test for people at average risk — often because no test has been shown to help, or because false alarms would cause more harm than the disease it might catch. For these, the catalog carries warning signs to watch for instead of inventing an appointment.
How often the catalog changes
Guidelines change less often than people expect, but they do change — USPSTF and ACS both periodically revise recommendations as new evidence arrives. When a source updates its guidance, we update the corresponding catalog item and cite the new version. You don't need to check for this yourself: retake the questionnaire any time from your settings page and your plan is rebuilt against the current catalog, without losing your history of completed screenings.
What NeverMissHealth is
A reminder service. It reads public guidelines, applies them to your answers, and tells you which screenings those guidelines suggest and when — then follows up by email until you've done them, wherever in the world you happen to live.
What NeverMissHealth is not
Not a medical provider. Not a diagnostic tool. It never tells you that you have, or likely have, cancer or any other condition, and it never overrides a doctor's judgment. See the medical disclaimer for the full detail.