UPDATE: I figured it out, but not in a great way. What I did was give the platform a child object that was slightly bigger than the hitbox, and then added an on collision event with the child object. From there, I performed the same "is entity in front?" check.
Problems with this method: One, it may glitch out if multiple entities are near the same platform. Two, the player might skip the child object event if their fps is low or something, and end up bumping into the platform before it can be adjusted. (not sure if the second one is true)