Posted on 04/10/2026 11:45:02 AM PDT by DFG
It didn’t matter that Eric Tennant’s oncologist had recommended the medication to shrink his tumors.
The patient’s health insurance allegedly stood in the way — until it was too late.
In early 2025, after more than two years of chemotherapy that hollowed him out from the inside, the frail 58-year-old was deemed a good candidate for histotripsy, a new treatment that could target the tumors in his liver with ultrasound waves instead of surgery.
Tennant’s wife, Rebecca, had heard of histotripsy and brought the idea to her husband’s doctor. There was a relatively narrow window in which he could receive the treatment, and his medical team was ready to start.
But suddenly Tennant’s doctors were handicapped: His insurance had denied the request, noting in the paperwork that the potentially life-saving treatment was “not medically necessary,” per NBC News and KFF Health News.
Multiple rounds of appeals were unsuccessful. Out-of-pocket costs for the Tennant family — which included Eric, his wife and their two grown children — would have been around $50,000.
Tennant, a mining safety instructor from Bridgeport, West Virginia, was put on hospice last year and died in September.
“He wasn’t afraid to die, but he didn’t want to die,” Rebecca told KFF. “And you could tell the last day that he was fighting it big time.”
Tennant had been diagnosed with stage 4 cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer that attacked his bile ducts before spreading to other parts of his body. By the time Rebecca discovered histotripsy, his largest tumor was in his liver.
It was unlikely that the proposed treatment would have sent Tennant into full remission, but the family believed it could have bought him some more time.
This tragic turn of events is not uncommon.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
yet if his name was Pepito and he entered this country illegally and he didn’t spek english and he had no insurance, the procedure would’ve been covered 100%....
Is the name of the insurance company a secret?
Better to go into debt and then Sue the insurance company for fraudulently taking your insurance payments and then denying life saving treatment!
Last year two of my brothers died two days apart with different stage 4 cancers.
I sure butchered that sentence but I hope you understood it.
“and his medical team was ready to start”
but only if fully funded by an outside source.
I aint doing this for free or if not guaranteed my money
I am currentlt going through something similar. Consulting with my oncologist team next week about doing this.
Will cost them more than what they would have paid for his treatment; sharks circling.
If you have a life threatening issue….just go to Anderson or Mayo.
JUST GO …..
hoping for the best for you. fingers crossed.
Same company I'm currently under for my job, and apparently so screwy that a certain idiot saw fit to assassinate the CEO two years ago. Is it possible for me to feel sympathy for the idiot while still condemning what he did? I think so.
Trump might actually be on to something here, with his alleged Medicaid cuts. Let the whole public-private socialist experiment burn to the ground, so we can go back to catastrophic-only insurance and relatively inexpensive doctor's appointments.
“new treatment” usually means “experimental”. That is a definition that is used to indicate that it is not FDA approved.
If it HAS been FDA approved, most insurance companies will entertain explanations from the doctors.
My wife has been through a lot of issues: Pancreatic Cancer, Volvus surgery, a Whipple, Chemo, Ostomy reversal, 3 SCAD hear attacks, and a Mitral Valve Prolapse repair three weeks ago.
We deal with insurance. A lot.
It is my experience that while they are a bureaucracy, they are usually willing to listen and make adjustments based on case history and input from specialists.
But I also know if you toss out the word “experimental” or try to apply a medication/treatment that is not designated from your disease, the conversation stops almost immediately.
This is why you need an advocate every time you step into this process. They can help navigate the process. The average person is soon overwhelmed by this. I’ve witnessed a lot of this first hand. It’s sad, but its is not just the insurance companies being a-holes.
It means it has spread from the original site. While often that may mean it is not totally curable, it is often treatable. People can and often do live longer with targeted treatments.
Obamacare is trash. Free care for every turd in the world that walks across the border but nothing for Americans.
However, did the family use every available option? There are many programs to help in these situations. “
Out-of-pocket costs for the Tennant family — which included Eric, his wife and their two grown children — would have been around $50,000.”
And thanks to Obamacare it all resets and that’s a standard rate for Obamacare even BEFORE using it. I looked at the garbage plans in my state and just the premium for myself was pushing $12000 a year and had a $5000 out of pocket before they covered a penny.
Good luck and God Bless.
So the poor guy had suffered from cancer for multiple years, the insurance co paid for multiple rounds of treatment to no avail, the cancer had metastisized into critial organs, and his desperate wife proposed an experimental “treatment” that was not expected to do more than prolong the agony.
As easy as it is to make insurance companies the villain, declining to fund quackery in these circumstances seems reasonable, pending better information.
There are lots of expensive treatments that do little to nothing, I don’t want to pay for them,
I don’t disagree with you but according to the article this guy was not covered under obummercare- not that it matters
“Per KFF, the late Tennant was insured by the Public Employees Insurance Agency of West Virginia, which partners with UnitedHealthcare.”
“As easy as it is to make insurance companies the villain, declining to fund quackery in these circumstances seems reasonable, pending better information.”
And don’t forget if they paid for things like this, premiums would go up for everyone else or other more practical treatments would be denied to prevent premium increases.
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