For nearly three years, Eric Tennant endured chemotherapy infusions, rounds of radiation, biopsies, and hospitalizations that left him weak and depleted.
“It’s good to be home,” he said after one hospital stay in early June, “yet I’m tired and ready to get on with things.”
In 2023, Tennant, of Bridgeport, West Virginia, was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile ducts that had spread throughout his body.
None of the initial treatments prescribed by his doctors had eradicated the cancer. But a glimmer of hope came in early 2025, when Tennant was recommended for histotripsy, a relatively new procedure that would use ultrasound waves to target, and potentially destroy, the largest tumor in his body — in his liver.
“My dad was a little nervous because it was something new, but it definitely gave us some hope that he would be around a little bit longer,” said Tennant’s daughter, Amiya.
There was just one hitch: His insurer wouldn’t pay for it.
Tennant, 58, died of cancer on Sept. 17. His story illustrates how a bureaucratic process called prior authorization can devastate patients and their families.
Becky Tennant thinks her husband might have lived longer if their health insurer had not repeatedly denied a new treatment recommended by his doctor early this year. “It may not have changed the outcome,” she says, “but they took that away from us to know.” (Rebecca Tennant)
For months, Eric Tennant’s health insurer refused to cover a cancer treatment recommended by his doctor, claiming the procedure was “not medically necessary,” a common reason used by insurers to deny care. (A porti …