Critical chemo treatment nearly missed over insurance authorization question

A Seattle-area cancer patient had a big scare on Friday when she almost missed a critical chemotherapy appointment.

Hours before the treatment, she was told she didn’t have insurance authorization.

Shelly Eidsness has advanced ovarian cancer.

Doctors were able to remove 90% of the cancer in a 2021 surgery.

“We’ve been dealing with the 10% that’s been left behind,” she said.

That means chemotherapy, and for the first time in six months, her cancer levels are down.

“To have that kind of progress and now to have this setback, it’s just devastating, it just really is,” Eidsness said midday on Friday.

The setback she’s talking about happened hours before her Friday morning appointment at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Her doctor’s office called to say it had not received insurance authorization for her latest round of chemotherapy, so it couldn’t go forward.

The timing for her type of protocol is critical and can’t be easily shifted.

“Someone is deciding my quality of life, and whether I live or die. That’s how it feels,” Eidsness said.

Not long after KIRO 7 began inquiring, Eidsness got a call to come for an afternoon appointment and get the treatment after all.

UW Medicine tells KIRO 7 the insurance authorization just arrived.

The insurance company tells us that authorization was there all along.

It’s not clear exactly what happened to cause the delay, but it is clear Shelly Eidsness is getting treatment again, only a few hours late.

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