Stephanie works hard to coordinate chemotherapy and radiation therapy for her head and neck cancer patients. Standard of care is for treatment at the same time. Many times she is contacted at the last minute that radiation therapy is ready to start. We now have a new financial process that requires chemotherapy orders be submitted 2 days before treatment is started to allow time for financial precert, making the process even more challenging.

On Monday Stephanie was concerned because she hadn't been notified of the start date for one of her pending patients only to find out that the patient was scheduled to start the next day. When the patient found out he wasn't scheduled for chemo he was quite angry. Being very pro-active Stephanie got the doctor to write chemo orders right away and she took them to the financial team and explained that she needed a rush precert. Then she called and made appointments for labs and chemo.

Unfortunately she came across a few 'attitudes' because she was breaking all the rules. Once she got the financial approval and chair time she personally called the service line director to verify that it was OK to treat despite the fact that the orders were not in on time. The patient got their chemo and radiation the next day on time thanks to Stephanie's persistence. She is truly a patient advocate and changing what's possible.