When Bean Counters Kill: CIGNA Says No to Transplant, Nataline Sarkisyan Dies
A modern horror story. Nataline Sarkisyan died hours after CIGNA reversed its denial of a liver transplant after public protests.
A grieving family is blaming an insurance company for the death Thursday of a 17-year-old leukemia patient, who died hours after the company reversed course and agreed to pay for her to receive a liver transplant.
Nataline Sarkisyan was being treated at UCLA Medical Center, where she had been unresponsive in intensive care for about three weeks, her mother said.
“She had a 65% chance of survival if she had gotten the liver,” Hilda Sarkisyan said from her home this morning.
The Sarkisyans’ insurer, Philadelphia-based Cigna HealthCare, denied the transplant earlier this month.
Doctors at UCLA sent a letter Dec. 11 to Cigna emphasizing that Nataline was eligible for a transplant, Hilda Sarkisyan said. But Cigna refused to pay, citing a lack of medical evidence the procedure would help.
Hilda Sarkisyan said the company was trying to save money. “They just like to collect. They don’t want to deliver,” she said.
On Thursday, the family rallied supporters online and staged a protest at Cigna’s Glendale office with about 150 people, including many members of the local Armenian community and the California Nurses Assn., which had released statements supporting the family’s cause.
Later in the day, Cigna released a statement approving the transplant payment.
An ABCNews article quotes the family’s attorney.
Attorney Mark Geragos said that Cigna “maliciously killed her” and that he hopes to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare for the death of Sarkisyan.
District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons declined to comment on the request for murder or manslaughter charges, saying it would be inappropriate to do so until Geragos submits evidence supporting his request.
“They took my daughter away from me,” said Nataline’s father, Krikor, who appeared at a news conference with his 21-year-old son, Bedros.
The article goes on to note the doctors urged CIGNA to reverse its decision.
Geri Jenkins of the California Nurses Association said the Sarkisyans had insurance, and medical providers felt comfortable performing the medical procedure. In that situation, the the insurer should defer to medical experts, she said.
“They have insurance, and there’s no reason that the doctors’ judgment should be overrided by a bean counter sitting there in an insurance office,” Jenkins said.
Doctors at the UCLA Medical Center actually signed a letter urging Cigna to review its decision. Nataline Sarkisyan was sedated into a coma to stabilize her as the family filed appeals in the case.
During the middle of Thursday’s protest, Hilda Sarkisyan fielded a call from Cigna alerting her that her daughter’s procedure had been given the green light. Cigna released a statement announcing the company “decided to make an exception in this rare and unusual case and we will provide coverage should she proceed with the requested liver transplant.”
Clearly, medical decisions are the purview of doctors, patients and their families and the interests and, indeed, the lives of patients can be and are lost when insurance companies ascribe to cost cutting motives.
Here are a couple of news reports on the tragedy.