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Insurance mega-giant, CIGNA Corporation, refused to pay for a liver transplant of a 17 year old girl after doctors, nurses and others pled with the company to provide coverage. The girl died in the process and now CIGNA faces a lawsuit by her parents.
A tragic case
It’s a Christmas that one California family will never forget. This story has made national news – not only because of the tragic circumstances surrounding CIGNA’s failure to provide coverage, but also because so many people contacted the insurer to plead this teenager’s case.
According to news sources, the 17 year old developed leukemia three years prior. She received a bone marrow transplant from her brother after Thanksgiving, but something went wrong and she needed an immediate liver transplant. CIGNA, her healthcare provider, refused to pay for the transplant – calling the procedure “experimental”.
Everyone urged CIGNA to act
Her doctors and nurses at the UCLA Medical Center, along with various members of the community, actually rallied outside of one of CIGNA’s California offices in an attempt to get the insurer to reconsider. In fact, four of the girl’s doctors reportedly sent a personal letter to CIGNA on December 11th explaining the situation and urging the insurer to cover the transplant. Although it finally did, the decision didn’t come until Thursday, December 20th. The girl died on Friday, December 21st, before the transplant could be performed.
Grieving family vows to sue
The girl’s grief stricken family has said that CIGNA could have prevented this. The family’s attorney has said that they plan to sue CIGNA, but haven’t yet filed the suit. Although the family could possibly sue the insurer under several theories of law, their attorney has reported that he is going to speak to the District Attorney’s office about filing murder or manslaughter charges against CIGNA – an unusual tactic even in an egregious case such as this.
CIGNA’s response
Although CIGNA publicly extended their condolences to the family, it does not feel responsible for the teen’s death. In a company website statement to CIGNA employees (www.cigna.com), CIGNA HealthCare President David Cordani and Chief Medical Officer Jeffrey Kang, M.D., M.P.H, said:
Our commitment, as always, is to assure that our members receive the highest quality health care, and we thought it important to make clear to all of you that in this case we fulfilled our responsibilities correctly and with the utmost integrity...
Given the pride and commitment that each of you have for our organization, receiving unfair criticism, as we have in this case, can be difficult for all of us. We take our commitment to our members extremely seriously, and we will carefully guard our reputation in that regard.
