Family Blames Insurance Company for Teen’s Death
Monday , December 29, 2008

LOS ANGELES – The family of a 17-year-old leukemia patient has sued health
insurance giant Cigna Corp. for her death in 2007 after the company initially
refused to pay for a liver transplant.
The lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court by the
family’s attorney, Mark Geragos, alleges breach of contract, unfair business
practices and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit accuses
Cigna of delaying and rejecting valid claims, which resulted in the wrongful
death of Nataline Sarkisyan.
The Philadelphia-based insurer eventually approved the transplant after
Sarkisyan’s family held a rally outside Cigna’s suburban Los Angeles office.
Nataline, however, died hours after the approval was secured.
Chris Curran, a spokesman for Cigna, said the company empathizes with the
family but feels the lawsuit is without merit. Curran said Cigna volunteered to
pay for the procedure out of its own pocket and not the employer’s.
"This decision was made despite the fact that Cigna had no obligation to do
so and despite concluding, based on the information available, that the
treatment would be unproven and ineffective and therefore experimental and not
covered by the employer’s benefit plan," Curran said, reading from a statement.
But Charles Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses Association, said
insurance companies are "in business to provide profits for shareholders, not
to provide care."
"Nataline Sarkisyan’s case serves as a tragic poster child for everything
that’s wrong with our insurance based health care system," he said. "Why did it
take public humiliation for Cigna Corporation to approve a transplant?"
Nataline was diagnosed with leukemia at 14 and received a bone marrow
transplant from her brother the day before Thanksgiving 2007. A complication,
however, caused the teen’s liver to fail.
The family had asked Cigna to pay for a liver transplant but the insurer
refused, calling the procedure experimental.
In a subsequent letter to Cigna, four doctors from Mattel Children’s Hospital
at UCLA Medical Center appealed to the insurer to reconsider. They said
patients in similar situations who undergo transplants have a six-month survival
rate of about 65 percent.
The insurer eventually reversed the decision while about 150 nurses and
community members rallied outside its office in Glendale.
By this time, however, the teen had fallen into a vegetative state and was
taken off life support. She died within the hour.