Cigna Corp.'s chief medical officer said today that the Philadelphia health insurer wasn't responsible for paying for a California teen's liver transplant, but offered to do so out of "empathy." Cigna initially denied coverage for a transplant for Nataline Sarkisyan, a cancer patient whose liver failed after a bone-marrow transplant. That decision sparked protests on her behalf. She died on the day Cigna reversed its decision.
In a written statement on Cigna's Web site, Jeffrey Kang said the money for Sarkisyan's transplant would normally have come from her father's employer, a self-insured business whose medical plan is administered by Cigna. Kang said that Cigna decided to pay for the care itself even though it had concluded that the "treatment would be unproven and ineffective" and not covered by the Sarkisyans' health plan. In his statement, Kang said: "Given our empathy for this family and the unique circumstances of this situation, Cigna volunteered, entirely independent of any plan or coverage decision and outside of the medical review process, to pay out of our pocket -- not the employer's pocket -- for a transplant should Ms. Sarkisyan's doctors decide to proceed."
