Insurer defends transplant decision

Questions over whether an insurance company acted properly in denying a liver transplant to a Northridge girl continued to reverberate Monday as insurance company executives said their actions have been mischaracterized. Daily News.

In a message e-mailed to employees, CIGNA Health Care's chief medical officer Jeffrey Kang and president David Cordani said the company had done all it could for Nataline Sarkisyan, who died last week after twice being denied authorization for a liver transplant even though doctors at UCLA Medical Center said she could be saved with one.

Kang and Cordani said the insurer's initial denial of the transplant was made after "we went directly to not one, but two, independent experts in the field who agree that the procedure in question, given the patient's particular circumstances, would not have been an effective or appropriate treatment.