Health Net Sued in Bone Marrow Transplant Case
Health Net of Woodland Hills has been sued by a woman who says the health maintenance organization wrongly refused to pay for a bone marrow transplant to treat her breast cancer.
The suit contends Health Net interfered with the doctor-patient relationship by pressuring physicians at UCLA Medical School to withdraw their support for the operation. The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Health Net lost a similar case last December when a jury in state court in Riverside awarded $89.3 million to the family of Nelene Fox of Riverside, who died of breast cancer. Health Net is appealing the award. The latest suit was filed last Tuesday in the same court and involves Christine deMeurers, a schoolteacher in Murietta.
“This is managed care at its worst,” said Mark O. Hiepler, DeMeurers’ lawyer, who is based in Oxnard. Health Net lawyer Lyle Swallow denied that the company pressured the woman’s doctors. An advisory panel of medical experts had determined the bone marrow transplant to be an experimental treatment not covered by Health Net, Swallow said.
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