Blue Cross is being sued for denying rehabiliation treatment in a woman’s alcohol-related death

“Sandra S. Lobb, a 57-year-old high school teacher, was divorced, living alone, and killing herself with gin.

Her family urgently wanted to place her in a residential alcohol-treatment program.

The family says that Independence Blue Cross rejected that treatment as being “unnecessary” in August 1997 – at a time when Lobb was hospitalized for alcohol-related health problems and her doctor strongly recommended that she receive intensive rehabilitation treatment.

Eighteen months later, the Kennett Square woman died of alcohol-related causes.

In an unusual lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Lobb’s older daughter, Kimberly P. Johnson, the executor of her estate, blames Blue Cross for her mother’s death and accuses the giant health insurer of usurping the role of Lobb’s doctor in deciding what treatment was ‘medically necessary’ for her.”