A surgeon slammed UnitedHealthcare after the insurance giant allegedly questioned his patient’s care while she was on the operating table.
Texas plastic surgeon Dr. Elisabeth Potter claims to have performed breast reconstructive surgery on a breast cancer survivor when she received a phone call in the operating room.
Midway through the surgery, Dr. Potter was allegedly told to contact UnitedHealthcare “right now” about the patient on the operating table, forcing her to stop the surgery and take the call.
The insurance representative allegedly said he needed information about the patient’s diagnosis to determine “whether her hospitalization should be justified.”
Dr. Potter he said in a TikTok video this week: ‘I said, “Do you understand that she’s asleep right now and that she has breast cancer?” and the gentleman said, “I actually don’t know. That’s a different department that would know that information.”
“This has never happened to me before,” he said. ‘It’s out of control. Insurance is out of control. I have no other words.’
UnitedHealthcare told DailyMail.com that Dr. Potter’s claims are unsubstantiated and that the company would never ask a doctor to abandon surgery.
A company spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘There are no insurance-related circumstances that would require a doctor to abandon surgery and would create potential safety risks if they did so.
“We did not ask nor would we expect a physician to interrupt a patient’s care to answer a call and we will follow up with the provider and hospital to understand why these unorthodox actions were taken.”
Texas plastic surgeon Dr. Elisabeth Potter (pictured) claims she was forced to stop surgery on a breast cancer patient after UnitedHealthcare allegedly asked whether the patient’s care should be justified.
Stopping surgery can increase the risk of infections as the area outside the operating room is not sterile (file image)
Dr. Potter says she was performing a bilateral deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap procedure, which reconstructs the breasts after a mastectomy.
Mastectomies, which remove one or both breasts, are performed on breast cancer patients to remove diseased tissue.
According to data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), around 100,000 breast reconstructive surgeries are performed each year, making it one of the most common procedures in the US.
Without insurance, DIEP flap surgery costs between $30,000 and $50,000.
A 2020 ASPS study found that between 2012 and 2017, 28 percent of patients were denied coverage for their breast reconstructive surgeries.
Dr. Potter claims she had to leave the operating room to take the call, which could have increased the patient’s risk of infection since the area outside the operating room is not sterile.
The patient would also have to be under anesthesia for longer, making them more prone to complications such as nausea and blood clots.
UnitedHealthcare is the nation’s largest health insurance conglomerate.
The company expected to generate revenue of $450 billion in 2025, and Thompson is believed to earn a salary in the region of $10 million a year.
UnitedHealthcare’s leadership is in hot water over its history of denying medically necessary treatments, an issue that is believed to have led Luigi Mangione, 26, to allegedly murder one of the company’s top executives.
UnitedHealthcare has also been accused of using an artificial intelligence program with a 90 percent error rate to reject claims.
UnitedHealthcare leadership has come under fire for denied claims after the murder of CEO Brian Thompson, pictured.
In the weeks following Thompson’s murder, patients and healthcare providers like Dr. Potter shared their stories of denied claims.
A pediatric neurology nurse on Reddit said the company has allegedly denied anti-seizure medications to children with epilepsy.
The nurse wrote: ‘We have UHC that denies seizure medications that we can definitively say will benefit patients based on their EEG results because it is not UHC’s preferred medication.
‘The patient first has to stop taking the preferred medication. And if it fails, this means that the patient has to have a large number of seizures. “So these kids have to take their damn brains out to get a drug that we know will control their seizures.”
Uncontrolled seizures can damage neurons and brain cells, causing irreversible brain damage.
And an explosive report published by ProPublica found that UnitedHealthcare has allegedly been working to eliminate therapies for more than 10,000 autistic children.
TikTok users responded to Dr. Potter’s video with surprise and disgust.
One user said: ‘So instead of calling the other department at United, they call a surgeon to come out of surgery?’
Another wrote: ‘That’s scandalous! A doctor leaving a consultation to talk to his insurance. No.’
And one said, ‘That’s literally INSANE.’