Early last year, four Delaware patients needed emergency heart-related procedures only days after Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware refused to pay for a nuclear cardiac stress test to measure blood flow to the heart, according to results of a state investigation. But the final outcome is known for only one of those patients—Michael Fields, the 46-year-old Maryland man whose story of successful emergency bypass surgery reported in The News Journal in March 2010 triggered state and federal investigations of preauthorization denials by insurers. A legislator in Dover is now pressing to know what happened to the other three patients. "There's a part of this report that's missing," said Rep. Danny Short, R-Seaford. "Did the patients get the treatment they needed? Did they survive? Are they back at work? Let's get personal on this and find out truly what the outcome was." Citing patient privacy, BCBSD would not comment on the outcomes of the four patients who ended up hospitalized after a preauthorization for the critical test was denied.
