• Joan Rivers's Anesthesiologist Claims She Did Everything Right

    Renuka Reddy Bankulla is a name that is likely to become somewhat familiar in the coming months, as she is the anesthesiologist who has been named in Melissa Rivers's malpractice suit that was filed on behalf of her mother, Joan Rivers. Bankulla was named in the suit, along with the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic and the individual doctors who were in the procedure room at the time of Joan's cardiac arrest. Melissa's filing alleges that Bankulla failed to take the necessary steps in order to try and save her mothers' life. It is a claim that it did not take the anesthesiologist long to respond to.

  • Clinic Where Joan Rivers Suffered Cardiac Arrest Losing Funding

    The Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic where Joan Rivers suffered complications during a procedure is dealing with another strike against it today, Jan. 12. New York State's Department of Health and Human Services originally launched an investigation against the clinic shortly after Rivers's death in September and found a number of things wrong. The clinic was originally cited for leaving patient records in clear view and for a staff member taking cellphone photos of the comedienne while she was under sedation. Now we are learning that it has lost federal funding because it has yet to clean up its act. Yorkville was also originally found non-compliant in providing proper follow-up care for patients who had been under anesthesia, and it was given time to correct its errors. As it turns out, Yorkville has not met the deadline to clean up its business practices and, because of that, it will officially lose federal funding beginning Jan. 31. As of that date, the clinic can no longer accept Medicare as a form of payment, so any of their current patients who are covered under Medicare need to start shopping for new doctors now. Last week, we learned that Yorkville's former medical director, Dr. Lawrence Cohen, once wrote a paper regarding his belief that having an anesthesiologist on staff for endoscopic procedures is not "cost effective" and basically is unnecessary. Even with the extra hands and eyes on staff, Cohen still could not get Rivers safely through what was considered a routine procedure.

  • Joan Rivers Surgeon Believed Anesthesiologists in Endoscopic Procedures Are Waste of Money

    Four months after Joan Rivers died after going into cardiac arrest during what should have been a simple endoscopic procedure, we are slowly but surely learning bits and pieces about the people who were in that procedure room with her. Dr. Lawrence Cohen was the surgeon on duty and also the medical director at the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic where Rivers was a patient. In 2012, Cohen wrote an article bemoaning the cost of having an anesthesiologist on duty for simply endoscopic procedures. According to TMZ, which dug up the piece written by Cohen, the good doctor was seemingly more worried about cost-effectiveness than anything else. Cohen writes, "Although we can all agree that [monitored anesthesia care] is a highly effective and safe method of sedation, the question is whether it is worth the extra cost to our health care system." Cohen then answers his question: "The answer is clearly no." Cohen crunches the number in his article, saying the average cost for an anesthesiologist is $400 per procedure, but the risk of death is 1 out of 100,000. Cohen therefore concludes that it costs $40 million to save one life, adding that cost "far exceeds ... an acceptable level of cost-effectiveness."
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