{"id":696772,"date":"2026-06-11T01:31:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696772\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T01:31:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:31:22","slug":"a-montana-hospital-tried-to-build-a-cutting-edge-heart-program-doctors-left-in-the-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696772\/","title":{"rendered":"A Montana hospital tried to build a cutting-edge heart program. Doctors left in the process."},"content":{"rendered":"

When Bette Albright took an emergency flight to Salt Lake City in August 2025, her family prayed that doctors there would be able to save her life.<\/p>\n

Albright, 75, had a small tear in her aorta, the site of an unsuccessful heart valve replacement she had undergone weeks earlier at Benefis Health System, a nonprofit hospital with a primary campus in Great Falls and locations throughout central Montana.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Utah, medical records show that doctors couldn\u2019t determine exactly what had caused the cut. They tried to mend it during an hours-long surgery, but afterward, Albright struggled to recover. Her family ultimately decided to end her life support in late August. She died with one of her daughters at her side.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the dizzying hours spent in the Utah hospital, leading up to and after Albright\u2019s death, one detail stood out to her daughter, Kimberly Sangray, as strange and particularly concerning. The surgeons in Utah had decided not to retry the valve replacement that Albright had undergone in Great Falls, a procedure called a TAVR.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Sangray\u2019s recollection, the doctor\u2019s explanation was simple: Her mother didn\u2019t appear to need the device at all.<\/p>\n

That assessment is also indicated in Albright\u2019s medical records, copies of which were reviewed by Montana Free Press. Among other notes, Utah doctors surmised that parts of Albright\u2019s heart that could have been helped by a TAVR were, in fact, working \u201cwell.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the months after Albright\u2019s death, the family kept revisiting that apparent contradiction. If the device had been meant to help heal their loved one\u2019s heart, why hadn\u2019t another group of doctors considered it critical? Had Albright actually needed the valve replacement in the first place?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always been such a good advocate for her,\u201d Sangray said in a May interview with MTFP. \u201cBut never once did I think about asking, \u2018How did she qualify for this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The family wasn\u2019t aware that, since 2024, doctors at Benefis had raised concerns about how the hospital selected patients for the same valve procedure Albright had received. In interviews with MTFP, three former Benefis doctors said they had posed questions about patient selection to other doctors and hospital administrators. Some patients did not have the heart condition that the procedure was designed to treat, the providers told MTFP. Others appeared to have mild heart disease conditions, even though TAVR is generally reserved for severe cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have concerns that there was a pattern of behavior that suggested that Benefis compromised appropriate patient care for multiple patients,\u201d said Dr. Steven Goldberg, a cardiologist who left Benefis last November after one year in Great Falls.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

\t\tBenefis Health System has been expanding its portfolio to include senior housing developments and a healthy aging center. Credit: Matt Hudson\/MTFP<\/p>\n

Goldberg and other doctors told MTFP they didn\u2019t feel their concerns were taken seriously, either by administrators or the cardiologist who led the Benefis TAVR program at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But by the end of 2025, Benefis had stopped performing TAVRs altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview and in emailed statements to MTFP, Benefis administrators defended the practices of the hospital\u2019s TAVR program and dismissed criticisms from former doctors. Hospital executives also reiterated their commitment to the valve replacement program, pledging that Benefis will restart its TAVR program later this year.<\/p>\n

Administrators confirmed that the TAVR program is just one part of Benefis\u2019 effort to build a competitive cardiology department \u2014 one that the hospital hopes could keep patients from having to travel several hours for their care. Making the program sustainable, they acknowledged, requires an active caseload and can be costly to build. To receive Medicare reimbursements for TAVR, hospitals need to perform dozens of procedures annually \u2014 a difficult goal in areas with low populations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The challenge of offering high quality specialty services in sparsely populated areas\u00a0is one that experts say many rural hospitals face.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t do enough of them, you don\u2019t do any of them very well,\u201d Gerard Anderson, a health policy and hospital finance researcher at Johns Hopkins University, told MTFP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hospitals often see specialty cardiology services as a major opportunity to drive revenue and serve patients who would otherwise have to travel extensively to access care, Anderson said. The next TAVR program after Great Falls is in Missoula, more than 150 miles away. But the true test of a program\u2019s quality comes after years of consistent data about patient outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s looking at these people a little bit as guinea pigs and trying it, which is scary,\u201d said Anderson, referring to patients in any new specialty program. \u201cI probably wouldn\u2019t want to be a guinea pig.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benefis administrators said decisions about patient care ultimately rest with individual physicians but denied that the hospital\u2019s processes for selecting patients and responding to doctor feedback were flawed in any way. Former providers saw the situation differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed to me that upper administration of Benefis was really pushing to generate numbers, to generate [the] amount of procedures,\u201d said Dr. Miroslaw Sochanski, a cardiologist who practiced at Benefis from 2019 to January 2025. \u201cAnd anything that was questioning that was considered as obstructive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three former Benefis doctors who spoke with MTFP said the health system\u2019s approach to patient selection for its TAVR program was a direct factor in their decisions to seek work elsewhere. When Benefis administrators appeared indifferent to their concerns, the doctors said, they chose to leave the hospital entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All three now practice in other states.<\/p>\n

\u2018WE CAN\u2019T BELIEVE IT WORKS\u2019<\/p>\n

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, is a medical breakthrough<\/a> roughly two decades old and a less-invasive alternative to open-heart surgery for certain patients. It\u2019s primarily used<\/a> in older people who face life-threatening heart disease and are risky candidates for open-heart surgery, according to multiple cardiologists who spoke with MTFP.<\/p>\n

Experts say TAVRs are intended to improve blood flow in patients whose aortic valve has become restricted due to heart disease. Even though it\u2019s an alternative to open heart surgery, the procedure is still highly technical: Physicians make an incision to access an artery at a patient\u2019s waist and maneuver an artificial valve up to the heart. There, the device is secured to the aortic valve to replace the natural valve and restore blood flow.<\/p>\n

\"Courtesy<\/p>\n

\t\tA TAVR device starts in a collapsed form so that physicians can maneuver it up an artery and into the heart. There, the valve is expanded and secured to replace the natural valve. Credit: Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven to this day, after doing 2,000 TAVRs, we can\u2019t believe it works,\u201d said Dr. James \u201cTod\u201d Maddux, a cardiologist at Providence St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula. \u201cEvery time we do a TAVR, we\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my gosh, that is the most amazing thing I\u2019ve ever seen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Patrick Hospital started the first Montana-based TAVR program in 2013<\/a> and today is the most established program in the state. Billings Clinic also has an active TAVR program. Benefis began its Great Falls TAVR program in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because TAVR is relatively new, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires a \u201cheart-team\u201d approach, with multiple doctors involved in consulting and performing the procedures. Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people over 65, and because the vast majority of TAVR patients are elderly, it is the primary insurer that reimburses hospitals for eligible procedures.<\/p>\n

For rural health systems, recruiting doctors and other medical staff to conduct TAVRs is one of the biggest roadblocks to offering the procedure. The heart team required by federal regulators includes both a cardiologist and two surgeons with specialized training in cardiovascular treatments. Dr. Daniel Spoon, a cardiologist and chief medical officer at St. Patrick, said that until TAVR matures into a more established procedure, the requirement to involve multiple care providers helps mitigate risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen everything goes according to plan, anyone can do it,\u201d Spoon said. \u201cWhen something goes not according to plan, that\u2019s where you need the experience, the team, the nurses, the techs that can get things out of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed to me that upper administration of Benefis was really pushing to generate numbers, to generate [the] amount of procedures. And anything that was questioning that was considered as obstructive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Miroslaw Sochanski<\/p>\n

Another hurdle rural hospitals face when deciding whether to launch a TAVR program is the number of patients who come through their doors. CMS, the federal agency that includes Medicare, requires hospitals to complete dozens of heart valve procedures each year to be eligible for TAVR reimbursements, a high bar for hospitals in rural states. Spoon and other experts said that, if patients are few and far between, cardiologists won\u2019t get as much practice as they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cVolume matters,\u201d Spoon said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to do a couple of these.\u201d<\/p>\n

For hospitals with active TAVR programs, federal regulators require<\/a> 100 valve replacements every two years. That includes open-heart valve replacements, but 40% of the procedures need to be TAVRs. For a new TAVR program seeking its first reimbursement from Medicare, the federal government just requires that hospitals perform at least 20 \u201caortic valve-related procedures\u201d over two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe requirement is because quality of care is lower when services are done less frequently,\u201d said Anderson, the Johns Hopkins researcher. Federal regulators, he continued, are attempting to balance quality with access for people who might struggle to travel for special services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until a hospital demonstrates that experience, none of its procedures can be reimbursed by Medicare. Kaci Husted, Benefis\u2019 system senior vice president, said hospitals in that situation, including Benefis, accept that they may absorb high costs of offering services for years before they can recoup expenses from Medicare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an investment in growing our services,\u201d said Husted in a May interview with MTFP. \u201cSo if that investment is, we have to do some of these procedures without getting paid for a while to build up a program to get to a level that it can be financially sustainable and have the volumes it needs, that may just be what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benefis did not respond to subsequent inquiries from MTFP about how many of its TAVR procedures had been reimbursed by Medicare in recent years. But, in the same May interview, Dr. Greg Tierney, Benefis\u2019 executive vice president of system clinical operations, affirmed that the Benefis program steered by Dr. Kimberly Atianzar, a California-based provider who worked at Benefis part-time, had been progressing toward exceeding Medicare thresholds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we very first started it, you have to build that up,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cBut, yes, she was well on path to do well over 50 TAVRs when she ended her program.\u201d<\/p>\n

QUESTIONING PROCEDURES, CONFLICTING OPINIONS<\/p>\n

Dr. Steven Bailey started at Benefis in 2015 and eventually became the hospital\u2019s most experienced heart surgeon. In interviews with MTFP, he said he regarded TAVR as a medical breakthrough and that he advocated for the program\u2019s launch in Great Falls. But he said that he had also been ostracized by Atianzar after he asked for more thorough reviews of TAVR patient outcomes. Benefis administrators then asked him to stop working on TAVR cases, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was shortly thereafter that, suddenly, I was not suitable to be participating in the TAVR program,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThat seemed to me to be the overall atmosphere that occurred whenever someone questioned the TAVR statistics or questioned patient selection \u2014 that it was met with aggression, and it was not an open, collegial discussion. So that part was disappointing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atianzar did not respond to multiple texts, phone calls and voicemails seeking comment about her tenure at Benefis.<\/p>\n

Bailey participated<\/a> in the first Benefis TAVR in 2022. About a year later, Benefis hired two new doctors who eventually took control of the program. The first was Dr. Dimitrios Koudoumas, a vascular surgeon who began sharing TAVR cases with Bailey. The second was Atianzar.<\/p>\n

Bailey and other former Benefis doctors said that Koudoumas and Atianzar eventually began participating in more TAVR cases. But as Atianzar took responsibility for the program, former doctors said she changed the process of vetting which patients should receive the procedure. Monday morning meetings, where doctors historically discussed patient cases and the best courses of care, became less collaborative, doctors told MTFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not an open, collegial discussion. So that part was disappointing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Steven Bailey<\/p>\n

Sochanski, the cardiologist who now practices in Utah, said those meetings became more of a \u201cmonologue\u201d than a discussion under Atianzar. Sochanski said he had questions about whether some TAVR candidates had sufficiently severe symptoms to warrant a TAVR. He said his opinions were dismissed \u2014 both by Atianzar and Benefis administrators.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I was asking questions, I was kind of pushed aside. If Dr. Bailey was asking questions, he was sidelined,\u201d Sochanski said. \u201cSo that was the prevailing theme that, for the moment, the golden children of the program were Dr. Atianzar and Dr. Koudoumas, who had carte blanche to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey said he had spent a lot of time building his practice at Benefis, even as doctor turnover hammered the cardiology department. He told MTFP that he planned to spend more years working in Great Falls and tending to his farm just outside of town, but it was a tough blow to be shut out of the specialty program he helped to start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt as if the writing was on the wall that my services were no longer going to be required or valued, and I felt somewhat excluded from things,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cAnd so I thought that I had to voluntarily make the choice to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey left Benefis last December and now practices in Alaska.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/p>\n

\t\tShawn Albright holds a photo of her mother Bette Albright with family members while her sister Kim Sangray looks on, April 22, 2026, in Great Falls. Bette Albright died from complications after undergoing several heart procedures, including at Benefis Health System. Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local\/Report for America<\/p>\n

Two weeks after Albright\u2019s death, in the fall of 2025, Goldberg emailed Benefis administrators to share concerns about a different patient whom Atianzar selected for the procedure. Goldberg said the patient\u2019s profile included several indications that they didn\u2019t appear to need the procedure. Among other considerations, Golderberg pointed out, the patient appeared to have a mild form of heart disease, and there didn\u2019t seem to be enough hard calcium in the valve to affix an artificial device.<\/p>\n

Goldberg first appealed to Atianzar about her decisions. When that went nowhere, Goldberg alerted Benefis leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did raise those concerns,\u201d Goldberg told MTFP in February. \u201cNot only were they not taken seriously, but I was publicly ridiculed in the meeting and received emails from hospital administration that I should apologize to the interventional cardiologist for having insulted them by challenging them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In emails that Goldberg shared with MTFP, hospital administrators appeared to deflect Goldberg. In one, Benefis Chief Operating Officer Amy Linder suggested he apologize to Atianzar for raising questions about TAVR patients in a meeting. In another, the hospital acknowledged that an \u201coutside entity\u201d was reviewing multiple TAVR cases. But later, administrators refused to share any details with Goldberg when he asked about the outcome of that probe, according to emails reviewed by MTFP. The hospital also declined to answer additional questions from MTFP about the findings of that external review, citing the confidentiality of doctors\u2019 performance reviews.<\/p>\n

Frustrated by his experience, Goldberg left Benefis last November and now practices in California.<\/p>\n

All three former Benefis doctors who spoke with MTFP regarding the TAVR program in Great Falls declined to discuss specific patient cases, including Albright\u2019s, citing patient confidentiality.<\/p>\n

Tierney, Benefis\u2019 head of system clinical operations, characterized the team\u2019s vetting of TAVR candidates as an open dialogue between doctors with varying levels of experience, training and willingness to be aggressive in a course of treatment. He said the concerns of other doctors amounted to differing opinions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the decision on who to care for the patient is the patients\u2019 physicians,\u201d he said. \u201cI can listen to your opinion, but I certainly don\u2019t have to accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the criticism levied against Atianzar came from doctors with widely recognized professional qualifications. Goldberg, Sochanski and Bailey each had specialty certifications and experience that met or exceeded those of Atianzar and Koudoumas. Goldberg said that he had performed more than 100 TAVRs and launched a TAVR program in California prior to joining Benefis.<\/p>\n

Tierney said he had full confidence in Atianzar\u2019s qualifications, even though she wasn\u2019t board-certified in interventional cardiology, a specialty that involves treatments such as stents, angioplasty and TAVR.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people are grandfathered in based on their experiences,\u201d he said. \u201cShe had taught in other different places. She had set up programs in other places. She was extraordinarily well-trained and had a wealth of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tierney emphasized that, while individual physicians are ultimately responsible for evaluating which patients could benefit from a TAVR, he saw no issues with how the TAVR program was run and indicated that Atianzar left the hospital on good terms. Addressing the decision to halt the TAVR program at the end of 2025, Tierney said the pause was necessary to hire more full-time physicians based in Great Falls. Earlier this year, the hospital announced that it had hired a new heart surgeon and interventional cardiologist. Koudoumas still practices as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Benefis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Benefis leaders] believe strongly that the best program and the best way that we support that program is with permanent doctors,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cWhen they live in the community, they have ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I DIDN\u2019T DO THIS\u2019<\/p>\n

Bette Albright consulted with Atianzar about TAVR in the summer of 2025, after she came to the hospital with shortness of breath.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Atianzar had operated on Albright earlier that year to repair a leaky heart valve. Family members said that Albright loved \u201cDr. A,\u201d who was personable and earned Albright\u2019s trust. When Atianzar began raising the possibility of a TAVR procedure to address her strained breathing, Albright\u2019s two daughters in Great Falls and son-in-law said the family understood it to be their best route to avoid a much more invasive open-heart surgery.<\/p>\n

The condition that TAVR is federally approved to treat, severe aortic stenosis, occurs when blood flow through the aortic valve is restricted. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved nearly all TAVR devices, including the one<\/a> used on Albright, for aortic stenosis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Albright\u2019s medical records, reviewed by MTFP, show that she was experiencing aortic regurgitation, a type of valve leak, rather than aortic stenosis. Experts say TAVRs can be used to treat aortic regurgitation in severe cases or in patients with multiple issues, but the two conditions have meaningful differences. Patients with stenosis often have a buildup of hard calcium in the valve, which is how doctors secure a TAVR device. The lack of calcium, more common with aortic regurgitation, poses a risk during TAVR procedures.<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/p>\n

\t\tSisters Shawn Albright and Kim Sangray laugh while talking about their mom, Bette Albright, on April 22, 2026, in Great Falls. Bette Albright died from complications after undergoing several heart procedures, including at Benefis Health System. Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local\/Report for America<\/p>\n

Sangray, Albright\u2019s daughter, said the family was never told about the risks of low calcium deposits when speaking with Benefis staff about a possible TAVR.<\/p>\n

The family agreed to proceed with the TAVR in July 2025. Atianzar and Koudoumas were the primary physicians, according to Albright\u2019s medical records. The two made several attempts to place the valve. None were successful. Afterward, Atianzar informed Albright and her family that the procedure had failed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The failure, Atianzar told the family, was specifically due to a lack of calcium.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told us it was because there wasn\u2019t enough calcium, is why it didn\u2019t take,\u201d Sangray said during an April interview. \u201cThat\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever heard about calcium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within days of the aborted procedure, Albright\u2019s daughters realized their mother wasn\u2019t recovering. She described pain all through the left side of her chest and rib cage, Sangray recalled. The normally upbeat mother and grandmother, who loved cooking and caring for family members, couldn\u2019t get around the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had pain,\u201d recalled Shawn Albright. \u201cShe would cook dinner, and she\u2019d be like, \u2018I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 and she\u2019d have to lay down. The pain was horrendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Albright returned to the Benefis emergency department in mid-August, her medical records show that staff identified a tear in her aorta. The condition was critical enough that local staff discussed transferring Albright to a larger medical center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Albright and her family decided to transfer her to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City. Before they boarded the flight, Sangray\u2019s phone rang. Atianzar was on the other end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the first thing she said to me was, \u2018I didn\u2019t do this. This is not because of me,’\u201d Sangray said.<\/p>\n

Atianzar also made multiple offers to fly to Salt Lake City to meet the family while Albright was there, Sangray said, something that struck Albright\u2019s family as exceedingly strange.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as she hung up the phone, I told her, I said, \u2018That\u2019s why she called. To cover her ass,\u2019\u201d said Jeff Sangray, Kimberly\u2019s husband and Albright\u2019s son-in-law, in an April interview.<\/p>\n

Albright and Sangray flew to Salt Lake City for emergency surgery. According to Sangray, the effort to repair Albright\u2019s heart took 11 hours. While Albright\u2019s tear was at the site of the TAVR procedure, ultimately, Utah medical staff said in her medical records that the cause was \u201cclinically undetermined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018THAT FULL COMPLEMENT OF SERVICES\u2019<\/p>\n

Benefis administrators told MTFP that bringing a specialty care program such as TAVR to a Montana hospital is intended to provide competitive care to local patients. But in a rural setting where a hospital\u2019s market is geographically vast, specialty care is also a critical tool to keep patients from seeking services elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the big hospitals in the state for any of the more specialized programs are kind of direct competitors with each other, especially for someone who lives in, let\u2019s say, a Lewistown that\u2019s right in between here and Billings,\u201d said Husted, Benefis\u2019 senior vice president. \u201cI mean, they are going to go to one place or another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tierney, the Benefis administrator, said that revenue from specialty services like TAVR doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum, either. With every procedure done at Benefis, a patient will also have required labs, scans and other \u201cspin-off\u201d tests that can also generate revenue for the facility, Tierney explained.<\/p>\n

If Benefis has to send a patient to Missoula for a specialty service, Tierney added, it\u2019s highly unlikely that the patient will come back to Benefis for any of their related or follow-up care \u2014 a domino effect of lost revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenefis maintains a comprehensive compliance program and takes all concerns regarding patient safety and regulatory compliance seriously. All concerns are thoroughly reviewed, and when appropriate, Benefis takes prompt corrective action and makes necessary changes to its practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaci Husted, Benefis\u2019 system senior vice president<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause once you\u2019ve sent them away, you\u2019ve lost that patient,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cSo in order to maintain our heart program and our heart volumes, you have to have that full complement of services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts say staying competitive in rural health care can require a significant up-front investment, particularly for TAVR. The valve devices used in a TAVR can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and the operations tie up multiple physicians and other hospital staff.<\/p>\n

Anderson, of Johns Hopkins, said rural hospitals serving the same state or region might benefit from dividing certain types of specialty services, such as cancer care or cardiology, to avoid direct competition for a limited pool of patients. But he said the finances of individual hospitals often take precedence, with each one looking to expand revenue where possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re competing against each other, and if somebody\u2019s making money, they\u2019re not going to give it up,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

After meeting with MTFP for one interview, Benefis declined to answer additional follow-up questions about its TAVR program or its financial viability, citing MTFP\u2019s interviews with critical former employees. In a June statement, Husted reiterated the hospital\u2019s commitment to offering high-quality services.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenefis maintains a comprehensive compliance program and takes all concerns regarding patient safety and regulatory compliance seriously,\u201d she wrote in an email. \u201cAll concerns are thoroughly reviewed, and when appropriate, Benefis takes prompt corrective action and makes necessary changes to its practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018OUR OPTIONS WERE HERE\u2019<\/p>\n

Albright struggled after surgery in Salt Lake City. After multiple procedures and being placed on a ventilator for more than a week, her family concluded that she would not recover.<\/p>\n

Shawn Albright and Kimberly Sangray acknowledged that their mother had been dealing with serious health complications for a long time. But both sisters expressed distress and grief at the idea that Albright might not have been a strong candidate for a TAVR in the first place \u2014\u00a0the procedure that appeared to set her on a downward spiral, rather than make her healthier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In hindsight, the sisters wondered if they should have sought out a second opinion, despite the geographic barriers.<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/p>\n

\t\tKim Sangray says she plans to get \u201cLove, Mom\u201d tattooed in her mother\u2019s handwriting. The phrase is meant to mimick how Bette Albright signed her cards, shown here on April 22, 2026, in Great Falls. Bette Albright died from complications after undergoing several heart procedures, including at Benefis Health System. Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local\/Report for America<\/p>\n

\u201cTraveling to Missoula, you know, it hurt her back. We talked about going to Billings. She just didn\u2019t want to travel,\u201d Sangray said. \u201cSo our options were here, and that\u2019s what we went with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family signed a legal release to allow Benefis to discuss Albright\u2019s medical care with MTFP, including whether Albright\u2019s condition was actually severe enough to warrant a TAVR and whether complications from that procedure contributed to Albright\u2019s death. Benefis declined to comment, saying in an email that the hospital did not \u201chave anyone available for an interview who was directly involved [in] Bette Albright\u2019s care, nor would it be overly productive for us to try to piece together different parties\u2019 recollections of the verbal conversations that occurred as part of her care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The doctors who spoke to MTFP said they believe that the patients in the Great Falls region, including much of north central Montana, deserve access to high-quality specialty services. They acknowledged that the promise of building up those programs was part of what initially drew them to practice at Benefis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the doctors said they left Great Falls disappointed, wishing that Benefis had supported the rigorous, collegial discussion that they felt should take place around clinical decision-making. The resulting turnover of medical professionals impacts patient care, they said, and threatens the competitive edge that Benefis hopes to gain in Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat Falls is ripe for a strong cardiology program, and strong cardiology leadership at Benefis would be a great position if it weren\u2019t for all of the negativity that\u2019s surrounding it,\u201d Goldberg said. \u201cI think that what happens is that everybody comes in \u2014 including myself, by the way \u2014 and says, \u2018This could be great, but I don\u2019t think I want to go through the pain of dealing with the toxicity that is a part of that program right now.’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Bette Albright took an emergency flight to Salt Lake City in August 2025, her family prayed that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[301827,14297,97,252,253,5313,138763],"class_list":["post-696772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-benefis-health-system","tag-cardiology","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-surgery","tag-tavr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}