A woman on vacation whose employee-sponsored health plan had lapsed after recently being being laid off wound up with over $20,000 in medical bills after a bat flew into her mouth.
Erica Kahn, 33, was visiting Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona last August when the horror encounter with the winged mammal took place.
The former biomedical engineer noticed a number of bats flying around while she was outside taking pictures of the night sky, but didn’t think much of it.
That is, until one got too close for comfort, winding up trapped between her camera and face.
When she screamed in terror, an unknown part of the bat wound up in her mouth for a few seconds.
Her father, a physician who had been traveling with her, said she should immediately start a course of rabies treatments, even though she wasn’t sure if she had been bitten.
She quickly went online to purchase a medical insurance plan before going to a hospital in Flagstaff to begin treatments — under the impression it would cover her two-week course of rabies shots, which she received at clinics in Arizona, Massachusetts and Colorado, KFF reported.
But her biggest shock of all came when the bill arrived, showing she owed $20,749 between the four facilities — for treatment including four doses of the rabies vaccines and three shots of immunoglobulin to increase antibodies against the virus, which is fatal if left untreated.
She didn’t realize the insurance plan she had purchased a day before starting treatment required a 30-day waiting period before coverage would kick in, an explanation-of-benefits letter she got in the mail grimly explained.
“I thought it must have been a mistake,” she told the outlet. “I guess I was naive.”
After being laid off from her engineer position the previous month, she opted against keeping her insurance under COBRA for $650 a month, rolling the dice she would not wind up facing an unexpected medical emergency.
Khan told the outlet she’s since gotten a new job and once again has health insurance. She’s negotiated some of the bills down a bit, but says she still owed more than $19,000 for her treatments — which she said she plans to continue appealing.
Despite her horrifying encounter with wildlife — ripped from the stuff of nightmares — Khan said it hasn’t put a damper on her love for the great outdoors.
“I know what bats taste like now. It’s an earthy, sweet kind of flavor,” she joked to the outlet. “It’s actually a pretty funny story — if it weren’t for the horrible medical bill that came with it.”
Around 4,000 animal rabies cases are reported each year in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — with less than 10 people dying of the virus per annum.
More than 90% occur in animals like skunks, raccoons, foxes and bats. Bats account for the highest proportion of reported animal rabies cases, at 33%.
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