A woman on vacation recently faced a tragic situation after a bat entered her mouth, leading to over $20,000 in medical expenses due to a layoff from her employee-sponsored health plan.
Erika Kahn, 33, was visiting the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona last August.
While outside taking pictures of the night sky, she noticed several bats flying nearby but didn’t think much of it. That’s when, perhaps accidentally, part of a bat got caught in her mouth for a few seconds, leaving her in a state of shock.
Her father, accompanying her, suggested she should start rabies treatment immediately, even though she wasn’t sure if she had been bitten. Following this advice, she bought a medical insurance plan online before heading to a hospital in Flagstaff to begin treatment. She believed this plan would cover the two weeks of rabies shots received at various clinics across Arizona, Massachusetts, and Colorado.
However, the real shock came when the bills arrived, totaling $20,749 from four facilities covering multiple rabies vaccine doses and immunoglobulin treatments. She hadn’t realized that her newly purchased insurance came with a 30-day waiting period.
“I thought it was a mistake,” she said, reflecting on her situation. “Maybe I was a bit naive.”
Having lost her engineering job the month before, Kahn had opted not to maintain her insurance under COBRA, which would have cost her $650 a month. She took a risk, hoping to avoid unexpected medical expenses.
Now, with a new job and health insurance, she has managed to negotiate some of the bills but still owes over $19,000. She plans to keep working on reducing this amount.
Despite the traumatic encounter with the bat, Kahn’s passion for the outdoors remains intact. “Now I know what bats taste like—a peculiar, sweet flavor,” she joked. “If only it didn’t come with such a hefty medical bill.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 4,000 animal rabies cases are reported annually in the United States, with bats contributing to about 33% of these cases.
