A tourist ended with a land striker in her mouth – and about 21,000 dollars of medical invoices

In the past, Erica Khan realizes that she made two big mistakes.

The first was choosing to temporarily abandon health insurance when it was demobilized.

The second was screaming when the wild bats later fell on her face.

The strange meeting occurred last August, while a resident of Massachusetts was filming the night sky during a holiday in the Glen Canyon’s entertainment area in Arizona. Khan, who is now 33 years old, noticed some of the bats around her but did not worry about them – until one of them flew and reached a tangle between her camera and her face.

She shouted, and part of the bats went in her mouth. She does not know any part or for how long, although it is estimated that it was only a few seconds. She said, “It looked longer.”

The bats flew away, leaving Khan Hazam.

You did not think that the animal had bitten it. Regardless, her father, a doctor who was traveling with her, said that she should go to the hospital within one day or so and begin vaccines against rabies.

Khan said, with the determination that she will cover as long as she got insurance before going to the hospital, she found an online policy the day following the bats. She said that she had contacted the company before buying its policy and was told services related to an accident or emergency “life threatening.”

I went the next day to a hospital in Flagstav, Arizona, where she started treating rabies prevention. Over the next two weeks, the rest of the rabies shots were received in clinics in Arizona, Massachusetts and at a hospital in Colorado.

Then the bills came.

Medical procedure

Khan received a total of four doses of rabies vaccine. Doses are given for 14 days. Along with her first vaccination, she received three shots of immunoglobulin, enhancing antibodies against the virus.

Raby disease is usually transmitted through bites or scratches from an infected animal. Experts It recommends preventive measures When a person may be subject to a dog, because as soon as nervous disease causes symptoms, it causes symptoms, It is a murderous matter. Disease Control and Prevention Centers say that the treatment of rabies after exposure has reduced the number of human deaths to less than 10 a year in the United States.

The final bill

According to the data explaining the competitions, Khan was a debtor of $ 20,749 to take care of it in the four facilities. Most of the charges were from the hospital, which was first treated, Flagstaf Medical Center: $ 17,079, including $ 15242, dogs and immunoglobulin.

The billing problem: Most insurance does not start immediately

It did not pay a policy that was the price of any of the services. “The waiting period required for this service has not been fulfilled,” an explanation letter to the competitions it received in December said.

Khan was amazed. She said, “I thought it should be a mistake.” “I think I was naive.”

When Khan was demobilized from her job as a vital medical engineer last summer, she had the option to temporarily stay to secure the former employer under the Cobra plan, at a cost of about $ 650 a month. But as a young and healthy person, she gambled that she could pass without insurance until she found another job. She thought that if she needed medical care, she could buy a special policy quickly.

According to Medicare & Medicaid Services Centers, those who qualify to get a cobra must be given At least 60 days For registration – and if they do so, the coverage applies retroactively. Khan, who was still during that time at the time of the accident, said she did not realize that she had this option.

The policy that I bought after the Bat episode, which cost about $ 311 a month, from Florida called Section Partners LP. Kahn’s documents to KFF Health News says that policy has a 30 -day waiting period, which “does not apply to the advantages of an accident or loss of life.”

Khan said that after receiving a notification that her claims had been rejected, she called the company to ask how she could appeal and told the doctor that he would have to submit the papers. She said she wrote a letter signed by a doctor at the Flagstad Medical Center and presented it in March, but she was unable to reach the doctors in other facilities.

Khan said she had given conflicting answers about the whereabouts of the papers. She said that an actress with the company recently told her that she had not received any appeal.

The interest data he received was in early July the presentation of innovative partners who did not pay the claims. The company did not respond to requests to comment on this article.

The co -director of the Georgetown Health Insurance Center, the co -director of the Georgetown University of Health Reforms Center, said that most of the health coverage plans apply on the first day of the month after the customer registered.

“Insurance companies – for a good reason – do not want people to wait for coverage to cover until they get sick,” she said, noting that healthy insurance premiums are paying the payment costs for health care.

The law of sponsorship requires reasonable prices to cover insurance companies The pre -existing conditionsLike diabetes or heart issues. She said that this does not mean that they should pay the price of a injury treatment shortly before the person registered in the coverage.

Corlette, who reviewed a brief overview of the benefits of Khan, said the policy seems to be limited, “Fixed Compensation” planWhich only pays the amounts set for treatments daily or another, regardless of the total expenditures. These plans have been present for decades It is not required to meet She said ACA standards.

But she said even if Khan had bought a comprehensive health insurance, she may not have covered the treatment that was received shortly after his purchase.

David Shallam, a Wyoming travel specialist who studies rabies, said that Khan had taken the right choice by asking for treatment immediately, although she did not feel the bats. This disease is fatal, and the fact that the bats went to her mouth means that she could have been infected with her saliva, and he said: “I could hardly have more direct exposure than that.”

Shalam, who recently participated in the disclosure Federal advice on preventing rabiesHe added that health bats do not usually fly to people, as did those in this case. He said that the tangle of the animal with Khan indicates that he could have been sick, perhaps with rabies.

Shalam said that the treatment of rabies prevention is much more expensive in the United States than in most other countries. The most batch part is immunoglobulin, which is made of blood plasma for people vaccinated against rabies.

Shallam indicated that the treatment is often managed in the hospital’s emergency rooms, adding very slope fees.

decision

Khan said that she is working again and has good health insurance, but she still faces most bills from the adventure of her misfortune in Gain Canyon. She said that she had paid the doctor’s bill from the Flagstad Medical Center after negotiating it from $ 706 to $ 420. She said she also arranged a $ 10 a month plan to pay $ 530 to one of the rabies shots in another facility.

She said she was planning to continue the resumption of refusal to pay for the rest of the bills, which exceeds $ 19,000.

In a statement on behalf of the Flagstaf Hospital – where Khan incurred the highest charges – Lauren Silvrvstein, a northern health care spokesman in Arizona, said that the health system is doing what he can to reduce costs. “We have a lower capacity to control the critical supply prices that we use to treat patients, including drugs, biology, diagnoses and medical devices made by other companies,” she said.

Silvrvstein said the hospital needs to maintain immunoglobulin at hand to prevent rabies, although these cases are relatively rare and the drug is expensive.

Ready -made meals

Cobra Insurance policies, which have been called the 1985 Unified Reconciliation Law, managed many people who lose function -based coverage to keep these plans temporarily. There is a 60 -day window to choose the cobra coverage, and as soon as the beneficiary pays it, the coverage Applied retroactively In the sense that medical care is covered even if it happens when the person is not a believer.

Corlette said that a dilemma was explaining the reason for people to make sure they had health insurance.

She said that people who lose the coverage based on the employer should consider recording the individual insurance plans sold in the federal or government markets. Many people who buy such policies are eligible to get large ACA to help in paying insurance and other costs.

“If you are losing your job, Cobra is not your only choice,” Corlette said.

Khan hopes that you would have participated in covering the insurance when it was demobilized, although she felt confident that she would find another job within a few months. “This is a very big lesson I learned in the difficult way.”

The wildlife meeting did not destroy her love in the open air. She even sees humor in it.

“I know what a taste of bats is now. It is a kind of dirt flavor,” she said jokingly. “It is actually a very funny story – if you do not have a terrible medical draft law that came with him.”

The bill of law is a collective investigation before KFF Health News and Washington Post+ An dissection and explanation of medical bills. Since 2018, this series has helped many patients and readers reduce their medical bills, and it has been martyred in the states of the state, in the American Capitol, and in the White House. Do you have a confusing or interesting medical bill you want to share? Tell us about that!