A snake bite of a girl leaves the family with a medical bill of $ 142,938

A girl bitten by a snake at the summer camp was found with a medical bill the size of an elephant of $ 142,938, say her parents.

Oakley Yoder was 9 years old last July when a snake bit her right foot while she was at the camp in the Shawnee National Forest in Jackson Falls, Illinois, according to NPR.

"I was very scared, I thought I could be paralyzed or even die," said Oakley, 10 years ago, to NPR.

The camp counselors, suspecting that the bite was coming from a poisonous Copheadhead, gave him a piggyback system until they reached the first responders, who recommended taking it to him. at the hospital by air ambulance, according to the report.

Her frenzied parents, Josh Perry and Shelli Yoder, were already waiting at St. Vincent Evansville Hospital in Indiana when she arrived after the 80-kilometer flight.

"It was very comforting for me to realize, OK, we are getting the best possible care," said his father, a professor of health care ethics at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Their relief after the departure of their daughter's hospital after less than 24 hours quickly turned into a horror when the bills began to arrive – totaling $ 142,938, according to documents provided to NPR.

That included $ 55,577.64 for the air ambulance – and an even more impressive $ 67,957 for four vials of antivenom needed to protect it from the bite.

The invoice indicates that the hospital billed $ 16,989.25 for each CroFab unit, the only drug available at the time to treat the venomous stings of mine vipers, more than five times the average price in the catalog. $ 3,198.

"It's a cost-effective drug and everyone wants a piece of it," said Dr. Leslie Boyer, Founding Director of the VIPER Institute Research Center.

The family's health insurance, IU Health Plans, negotiated the bills and paid $ 107,863.33, the summer camp's secondary insurance covering an additional $ 7,286.34.

The family finally did not have to pay any extra fees for his extra emergency care, according to NPR.

"I know that in this country, in this system, it's a miracle," admitted the relieved father, Perry, who teaches a course on the ethics of the health care industry.

Oakley's foot is now healed – and she plans to return to camp this summer, she told NPR.