Woman hospitalized for one month with COVID has nearly $ 1 million in medical bills

An Arkansas woman said she ended up with a nearly seven-figure medical bill after being hospitalized with COVID-19 as high treatment costs add weight to calls for people to get vaccinated.

Shenita Russia, 42, a mobile respiratory therapist, worked in Boston to help COVID patients at the start of the pandemic. She caught the virus and was hospitalized for a month, during which time she was put into an induced coma.

She returned to Little Rock to be with her family and needed additional help coping with the after-effects of the disease.

“The bills? They’re amazing,” she told THV11, “I mean it was almost a million dollars just for the fact that I was sick on life support.”

She said she still received high bills for follow-up care, which included expert help showing her how to walk again and cardiologist consultations.

Her worker’s compensation served as insurance, but she faced bills from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and Baptist Health, and the payments are still being settled. .

Although she was diagnosed with the disease before a vaccine was available, she told THV11 that people should consider a jab so as not to face her predicament.

There have been regular stories of sky-high costs for COVID treatment since the start of the pandemic, when Michael Flor revealed he received a $ 1.1 million hospital bill, listed on 181 pages, for a stay at the Swedish medical center in Issaquah. , Washington.

This stay included 62 days in an intensive care unit (ICU) and weeks in an induced coma, The Seattle Times reported in June 2020, noting that insurance, including medicare, covered the “vast majority” of costs.

However, medical costs are adding to the momentum behind the pressure to get people vaccinated, especially since Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said unvaccinated Americans accounted for “virtually all recent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.”

This week, Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) said the cost of treating unvaccinated people would eventually be borne by those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

His comment followed a video shared on Twitter by Scott Roe, who, despite being hospitalized with COVID-19, said he still would not get the shot.

“Those of us who are vaccinated will pay the increased health system costs for the unvaccinated,” Lieu tweeted.

Meanwhile, UAMS CEO Dr Steppe Mette estimated the average cost of a COVID patient in his hospital to be nearly $ 25,000 and for those on a ventilator for a month, “probably close to $ 100,000 ”, and therefore urged people to get vaccinated.

“It is an individual’s choice whether or not to be vaccinated. It also means that it is an individual responsibility to bear the consequences if they fall ill,” he told THV11.