A Massachusetts woman, Erica Kahn, had gone on vacation and visited an Arizona recreation area back in August 2024. Suddenly, a bat landed on her face, and she screamed, leading to a part of the animal to enter her mouth. She received treatment for rabies, for which she was charged more than $20,000.
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According to KFF Health News, Kahn visited the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona. During one August 2024 night, marveled by the night sky, she decided to take some photographs. She did notice some bats flying around, but didn’t pay much attention to them.
However, at one point, one of these bats flew straight to her face. Naturally, Kahn screamed given the scary encounter. As she opened her mouth, however, one of the parts of the bat entered her mouth. Although she felt that the bat had stayed inside her mouth for longer, she believes the animal only ventured inside for a couple of seconds.
While she didn’t believe she had been bitten, she took her father’s advice and went to a hospital to get rabies vaccines. She managed to obtain insurance, and the company assured her that accidents and life-threatening emergencies would be covered.
Medical Bill
Over two weeks, she received a total of four doses of the rabies vaccine at clinics in Arizona and Massachusetts, as well as at a Colorado hospital. Little did she know at the time that the insurance company had a “required waiting period,” which lasts for 30 days.
As a result, she got a whopping medical bill of $20,749. Turns out, the woman didn’t have medical insurance at the time because she had been recently laid off from her biomedical engineer job.
While she had the possibility of keeping her former employer’s medical insurance under a COBRA plan, Kahn refrained from doing so. She believed, according to the outlet, that she would get medical insurance once she got a new job.
To this day, Kahn continues to appeal her five-figure medical bill denials of payment, stemming from the Arizona bat incident. Several experts spoke with the outlet and stated that, most likely, no medical insurance would have covered her treatment so soon after purchasing it.
Erica Kahn is once again employed, and she takes the bat incident with humor. The medical bill? Not so much.
“I know what bats taste like now. It’s an earthy, sweet kind of flavor,” Kahn said. “It’s actually a pretty funny story — if it weren’t for the horrible medical bill that came with it.”