A US hospital inflated the price of a lifesaving anti-venom by 400 per cent in medical bills for a nine-year old girl needing urgent treatment after being bitten by a snake.
Oakley Yoder, now 10, was on a hike during a summer camp last July when she was bitten on the toe by what was believed to be a copperhead viper, and airlifted to St Vincent Evansville hospital in Indiana.
She received four vials of anti-venom which needs to be rapidly administered - particularly in children - as the bites can cause tissue and nerve damage, haemorrhage or death. She was later transferred to a specialist children’s hospital.
“I was really scared,” Oakley said. “I thought that I could either get paralysed or could actually die.”
Oakley was sent home within 24-hours of the bite, the medical bill – revealed in the “bill of the month” segment of US website Kaiser Health News – charged to her insurance was $142,938 (£108,508).
This included $67,957 (£51,588) for the four doses of anti-venom, CroFab.
The antivenom is costly, in part because it’s the only treatment licensed in the US and is made by “milking” for their venom which is injected into animals in minute doses to collect the antibodies they produce.
However the price charged by St Vincent Evansville hospital amounted to nearly $17,000 (£12,905) per vial, five times higher than average list price which is just $3,198 (£2,427).
The hospital said in a statement to Kaiser Health News that the family’s insurance covered all but $3,500 of the bill and the price was negotiated down from the original bill.
Oakley's father, Josh Perry is a professor of healthcare ethics and said the rapid care was welcome, with no family likely to argue over pricing for lifesaving treatment.
While their insurance, and the camp's meant the family did not end up paying any of the excess, these billing practices contribute to higher premiums for all Americans.
Kaiser Health News said the hospital appears to have subsequently lowered the price it charges for CroFab to $5,096 dollars per vial.
The Independent approached St Vincent Evansville for comment but it had not responded at time of publication.
