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A woman from Massachusetts is facing more than $20,000 in medical bills after a wild bat flew into her mouth while she was on vacation.
In August last year, Erica Kahn, 33, was taking photos of the sky in Arizona when a bat got stuck between her head and the camera, and partially entered her mouth as she screamed, according to KFF Health News.
Her doctor father urged her to get a number of rabies vaccinations, even though Kahn doesn’t believe the bat bit her. She told the outlet she had recently been forced to leave her biomedical engineering job and purchased a health insurance policy online the day after the bat flew into her mouth to help with the treatments in Arizona, Massachusetts, and Colorado.
But the insurance company rejected paying for the treatments and pointed to a 30-day waiting period.
Kahn believed she would be covered as long as she got insurance before going to the hospital in Flagstaff, Arizona, noting that she called the company before she bought the policy and that she was told services connected to an accident or “life-threatening” emergency would be covered.
“The required waiting period for this service has not been met,” said the company. After being treated at four different treatment centers, she faced bills of $20,749.
“I thought it must have been a mistake,” she told KFF. “I guess I was naive.”
The outlet noted that Kahn has since acquired a new job, negotiated down one of the bills, put in place a payment plan for another, and is in the appeals process for the rest.
She said she regrets allowing gaps in her healthcare coverage after she lost her job.
“That’s a very big lesson I learned the hard way,” said Kahn, who still looks back at the incident with a sense of humor.
“I know what bats taste like now. It’s an earthy, sweet kind of flavor,” she told KFF.
“It’s actually a pretty funny story — if it weren’t for the horrible medical bill that came with it.”
