Yikes! I hope you don’t have more bats in the house… where one is, there may be others. Have you got an exterminator or anyone coming out to check and see?
I can’t believe rabies shots cost that much, that’s just crazy! I hope your insurance covers it.
if the bat was ther before you left then you would need shots too.
bats can stay very concelled when inside structures. their defense if being in the open to fly freely or hidden in a dark and maybe tight spot.
bats do live in colonies and you will see them fly at night or hear then in their roost during parts of the day, especially before and after flying. if you had a colony then you would know it.
Apparently, a single bat wandering from the colony is more common with a rabid bat, because they aren’t neurologically intact.
$11,000 is a lot, but rabies is worse. If you are expected to pay it OOP, the hospital probably has the ability to write off part of it, and if you are still stuck with a big chunk, and it’s a problem, you might consider setting up one of those FB pages. I’m not the kind of person who normally donates, but a little girl who had to get rabies shots because a bat got into her house, and the insurance company won’t cover the shots-- I’d give to that.
There are only a few cases where someone has survived rabies once symptoms have set in. That is, it’s nearly 100% fatal. The mortality rate for ebola is between 50% and 90%. Rabies is worse once symptoms appear. The main advantage with rabies is that the patient can be saved pretty easily if he or she is treated before symptoms show up, within ten days of exposure.
Regarding you getting the shots, at $11,000 per patient for a round of shots, you’ll have hit your deductible. In fact, you’ll probably have hit it halfway through the first round of shots. If money is the concern, I wouldn’t let it stop you from getting them as well. Depending on how you’re set up, you’ll have to pay either a co-pay or nothing, I’d assume.
OTOH, a call to your carrier might be in order to confirm that before you end up $33,000 in the hole instead of just $22,000.
Seems very unlikely that one would not notice being bitten by a bat, but better safe than sorry. $11,000 is not the normal cost, but obviously they just charge whatever they want.
Some states will pay for rabies shots. It never hurts to ask.
I had them about 25 years ago. Even then they didn’t give them in the stomach. They were painful, but not the nightmare they were.
I think I paid about $500 for the doctor’s visits. I don’t know what they cost my insurance company.
$11,000 sounds excessive. But apparently, I’m wrong.
I had a partial rabies series a few years ago–they stopped when it became obvious the cat wasn’t infected. The vaccine was only available through emergency rooms, so I had to go in each time. My insurance billed me $100 each time, which seemed high. So in all I spent $300-400.
