Lafiel on 19 July 2015
| hsrob said: I've treated snake bites for some of the most venomous snakes on Earth (live in Queensland, Australia) and it's really not that complicated nor should it be that expensive. And this is in a country with a diverse range of highly venomous snakes and low population. Clearly there were complications here, perhaps due to delay in getting treatment or sourcing anti-venom and as soon as you hit an ICU, costs do escalate rapidly, but $83 000 for meds and the overall cost is just plain crazy. If this happened in rural Australia, you would be flown to the closest hospital by emergency helicopter, flown by The Flying doctors to a tertiary care hospital (if required), which could be 1000+ km away. You would be seen immediately in ED, transferred to ICU if required for as long as necessary, surgery if required (assuming serious complications), returned to a medical ward for convalescence, provided all necessary medications, physiotherapy etc, or anything else required for treatment. Your bill on discharge, $0. |
As I stated before in this thread the bill seems to indicate the patient was only treated for 6 days, as it says "service date 07/04/15 to 07/09/15", but maybe I'm reading this wrong. I don't know, I would expect a far longer recovery/treatment time in case of major complications that required very special medication.
