Woman charged $21Gs in medical bills after bat flies into her mouth

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A Massachusetts woman is struggling to pay off more than US$20,000 in medical bills after a bat ended up in her mouth while on vacation.

Erica Kahn, 33, of Massachusetts, was in Arizona in August 2024, taking photos of the sky when a bat suddenly flew and became briefly trapped between her head and the camera, resulting in part of the animal landing in her mouth when she screamed.

Kahn did not think the bat bit her during the seconds-long encounter. However, her father, a doctor, urged her get a series of rabies vaccinations as a precaution — but she didn’t have health insurance.

Kahn had recently been laid off from her biomedical engineering position at the time but purchased a health insurance policy online the day after the incident, believing she would be covered for the shots she would need over a two-week period, according to the Washington Post.

She got four rabies shots at clinics in Arizona and Massachusetts as well as at a hospital in Chicago.

But a few months later, she began receiving medical bills that stated she owed US$21,000.

She soon learned that the company she had bought coverage from denied payments for her care, citing a 30-day waiting period, the publication reported.

“The required waiting period for this service has not been met,” the company said in a letter to Kahn, per the Post.

Her bills totaled about US$20,749 across the four treatment centres.

“I thought it must have been a mistake,” she told the publication of the denials. “I guess I was naive.”

Kahn has since gotten a new job — with new health insurance — but is still stuck for most of the bills stemming from the ordeal.

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She managed to negotiate down one bill, set up a payment plan for a second, and is continuing to try to appeal the rejected payments, she told the Post.

Kahn’s one regret is letting her health coverage lapse after losing her job, calling it “a very big lesson I learned the hard way.”

That said, she did have a sense of humour about the ordeal.

“I know what bats taste like now. It’s an earthy, sweet kind of flavour,” she said.

“It’s actually a pretty funny story — if it weren’t for the horrible medical bill that came with it.”