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Comment by bhousel | Hacker News Reader

Oh! I got rabies shots in 2014 after being bitten by a dog.

The course of treatment is injections 0day, 3day, 7day, and 14day. I went to the emergency room to get these injections, at the recommendation of my primary doctor.

Unfortunately I don't have the bills anymore, but the total cost was a bit over $20,000, which insurance adjusted down to about $500/visit.

Basically, it would have bankrupted me if I didn't have insurance. Yes, the US healthcare system is really this broken.

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Yep, my family had to do the same ER visit for our treatments. Immune globulin is a blood product and I was told it is atypical for any medical center outside of a hospital to have it available. Having to go the ER added a not insignificant amount to our total bill, but we did only have to pay for a single visit to the ER - our followups, we just walked in and a nurse would give us the shot.

On the somewhat funny side, it's weird walking into an ER and being greeted by first name and a wave . . .

Hah yeah, it was kind of funny that by the 4th shot, the ER docs and police there knew me as "the rabies guy".

I also was told that the immune globulin is a bit complicated because it needs to be prepared specifically for the person's weight. So unlike off the shelf vaccines, it requires an on duty pharmacist to actually do something before they can give it to you, which I'm sure adds to the cost.

I can also confirm this. Similar situation and similar pre-insurance costs.

I got the post-exposure series with rabies vaccine and immune globulin shots earlier this year. The total insurance charge was around $20,000 for me as well. $15,000 for the immune globulin and $5,000 for ER/Vaccine/etc. My out of pocket cost was below a few thousand after insurance, but it was expensive nonetheless.

With those kind of costs, you're probably going to hit the out-of-pocket maximum even if your insurance covers 80% or whatever which is going to be a few thousand dollars for most people. (But might be more with a cheaper high deductible plan.)

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