Hacker News Reader

Comment by dabiged | Hacker News Reader

> he was administered 28 vials of antivenom intravenously at a cost of $3,400 per vial.

As someone who lives in Australia, who grew up with aggressive and deadly snakes, what the actual hell? Nobody is out of pocket in Australia following a snake bite and we have many more species and all of the geographic remoteness of the South Western US. Is this just another case of a side effect of the state of the USA healthcare system?

View on HN

If you're in Sydney, Australia, head an hour north to visit the Australian Reptile Park. It's a small zoo that additionally specialises in snakes and spiders that can kill you. It is the sole source of the venom that gets used to make Australia's anti-venoms [1].

The Australian Reptile Park may be related to the cost aspect, in that their program provides a ready supply of the raw materials needed for anti-venom.

Incidentally they collect funnel web spiders for venom production and have a collection network, whereby people can harvest funnel web spiders from their backyards and drop them into collection points around Sydney [2].

Cost is a recognised factor in anti-venoms, and there is ongoing research to reduce their cost [3].

[1] https://www.reptilepark.com.au/animals-at-the-australian-rep...

[2] https://www.reptilepark.com.au/animals-at-the-australian-rep...

[3] https://www.newcastle.edu.au/research/stories/research-impac...

That site left too much to the imagination as to how they collect the spider venom. Or is it from a dissection to collect the entire venom containing organ?

Was also smirking that the snake venom collection the visuals were either of a person wearing no gloves or easily punctured latex.

They antagonise the funnel-web until it begins striking and the venom is dripping from its fangs, and then they use a liquid dropper to suck that venom up. It is wild.

Here's a video of the place near where I live doing it: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tN-mHIXoXlQ

And here's a video of them milking the snakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JDwMDlcBhE

It's nuts. Hats off to Zac the snake handler.

Stats from the video: 1 vial of antivenom requires 20 milkings. Worst case, a treatment requires 10 vials. This is part of the reason antivenom is expensive. Seeing this process, one can appreciate the attraction of a manufactured pill.

>1 vial of antivenom requires 20 milkings. Worst case, a treatment requires 10 vials.

That really takes me back to my World of Warcraft days.

As embarrassing as that sentence is, it is highly unlikely he left with a $95,000 bill, nor is it likely his insurance company actually paid anywhere near that for the vials. The prices that end up on healthcare bills may as well be in another currency, since they tend to be used as placeholders subject to all kinds of contractual math down the road.

None of which is to say that our healthcare system ISN'T a mess, it is.

Yep, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/09/the-c... points out that 70% of the billed cost of antivenin is hospital markup. This isn't even part of expected profit... it's fully expected that this will be discounted for those that are insured. But you never really know what your insurer will pay and there are stories of people dying from refusing treatment, worried about their out of pocket cost.

Also, ER services are obligated to save your life even if you can’t pay. (Government picks up the tab.)

The problems have more to do with long-term things, eg cancer or kidney disease.

Given he’s most certainly on Medicare Advantage at 74, and the context of the article, I think that’s the sticker cost from the manufacturer, not the patient-billed cost. His bill was, most likely, in the hundreds.

Minor nit. Medicare Advantage is an optional thing people can buy into. The standard is Medicare A&B although you can also buy Medicare Supplemental (Medigap)to cover some of the deductibles (and foreign travel) and D for prescription drugs.

Totally! You caught me assuming MA given the baseline enrollment is slightly higher, and that number is also slightly greater in CA, but valid thing to note.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com