Parents Hit with Nearly $300,000 Bill After Their 2-Year-Old Needed Antivenom for a Snake Bite

10/31/2024 05:30 AM

After their son ended up in the ICU from a rattlesnake bite, a San Diego family had to pay thousands out-of-pocket for his treatment

• San Diego toddler Brigland Pfeffer ended up in the pediatric intensive care unit following a rattlesnake bite on his right hand
• His parents were hit with a nearly $300,000 bill for his treatment — and a third of the cost was for his life-saving antivenom treatment
• Although the Pfeffers' insurance company was able to negotiate down the cost, the family still had to pay thousands for the two-year-old's care

A toddler who was bit by a rattlesnake was given emergency antivenom treatment to save his life — and now his parents have been hit with a nearly $300,000 bill.

Brigland Pfeffer was playing with his siblings in their San Diego backyard when he ran up to his mother, Lindsay, to show her an injury on his right hand.

"I saw a small rattlesnake coiled up by the firepit," she told KFF Health News via The Washington Post.

Related: New York Woman Receives $80,000 Medical Bill After Treatment for Ectopic Pregnancy

By the time the family arrived to Palomar Medical Center Escondido via ambulance, the two-year-old's hand was swollen and purple. When attempts to deliver antivenom intravenously failed, Brigland was given the antivenom Anavip, administered directly into his blood marrow, as the swelling spread to his armpit.

Brigland was then transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit at Rady Children's Hospital, where he received more antivenom treatment over the next few days.

The total bill: $297,461 — with antivenom costs accounting for $213,278.80 of the bill.

Brigland received 20 vials of Anavip — $5,876.64 per vial — at Rady Children's. Ten vials at Palomar were $9,574.60 per vial. However, Stacie Dusetzina, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told the outlet that Medicare and most hospitals pay $2,000 for each unit of the medication.

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"When you see the word 'charges,' that's a made-up number. That isn't connected at all, usually, to what the actual drug cost," Dusetzina told the publication.

As Smithsonian reported, antivenom can be complicated to produce, as a donor animal must be injected with the venom — and then their antibodies harvested to make the treatment. (In the case of Anavip, the donor animal is a horse.)

But still, Smithsonian reported, up to 70% of the cost is  "due to hospital markups used in negotiations with insurance companies."

The Pfeffers' insurance company was able to negotiate the cost down but the final amount is not known.

Brigand has been left with scar tissue and nerve damage on his right hand from the snake bite, and is now left-handed. 

"He's very, very lucky," says his mom Lindsay, who adds that the family has installed fencing specifically designed to keep snakes out around their property.

PEOPLE has reached out to Palomar Medical Center and Rady Children's Hospital for comment.

And as the Smithsonian reported, "It might be best to skip snapping a selfie with a rattlesnake unless you're a millionaire."

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