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I guess rubbing dirt on it, and manning up was not an option?
That seems to be ridiculously high priced. |
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Quoted: It’s the same antivenom for every venomous snake in the US, except for coral snakes. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Jesus, that's negligent. I assume you gave them a 3/5 Yelp rating? It’s the same antivenom for every venomous snake in the US, except for coral snakes. I'm talking about the guy who says he was denied antivenin without species confirmation (can't help but wonder if it was more a "these guys surely can't pay for this shit" type policy in reality) and suffered severe complications |
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A few years ago we had our dog bitten by a snake and we had to go to the local hospital to pick up the anti Venom and bring it back to the veterinarian, it cost $1,000.
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I picked this guy up one night when I picked a sprinkler up to move it. Luckily for me it evidently scared him as bad as it did me and all he wanted to get away and it didn't take me long at all to let loose of him. For a copperhead he was pretty good size.
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They should have put .99 at the end of each price. It psychologically makes the consumer think they're getting a better deal.
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Quoted: OP Keep an eye on that area over the week or so & places near it that could shelter a small copperhead. It may show up again. Around here if you find one small copperhead you find several others in short time. Glad she will be ok. View Quote |
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Quoted: I treated a snakebite in the ER about 15 years ago. I ended up ordering 6 vials of Cro-Fab. At the time, it was $3,000/vial. It's obviously gone up a lot. As we were in a very rural county with two hospitals, 35 miles apart, each hospital had 3 vials. I ordered our 3 vials for the guy and called the county EMS dispatcher. They had a deputy courier the other three vials for the 35 mile drive. It wasn't emergent, but when he found it was snake-bite anti-venin, he took it upon himself to get it there with speed. 17 minutes later, he arrived with Cro-Fab, and looking very pleased with himself too. The patient did fine. Admitted him overnight for observation and then he went home. View Quote Cool |
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Quoted: What kind of an asshole gets bitten by one of those damn things? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I flew some Gaboon Viper antivenom from Seattle to Portland once. I know that wasn't cheap! HUGE fangs! |
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4-6 vials initially moderate envenomation
8-12 vials initially fore severe envenomation 2 vials every 6 hours for 3 doses after loading dose above |
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Quoted: Speaking of... I snapped this photo a couple weeks ago right at the start of a ruck. It made the walk... uneasy. https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/188814/IMG_9194_JPG-1502777.JPG View Quote My top rattlesnake count is nine in one afternoon hike in the desert. |
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Quoted: 4-6 vials initially moderate envenomation 8-12 vials initially fore severe envenomation 2 vials every 6 hours for 3 doses after loading dose above View Quote In real life. 6 vials for everyone. See what happens. Saves on cost compared to giving 12 up front. If it continues to progress give another 6. Once no progression switch to maintenance dosing 2 vials every 6. Anavip is even better - nearly every hospital here in AZ where we see quite a few bites has switched to it - cheaper and no redosing. |
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Quoted: Because Medical billing in the US is a fucking scam. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: two different prices for the same thing? why? Because Medical billing in the US is a fucking scam. Yep... mom passed away 01/2019 Just last month my dad got a bill for almost 5k from the hospital out of the blue after an 'adjustment.' Insurance is saying they won't cover it because of the time gap. On top of being obscenely expensive the medical industry also gets away with shit like this, that no other industry could dream of pulling off, because reasons. |
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I’m a member of what I thought was a crazy group on Facebook: “Self-Immunization with Snake Venoms”
It’s been a couple of years, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t convinced by their evidence. It’s a crazy world. |
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Quoted: I’m a member of what I thought was a crazy group on Facebook: “Self-Immunization with Snake Venoms” It’s been a couple of years, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t convinced by their evidence. It’s a crazy world. View Quote Are you familiar with Bill Haast? |
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Quoted: I know for our local hospitals the “cost” for cro-fab is $11K-$16K per dose as of the last time I was told. That’s been in the last 2-3 years. Had a family member that got bit on the finger by a baby rattler in North TX about 4 years ago. He spent 4 days in the hospital in Ft Worth and had 3-4 doses and his hospital bill was something around $125K. I think after insurance and Medicare he owed a few thousand. Still completely ridiculous the money they charge/steal from people. View Quote I got curious as to why it was so expensive... holy shit! The crazy reason it costs $14,000 to treat a snakebite with $14 medicine Every once in awhile somebody will go and get themselves bitten by a venomous snake, and come home with an outrageous hospital bill that makes headlines. Nobody expects antivenom to be cheap. Making the most common rattlesnake antivenom, for instance, involves injecting sheep with snake venom and then harvesting the antibodies produced by the animals' immune systems. But does that process, complicated as it may be, add up to the estimated $2,300 per vial hospitals pay for the stuff? Leslie Boyer wanted to find out. She's the founding director of the VIPER Institute at the University of Arizona, a research group studying ways to improve the medical treatment of venom injuries. VIPER was instrumental in the development of CroFab, the leading rattlesnake antivenom, as well as its upcoming competitor Anavip. Boyer knows more than just about anyone about how antivenoms work, and how to study them in the lab. But she couldn't figure out why the price was so high. So, as she writes in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Medicine, she requested "cost data from factory supervisors, sales representatives, animal managers, hospital administrators, health care finance officers, hospital pharmacists, grants managers and insurance specialists representing over 20 organizations involved in antivenom work affecting Latin America and the USA." She and her colleagues at VIPER used the numbers to build a pricing model for a typical arachnid antivenom sold in the United States. Here's how that model breaks down: Shockingly, the cost of actually making the antivenom — of R&D, animal care, plasma harvesting, bottling, and the like — added up to roughly one tenth of one percent of the total cost. Clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of the antivenom accounted for another 2 percent. Other miscellaneous costs, including licensing fees, wholesaler fees, regulatory, legal and office costs, and profit to medical providers, added up to 28 percent. Finally, over 70 percent of the cost — responsible for most of the "sticker shock" you see in so many stories about envenomation care — comes from hospital markups that are used as instruments in negotiation with insurance providers. Depending on the hospital and the insurer, some percentage of this amount later gets discounted during the final payment process. "It's a markup intended to be discounted back down," Boyer explained in an interview. But if you don't have insurance? The negotiating is all on you. And if you happen to have a high deductible for medications, you have to cough up the deductible amount, which can add up to thousands of dollars. Setting aside the huge hospital markups, Boyer says there's a lot going on the the "other" cost category as well. "The lion’s share of expected payment on behalf of insured patients was attributable to analysts, attorneys, consultants and business activities that set the U.S. bureaucracy apart from its neighbors," she writes in the Journal of American Medicine. Perversely, in this field competition can sometimes drive up the cost of medication. She points to the fight between rival rattlesnake antivenoms currently winding down before the International Trade Commission. "Rather than bringing the price of antivenom down, competition drove it up, as millions of dollars in legal costs had to be distributed across a few thousand patients," she writes. "My clinical trials can only benefit future patients if they can afford the drugs," Boyer said. "The U.S. needs to rethink how we manage these things, because we have reached the point where the developing world is getting more timely access to better drugs (at least in this field) than we are." According to Boyer's model, a single vial of antivenom that would cost more than $14,000 in the United States would cost $100 to $200 in Mexico. Same medicine. Same manufacturer. But a totally different pharmaceutical market. In Mexico, Boyer says, authorities determined some time ago that treating venomous snake and spider bites was a public health issue. "Their policy has always been that the government will provide adequate amounts of antivenom via a massive purchase of the drug which it distributes to health clinics." We could try to implement something similar here, but it would require an act of Congress to do so. Boyer calls antivenom troubles the "tip of the iceberg." She goes on: "It sounds esoteric. It's something that happens to so few people. But the truth is the entire American system for developing, testing, licensing and paying for drugs is broken. Things like this go on every day with every drug but in a smaller way, and it adds up." |
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Quoted: Because Medical billing in the US is a fucking scam. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: two different prices for the same thing? why? Because Medical billing in the US is a fucking scam. You can tell me the sky is blue and water is wet and neither of those would as true as this... |
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Quoted: And this - this - is why we need Magpul D60s. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: OP Keep an eye on that area over the week or so & places near it that could shelter a small copperhead. It may show up again. Around here if you find one small copperhead you find several others in short time. Glad she will be ok. I'm picturing a Predator-style screaming magdump into your shrubs, in pursuit of a garter snake. |
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Quoted: I got curious as to why it was so expensive... holy shit! The crazy reason it costs $14,000 to treat a snakebite with $14 medicine https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/I73KVYYSIE3UJMLSES6JSKGNRE.png Every once in awhile somebody will go and get themselves bitten by a venomous snake, and come home with an outrageous hospital bill that makes headlines. Nobody expects antivenom to be cheap. Making the most common rattlesnake antivenom, for instance, involves injecting sheep with snake venom and then harvesting the antibodies produced by the animals' immune systems. But does that process, complicated as it may be, add up to the estimated $2,300 per vial hospitals pay for the stuff? Leslie Boyer wanted to find out. She's the founding director of the VIPER Institute at the University of Arizona, a research group studying ways to improve the medical treatment of venom injuries. VIPER was instrumental in the development of CroFab, the leading rattlesnake antivenom, as well as its upcoming competitor Anavip. Boyer knows more than just about anyone about how antivenoms work, and how to study them in the lab. But she couldn't figure out why the price was so high. So, as she writes in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Medicine, she requested "cost data from factory supervisors, sales representatives, animal managers, hospital administrators, health care finance officers, hospital pharmacists, grants managers and insurance specialists representing over 20 organizations involved in antivenom work affecting Latin America and the USA." She and her colleagues at VIPER used the numbers to build a pricing model for a typical arachnid antivenom sold in the United States. Here's how that model breaks down: Shockingly, the cost of actually making the antivenom — of R&D, animal care, plasma harvesting, bottling, and the like — added up to roughly one tenth of one percent of the total cost. Clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of the antivenom accounted for another 2 percent. Other miscellaneous costs, including licensing fees, wholesaler fees, regulatory, legal and office costs, and profit to medical providers, added up to 28 percent. Finally, over 70 percent of the cost — responsible for most of the "sticker shock" you see in so many stories about envenomation care — comes from hospital markups that are used as instruments in negotiation with insurance providers. Depending on the hospital and the insurer, some percentage of this amount later gets discounted during the final payment process. "It's a markup intended to be discounted back down," Boyer explained in an interview. But if you don't have insurance? The negotiating is all on you. And if you happen to have a high deductible for medications, you have to cough up the deductible amount, which can add up to thousands of dollars. Setting aside the huge hospital markups, Boyer says there's a lot going on the the "other" cost category as well. "The lion’s share of expected payment on behalf of insured patients was attributable to analysts, attorneys, consultants and business activities that set the U.S. bureaucracy apart from its neighbors," she writes in the Journal of American Medicine. Perversely, in this field competition can sometimes drive up the cost of medication. She points to the fight between rival rattlesnake antivenoms currently winding down before the International Trade Commission. "Rather than bringing the price of antivenom down, competition drove it up, as millions of dollars in legal costs had to be distributed across a few thousand patients," she writes. "My clinical trials can only benefit future patients if they can afford the drugs," Boyer said. "The U.S. needs to rethink how we manage these things, because we have reached the point where the developing world is getting more timely access to better drugs (at least in this field) than we are." According to Boyer's model, a single vial of antivenom that would cost more than $14,000 in the United States would cost $100 to $200 in Mexico. Same medicine. Same manufacturer. But a totally different pharmaceutical market. In Mexico, Boyer says, authorities determined some time ago that treating venomous snake and spider bites was a public health issue. "Their policy has always been that the government will provide adequate amounts of antivenom via a massive purchase of the drug which it distributes to health clinics." We could try to implement something similar here, but it would require an act of Congress to do so. Boyer calls antivenom troubles the "tip of the iceberg." She goes on: "It sounds esoteric. It's something that happens to so few people. But the truth is the entire American system for developing, testing, licensing and paying for drugs is broken. Things like this go on every day with every drug but in a smaller way, and it adds up." View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I know for our local hospitals the “cost” for cro-fab is $11K-$16K per dose as of the last time I was told. That’s been in the last 2-3 years. Had a family member that got bit on the finger by a baby rattler in North TX about 4 years ago. He spent 4 days in the hospital in Ft Worth and had 3-4 doses and his hospital bill was something around $125K. I think after insurance and Medicare he owed a few thousand. Still completely ridiculous the money they charge/steal from people. I got curious as to why it was so expensive... holy shit! The crazy reason it costs $14,000 to treat a snakebite with $14 medicine https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/I73KVYYSIE3UJMLSES6JSKGNRE.png Every once in awhile somebody will go and get themselves bitten by a venomous snake, and come home with an outrageous hospital bill that makes headlines. Nobody expects antivenom to be cheap. Making the most common rattlesnake antivenom, for instance, involves injecting sheep with snake venom and then harvesting the antibodies produced by the animals' immune systems. But does that process, complicated as it may be, add up to the estimated $2,300 per vial hospitals pay for the stuff? Leslie Boyer wanted to find out. She's the founding director of the VIPER Institute at the University of Arizona, a research group studying ways to improve the medical treatment of venom injuries. VIPER was instrumental in the development of CroFab, the leading rattlesnake antivenom, as well as its upcoming competitor Anavip. Boyer knows more than just about anyone about how antivenoms work, and how to study them in the lab. But she couldn't figure out why the price was so high. So, as she writes in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Medicine, she requested "cost data from factory supervisors, sales representatives, animal managers, hospital administrators, health care finance officers, hospital pharmacists, grants managers and insurance specialists representing over 20 organizations involved in antivenom work affecting Latin America and the USA." She and her colleagues at VIPER used the numbers to build a pricing model for a typical arachnid antivenom sold in the United States. Here's how that model breaks down: Shockingly, the cost of actually making the antivenom — of R&D, animal care, plasma harvesting, bottling, and the like — added up to roughly one tenth of one percent of the total cost. Clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of the antivenom accounted for another 2 percent. Other miscellaneous costs, including licensing fees, wholesaler fees, regulatory, legal and office costs, and profit to medical providers, added up to 28 percent. Finally, over 70 percent of the cost — responsible for most of the "sticker shock" you see in so many stories about envenomation care — comes from hospital markups that are used as instruments in negotiation with insurance providers. Depending on the hospital and the insurer, some percentage of this amount later gets discounted during the final payment process. "It's a markup intended to be discounted back down," Boyer explained in an interview. But if you don't have insurance? The negotiating is all on you. And if you happen to have a high deductible for medications, you have to cough up the deductible amount, which can add up to thousands of dollars. Setting aside the huge hospital markups, Boyer says there's a lot going on the the "other" cost category as well. "The lion’s share of expected payment on behalf of insured patients was attributable to analysts, attorneys, consultants and business activities that set the U.S. bureaucracy apart from its neighbors," she writes in the Journal of American Medicine. Perversely, in this field competition can sometimes drive up the cost of medication. She points to the fight between rival rattlesnake antivenoms currently winding down before the International Trade Commission. "Rather than bringing the price of antivenom down, competition drove it up, as millions of dollars in legal costs had to be distributed across a few thousand patients," she writes. "My clinical trials can only benefit future patients if they can afford the drugs," Boyer said. "The U.S. needs to rethink how we manage these things, because we have reached the point where the developing world is getting more timely access to better drugs (at least in this field) than we are." According to Boyer's model, a single vial of antivenom that would cost more than $14,000 in the United States would cost $100 to $200 in Mexico. Same medicine. Same manufacturer. But a totally different pharmaceutical market. In Mexico, Boyer says, authorities determined some time ago that treating venomous snake and spider bites was a public health issue. "Their policy has always been that the government will provide adequate amounts of antivenom via a massive purchase of the drug which it distributes to health clinics." We could try to implement something similar here, but it would require an act of Congress to do so. Boyer calls antivenom troubles the "tip of the iceberg." She goes on: "It sounds esoteric. It's something that happens to so few people. But the truth is the entire American system for developing, testing, licensing and paying for drugs is broken. Things like this go on every day with every drug but in a smaller way, and it adds up." Rent-seeking. An orgy of rent-seeking. |
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I nearly run a Copperhead over at least once a week on my bike ride through the trails. Is there any value in catching them and getting them to someone who makes the antivenom? It's quite the panic scene when the local housewives walk down the trail and step on one.
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Friend got hit by a Pygmy Rattler.
Both hands, arm. ICU for a week. 18? Shots if I remember correctly. |
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We had a VFD that would hold a rattle snake round up every year as a fund raiser. They would do those sacking contests with rattle snakes.
They only time I ever went I saw two guys get bite. One year they sent 6 different fools to the hospital and they ran out of anti-venom and had to fly that shit in. Normally they stock pile before the weekend because they know they are going to need a bunch but someone dropped the ball that year. 8nBAIT |
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Snake Bite - caught on camera!!! |
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Quoted: Speaking of... I snapped this photo a couple weeks ago right at the start of a ruck. It made the walk... uneasy. https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/188814/IMG_9194_JPG-1502777.JPG View Quote Attached File |
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I have two friends that had 4 bites a between them. One of them got 3 of the 4 and those were spaced out by about 4 years. The last 2 were with one on each leg by different snakes.
All copperhead bites on the legs. I don’t think either got antivenin. I’ll have to check and report back. Regardless, 200 bucks for snake boots during dove season doesn’t seem so expensive after all. |
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Quoted: I treated a snakebite in the ER about 15 years ago. I ended up ordering 6 vials of Cro-Fab. At the time, it was $3,000/vial. It's obviously gone up a lot. As we were in a very rural county with two hospitals, 35 miles apart, each hospital had 3 vials. I ordered our 3 vials for the guy and called the county EMS dispatcher. They had a deputy courier the other three vials for the 35 mile drive. It wasn't emergent, but when he found it was snake-bite anti-venin, he took it upon himself to get it there with speed. 17 minutes later, he arrived with Cro-Fab, and looking very pleased with himself too. The patient did fine. Admitted him overnight for observation and then he went home. View Quote Similar story from way back in the day. Dumbass decided to play with a coral snake until it finally bit him. We had some antivenin, and got a call asking for it. They sent a GA state trooper with one of the 5.0 Mustangs they used to drive to come get it. Dude was excited to have an opportunity to open it up. I heard he made a normally 45-50 minute drive up I-95 in 22 minutes door to door. |
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Quoted: We had a VFD that would hold a rattle snake round up every year as a fund raiser. They would do those sacking contests with rattle snakes. They only time I ever went I saw two guys get bite. One year they sent 6 different fools to the hospital and they ran out of anti-venom and had to fly that shit in. Normally they stock pile before the weekend because they know they are going to need a bunch but someone dropped the ball that year. 8nBAIT View Quote If those hicks had just left the snakes alone,where they belonged and where they hurt no one,there would have been zero need. |
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Quoted: total bill before insurance is $198,462.50 https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/105614/too_much_jpg-1502732.JPG View Quote @ W_E_G Did it give the number of Units given? |
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Quoted: Has the insurance told them to take $5000 and shut the fuck up, yet? View Quote This. What they bill and what they’re paid by contract are two different things....I once read a CT scan and MRI bill to my insurance provider over the phone and she burst out laughing, then told me what the actual pricing schedule was with that healthcare company. |
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Quoted: Since I bought bison hide 17” snake bite protection boots, don’t handle snakes or drink much I’ve virtually eliminated my chances of being bitten. But you never know! I shoot cotton mouths on sight View Quote Something like 90 percent of bites happen when trying to catch or kill the snake, so not doing that alone greatly reduces the chances of being bitten. Bites like the OP's wife, true accidents, are very rare. Glad she's OK. |
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Quoted: Crazy thing is some of the 3rd world countries have more effective antivenom and if I remember correctly it’s about $60/vial. I’ve heard treatment usually runs a few hundred bucks. There’s a higher risk of serum sickness, but I’d take that over bankruptcy and losing everything. When I kept snakes, I thought about going through the process to import it in case I ever did get bit, even by our native stuff. The importation process was pretty daunting though. View Quote If you buy foreign antivenom you also need to find a doctor authorized to administer it. From what I understand it's considered an experimental drug in the US, and the doctor needs to have an extra string of letters on his license. I've talked to keepers who travelled to those areas, and brought several vials home as "personal use pharmaceuticals". |
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A friend was bitten by a cottonmouth about twenty years ago.
His anti-venom bill, for sixteen vials, was about $40,000 even back then. Luckily, he was on the job (wildlife officer actually trying to cash Cottonmouths for anti-venom research, ironically). Quoted: When I was bitten they refused to order antivenom without VISUAL confirmation... They told me that I was better off not doing the antivenom as it would likely have worse side effects than just dealing with the bite. View Quote On his way to the hospital, he call the ER and told them to start getting the anti-venom, and the nurse told him, "Well, let's just wait to you get here. A lot of people think they've been bitten by a cottonmouth, when it's just a non-poisonous water snake." And, he had to reply, "I'm the chief wildlife biologist for the state, I know what bit me. Get the venom ready." |
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