- 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.
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.
A representative for Palomar told PEOPLE in a statement, “The amount cited in the article is the pre-insurance price according to Palomar Health’s billing policy, which is exactly what every hospital in the country does for every invoice. Different negotiations occur, and they settle on an amount. The negotiated amount is then billed to the insurance. That’s true of every invoice generated for medical care. The insurance company referenced did what they always do and agreed to pay the contracted rate, which is nothing out of the ordinary. At the end of this story, a child was bit by a rattlesnake, received expert medical attention and a life was saved, with the remaining balance of $7,200 as the responsibility of the family to pay.”
“At Palomar Health, every snakebite patient receives the highest standard of care, which includes the expertise of Dr. Roy Johnson, one of the nation’s leading family care physicians and herpetologists, who has treated over 1,000 snakebites in his career and 28 snakebites in this year alone, and that experience is what would save any child’s life from dying or suffering any long-term consequences.”
PEOPLE has reached out to Rady Children’s Hospital for comment.
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