This is the typical fraud at the hospital in the USA. You are paying the non discount rate plus extra for people who walk without paying. Why are you paying? just head home and forget the bill. You will be fine and the hospital can enjoy their karma for trying to commit fraud .

Assuming the report of two doses of antivenin being used is true, this is insurance fraud. Those two vials retail for under US$5000. Snakebite treatment can get very expensive, but this appears to be a very uncomplicated case, requiring only an overnight hospital stay (probably precautionary--from the look of the scar it is doubtful if the snake discharged much, if any venom. Reducing the bill by US$123000 still leaves $20,000, which in itself seems a little steep but not surprising. Yes, the health care system in the US is a bit of a racket.

The late genius level medical doctor Fred Klenner, M.D. solved the problem of snake and insect bites decades ago with a simple and inexpensive injection of high dose Vitamin C. Here is the online reference medical article documenting this fact and a case history of a young girl bitten by a dangerous snake as this man was. But our FDA has not approved this simple and safe procedure. The crimninals in the U.S. F.D.A should all be sitting in a jail cell for life because no medical doctor in the U.S. is authorized to use this simple and safe and inexpensive procedure. The hospital which billed the outrageous charges of nearly $150K is guilty for theft and fraud and should all be also sitting in a jail cell. http://www.orthomed.com/klenner.htm “Case History: Snake bite Child of 4 years was struck on the lower leg by a large highland moccasin at 7:00 P.M., while at play in the yard of her country home. Seen in the emergency room of the local hospital at 7:30 P.M., the child was vomiting, was crying because of severe pain in her leg, which she held with both hands above the "fang marks". Fever was 99.0°F. Four grams of ascorbic acid was given intravenously at 7:35 P.M. with a 20 c.c. syringe. The following 25 minutes were taken to follow a skin test on anti-venom. At this time and before the anti-venom was administered the child had stopped vomiting, she had stopped crying and was sitting on the emergency room table, laughing and drinking a glass of orange juice. She commented: "Come on, Daddy, I'm all right now, let's go home." She was allowed to return home with the understanding that her father would give me a report, by phone, each hour during the night. This he did. His report, each time, was that the child was sleeping as usual and that except for moderate swelling to the "calf of the leg", appeared normal. Seen in the office at 10:00 A.M. the following morning she still demonstrated the small amount of swelling of her leg and had 1/2 degree fever. She was given a second dose of 4 grams of ascorbic acid intravenously. Seen at 5 P.M. she had no fever but the swelling remained constant. There was no pain. The following day, 38 hours after being bitten, she was completely normal. Since this was our first case of snake bite treated with vitamin C, we elected to give an additional 4 grams of ascorbic acid on this visit. No other antibiotics were given and none was required. Since she had had a booster injection of tetanus toxoid in recent months, none was given at this time. Comparing this to an earlier case of snake bite in a 16 year old girl, struck by a moccasin of about the same size, as gauged from the fang marks, on the hand while pulling tobacco plants, and who was hospitalized for three weeks. She was given 3 doses of anti-venom. The arm was compressed continuously with magnesium sulfate solution. Swelling was four times that of the opposite arm and striae developed over the entire surface. This patient received no vitamin C other than that found in a regular hospital diet. Morphine was required to control pain. (We no longer use anti-venom.)” Winfield J. Abbe, Ph.D., Physics Athens, Georgia, USA

Scripps Hospital in San Diego, CA is reported to have billed the exchange student from Norway nearly $150K for what could have been solved by a simple injection of Vitamin C! I urge the student and his insurance company to sue the hospital for fraud and theft by deception and medical quackery based on the fundamental discoveries of Fred Klenner, M.D. decades ago, which they all ignored and disregarded for decades . By the way, Dr. Klenner also cured numerous patients of Polio before 1949 with high dose Vitamin C, but the criminals running the U.S. FDA only approve its use in the order of 60 milligrams per day to prevent the disease of scurvy! Again, every medical doctor at the FDA should be sitting in a jail cell for life and charged with scientific misconduct, fraud, medical quackery and crimes against humanity. Does anyone think any of the corrupt U.S. Attorneys General will bring the charges against them? Do you believe in the tooth fairy? It has also been known since 1969, two years before the failed and fraudulent war on cancer, from the seminal work of Dean Burk, Ph.D., et al, that Vitamin C kills cancer cells at high doses in the human body without harming normal cells, but this vital information has also been criminally disregarded by the criminals running our U.S. F.D.A., who should all be sitting in jail for life hung by their necks until they are dead as our ancestors would have done to them for their blatant and criminal gross negligence.