SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Tick season is in full swing, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Tick Bite Tracker shows emergency room visits for tick bites are at the highest rates since 2019, and are most common in the Northeast.
Some patients are also seeing high bills for tick bite-related care. Viewer Robert wrote to WCAX asking, “Why is getting tested for a tick-borne illness so expensive?” He said his bill was more than $1,500.
The Health Department says people should remove any attached tick right away and do not need a doctor to do it. People typically do not need to go to the emergency room or urgent care unless they notice something unusual, like a local DJ did.
“I was bitten a month ago by a tick; I’m like mister tick guy,” said Star 92.9 morning co-host Mike Czarny.
Czarny said he went to the emergency room.
“I saw red lines up my arm, and that’s when I called my doctor and they squeezed me in. I got up to my doctor’s office and my primary said, ‘You should go to Fanny Allen or the ER right now,’” Czarny said.
His doctor said the lines were indicative of a blood infection and treated him with antibiotics. Nurse practitioner Beth Schiller said that is an example of when someone should seek medical attention for a tick bite.
“If you still have the tick with you, even better, so that you can say look at this, and look at this, and then the practitioner should be able to make a decision based on that,” said Schiller, who owns Champlain Medical Urgent Care.
The two most common tick-borne illnesses in Vermont are Lyme disease and anaplasmosis. Both can be treated with a generic, inexpensive antibiotic.
“If you’ve gone through and you’ve gotten tested and you’re positive for either one, the treatment is Doxycycline for 10 days– $20 maybe,” Schiller said.
But the cost of testing and treatment depends on where someone gets tested and their health care plan.
Schiller pointed to Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp, where she said Lyme disease tests are about $100. She said that at her urgent care, they charge $50. She said patients should ask about pricing wherever they go.
“It’s important for the patient to communicate with the practitioner if it’s going to be out-of-pocket, if they have a high deductible. Have that conversation so that they can sort of cherry-pick what you want to have done first,” Schiller said.
Schiller said the emergency room is the priciest testing option, but for some patients, including Czarny, symptoms require emergency attention.
“Had to go, can’t think about the cost. There’s no choice; otherwise, this could be even worse. Think about the cost if I had been admitted, taken with an ambulance,” Czarny said.
To avoid tick bites, people can avoid wooded or brushy areas, use an EPA-registered bug repellent, wear protective clothing and do regular tick checks on themselves and their pets.
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