Well that sure isn't fair and Flowers to butt!! It isn't that big a deal that it calls for flowers, but everyone should be entitled to one free procedure in their life....this is a cancer screening...same as breast....don't the idots know that.
Jean

FLOWERS? Good grief.

I googled the price and it seems it's usually "around" $1,000. I know with health insurance, they have "negotiated" rates where nothing is really as expensive as they ask for. You might try calling around and seeing if you can get a lower rate.

I know health care is expensive but it is your LIFE we are talking about. I would find a way. I would not leave it in the hands of insurance companies or anyone else to decide if I got a test I felt was important. And from all I have been hearing and reading, this one is important.

Here's a link to some people discusing it, what they paid, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: price of a colonoscopy

Please, please, please......have a colonoscopy if you're over 40 or have problems in your family. Three years ago I had what was supposed to be a 'few days in the hospital' surgery and ended up in the ICU and the surgeon had to cancel the rest of his surgeries that day. My daily life has changed drastically since that time and my 3 girls were told to have colonoscopys. One of them was told she would have had full blown cancer within a few years if she hadn't had the procedure done and polyps removed. Another just had small polyps removed and the other daughter was ok. There is no family history of this in my family! Your life is important to your family.....if nothing else, think of them and how they would cope......

SharonG/FL-now in MI-planning to go back to IN tomorrow afternoon.

ughh.. I'm scheduled for one in early. I'm definatley not looking foward to this. I guess we are lucky that my husband has good ins. through his job. Teresa, I would see if you could arrange to make payments. It's such an important test.

Janice

I had one - they knocked me out.

Once more, I thank God I was born in Canada. I have a high family risk for this and have polyps removed every 5 years. I had no idea the cost was so high. I didn't get any flowers though....

Faye

I thought this was considered "preventive." I also can't quite grasp the sending flowers to oneself for a colonoscopy. Not that I've never sent myself flowers, but...

I had 2 in Japan, where they don't knock you out, and since I have loads of diverticuli, it was like an hour of torture each time.
Back here in the States, thanks to conscious sedation, I didn't know a thing. One minute I was joking to the doctor that I would see if I could resist the drug putting me to sleep, and the next (It seemed), I was waking up. The second time, they gave me the sedation earlier without telling me what it was, and I woke up before they even wheeled me into the procedure room. It was wonderful.

In any event, I can't see the necessity for flowers. But do get the test done, if you can. So long as you have conscious sedation, there is no difference between a gastric endoscopy and a colonoscopy, so far as the patient's discomfort is concerned, and they tell me that people with normal intestines don't have as much "discomfort" (THEIR choice of words--you know what mine is!) as I did, anyway.

It's criminal that they don't provide for those tests from age 40 on. Colon cancer doesn't have to be deadly if it is caught early.