What I'm paying to find out I don't have breast cancer. I have insurance. (Ultrasound and mammogram in the USA)

Goddamn... as a fellow celiac sufferer, I'm very sorry to hear that. If the blood tests are pretty conclusive, you can probably assume it's celiac without the colonoscopy. The downside is that if you start a gluten-free diet now and decide to get a colonoscopy later, it might now show anything since you're off the gluten. Best of luck!

Oh I've had the diagnosis for a few years, and I've totally adhered to the dietary restrictions I was given. If I so much as question whether cross contamination may have taken place, I don't eat the food.

I'm pretty well stable now and no longer shitting myself. But I know I'm at greater risk of things like colon cancer, which is something that my family has a history of.

My insurance would "cover" it in that it would go towards my deductible, but that's still thousands of dollars, and we had to buy a furnace this year because ours died. I'm thinking about going and having it done in Mexico. I have in-laws there.

Edit: They did more than just blood tests. I'm not going to post all my lab results here obviously, but I can tell you I took shit samples there more than once, and amid all these tests all I could think about was the cost.
- My wife has a chronic illness with expensive drugs.
  
  Healthcare is around 35% of our families gross income when you include in the cost my employer pays, what I pay, plus deductable and copays.
  
  I avoid going to the Dr as much as possible because I have a separate deductible. If I went for everything I should it would be closer to 40% of our gross income.
  
  That country is fucked up. You people really have to come together and demand universal healthcare, as impossible as that sounds.
  
  We elected Obama on that promise and our reward was the current system 🫠
  
  Obama improved a lot through Obamacare, but it's really hard to get a good system in the USA as a lot of people are strongly against free and universal health care, even though it'd likely decrease the amount they have to pay for their own health care too. I really don't understand it.
  
  Oh, it's very easy to understand. They're worried their tax dollars might help someone who "doesn't deserve it", so they'd rather not help anyone.
  
  I broadly agree with that, it’s better from the former system in the way that walking on glass is better than being on fire.
  
  As with a large portion of our fucked up politics, the answer for why people are like this here IMO goes back to conservative talk radio post-Fairness Doctrine. For people who haven’t lived in the rural US, especially before satellite radio, I can’t emphasize enough how much the massive amounts of extreme conservative talk radio shows impact the stuff you hear every day. When the majority of Americans never travel abroad to see otherwise it’s easy to just accept the conservative propaganda that you half listen to for hours a day, every day, for decades.
  
  it’s better from the former system in the way that walking on glass is better than being on fire
  
  Unless you were unemployed or extremely poor, in which case there's no difference
  
  How much that’s true is going to depend greatly on whether or not you live in a state that expanded Medicare. For my home red state, it’s basically the same as it was pre-ACA if you’re poor. Go pound sand, more or less. But in the blue state I live in now the Medicare expansion helps a lot of people. Definitely much less dire than pre-ACA, but still a lot wrong with it.
  
  But since the electoral college is controlled by the most unhinged and out of touch voters in the least educated states in the nation, sucks for us I guess.
  
  Go pound sand
  
  Pounding sand isn't enough anymore. We need heads to roll.

Out of curiosity, why are they doing a colonoscopy rather than a gastroscopy for Coeliac confirmation? The disease affects only the small intestine, and so an upper small intestinal biopsy is sufficient and doesn’t require uncomfortable fasting/dietary practice before the procedure, and is a cheaper, quicker and safer procedure.

My confirmation was blood test and then gastroscopy - after the biopsy it was confirmed.

They did some labs and gave me my diagnosis. The way it was explained to me was that they wanted the colonoscopy to check for things like scarring and so forth.

To be clear, I'm not a medical professional, so my attempting to answer "Why would they..." is pretty fruitless. I have no idea; that's why I was seeing my doctor lol
- Ahh okay, so it’s not confirmatory for the diagnosis but rather assessing the impact of living with Coeliac? That makes sense. I’m having a full endoscopy/colonoscopy later this year for a similar purpose. Fingers crossed everything comes up clear for you mate!
  
  Honestly I could be remembering wrong. This was 2020 and 2021, and I haven't been back to the clinic since December 2021 when they charged me $200 out of pocket for just an office visit. My whole point posting that comment isn't that I have celiac, but rather that I can't afford this shit.

Go, get your healthcare, ignore the bills.

I'd rather die than have collections on my ass again
- 7 years later, it’s irrelevant
  
  What do you mean by this? They just erase your debt after 7 years? Are you sure?
  
  Yeah after 7 years it falls off your credit report.
  
  On top of that, most major credit bureaus don’t even calculate small medical debts(~~less than 1k I think~~) under $500 against your credit score.
  
  I mean don’t quote me on this, verify.
  
  OK so I got home and did a quick google to fact check myself, here is the article regarding the subject from experian: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/can-medical-bills-affect-credit-report/
  
  Notably it falls off your credit report 7 years after the delinquency date- meaning whenever it was originally due, not when it was sent to the credit agencies and not when it went to collections.
  
  From transunnion: https://www.transunion.com/blog/credit-advice/how-long-do-collections-stay-on-your-credit-report
  
  Medical collection debt with an initial reported balance under $500 and paid medical collection debt no longer appears on credit reports.
  
  I wish I would have known this when I thought my life was over after having appendicitis the one year of my life I couldn't afford insurance. Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep it in mind.
  
  I've got to say there's no way my debt would ever be less than $1k though. I'm pretty sure my deductible is $5k, but I've also given up on the whole credit score thing. I always get emails that it's dropped or whatever, and I'm just numb to it at this point it's just background noise
  
  I edited my reply above with some sources.
  
  The credit score system is bullshit, but it can be played. I opened like 13 credit accounts in my early 20s and keep them rotated, because of that my total line of credit is ridiculous. I don't use it all very much, but on paper it makes my credit utilization look like 1-2% of my total limit, which raises my score significantly.
  
  So those sources say it doesn't stay on your credit report, but I'm not really concerned about that. My credit score is consistently dogshit, and I've given up on it. I don't really care about my credit score at all.
  
  What I'm concerned about are legal issues, wage garnishment, and other things that would directly affect me and harm me. If I just don't pay, wouldn't they seek legal action against me? I'm almost certain they would, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't change after 7 years.
  
  Edit: I think I misread your comment. I see now that it does say "credit report." For some reason, I misread that and thought you were saying the debt just disappears. So really, that wouldn't help me much at all. I still need to be terrified of going to the doctor. One expensive trip could ruin my life.