I am certainly well aware of that. It's a scam because hospitals push a procedure that is 10 times more expensive on patients so they can do more procedures in one day and bill more to insurance companies and also give staff anesthesiologists something to do. Conscious sedation is 1/10th the cost and the patients are somewhat routinely (in larger medical centers and hospitals) not given that choice, unless they insist on it as I do. That is the scam. It is detrimental to the patient and it's a blatant and unethical violation of the Hippocratic Oath not to tell patients this. But because more money is made by using propofol, they don't. And it is financially detrimental to the patients because it is financially detrimental to their insurance companies. This is common sense to anyone in the business (I work for insurance companies). I even confronted my GI about this and he admitted it and no longer even mentions propofol in my presence.
And I suspect Poucho, with his post above that I responded to, is one of the snookered who was also hoodwinked into thinking he must pay 4 times more or go without sedation. But that is apparently his belief because he was only given a choice of propofol and did not ask about conscious sedation or its cost. I have seen these complete lies and fabrications regurgitated by patients elsewhere as well, because people are brainwashed to believe it is the truth when it is not the truth. YOU HAVE A CHOICE, DON'T BELIEVE IT'S PROPOFOL OR PAIN BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE TOLD.
It's very similar to the large corporations buying up larger dental clinics. If you are a patient at one of these facilities the dentists working for them are under pressure to upsell surgical procedures because that is what makes money. Cleanings and fillings do not cut it. For this reason my 83 year old father gets talked into having his wisdom teeth removed, wisdom teeth that were not hurting or bothering him in any way. They told him his wisdom teeth were growing sideways and showed him some doctored x rays to frighten him into submitting into unnecessary surgery. Everyone here has to be vigilant and be their own best advocate. Lots of unnecessary procedures are being sold to lots of people. It's particularly easy to do to sick people, the elderly, the emotionally vulnerable, and those desperately looking for answers to complex medical issues. This board's membership checks a lot of those categories.