Preventive Care

The term "preventive care" is an overarching term that encompasses everything that you generally visit your GP for. Treatment and diagnosis are often included in a GP visit, unless you need to be referred to a specialist. However, that trip to the doctor you make on a yearly or bi-yearly basis is all about preventive care, though the term isn't often thrown around in regard to your visit. So, just what is it and how can you start leveraging your yearly doctor's visits to start creating an excellent preventive care plan that's tailored just to you? Take a look.

What is Preventive Care?

Preventive care is defined as health care that targets and shifts your current health trajectory. In other words, it's a health care practice that recalibrates your health goals and helps you develop healthier habits. Once you're relatively healthy, your visits to the doctor should become more about maintaining wellness and increasing your good health more than anything else. It's there to ensure that, before you feel any unpleasant symptoms or have to have a treatment plan designed, you're already taking steps to prevent those issues as you go. Preventive care doesn't just cover a guideline for a healthy lifestyle though, it also includes other services like screenings, lab tests, counseling, immunizations and much more. All of these different aspects are designed to make life easier and to prevent future illnesses before they become a real problem.

Why You Need Preventive Care?

Preventive care is something we all know as "technically unnecessary." However, that's only true if you're unafraid of both the repair and the repair costs down the road. For example, if you don't do your due diligence on your air conditioning unit, and you don't schedule the occasional maintenance appointment, it's going to break down. You'll need to pay for the diagnosis, repair and potential replacement of the unit. Preventive care is the same idea, except that if you neglect your body for as long as you would your air conditioner, things would be far less simple. For while a "repair," might be a possibility, a replacement of any serious organ is an extreme issue. If you could prevent further hardship and the medical cost of that hardship down the line, wouldn't you?

Address Your Problems Before They're Problems

We always recommend preventive care across the board for a variety of potential ailments because they're easier to deal with before than after they're a serious problem. Major health issues like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol are all considered preventable. When you compare them against the long term cost of having these health issues, the preventive care that could save you from them is much less expensive in terms of both time and money.

How is Preventive Care Tailored to You?

Preventive care, for most folks, seems like something that people who have a history of cancer should do, but that they shouldn't have to worry about. That's just not true. Preventive care can be applied to a large selection of health problems that many people wouldn't think of. Genetics is not the only factor that could land you with ailments later in life that could have been prevented on the front end of your years.

What Preventive Care Can Prevent

• Heart Disease
• Diabetes
• Liver Problems
• Joint Issues
• Certain Cancers
• Long-term Side Effects of Ailments
• Severe Acne
• Insulin Resistance Issues

When you come in for a preventive care appointment, you'll start by going over your family history. You'll discuss people who you're related to who have had ailments that are commonly genetic. You'll explore with your doctor, based on your lifestyle and the specific type of ailment, just how likely you are to suffer from the same issue. Then, you'll start to discuss your current lifestyle, the habits you have and how those will affect your long-term health. Based on your family history, your own biological history and your current list of habits, we can create a plan that's tailored to you, your body type, and what you may be genetically predisposed to. It's a major benefit to you, as it keeps you healthier and happier for longer, but it's a benefit to others as well.

Preventive Care Lowers Costs

When you invest ahead of time in real preventive care, you're investing in your own longevity as well as your bank account. Hospital visits are extremely expensive in the United States and unfortunately fairly common. However, thanks to the emphasis placed on preventive care by general physicians everywhere, the percentage of people that need to suddenly go to the emergency room for long-term issues that could have been prevented, is going down. However, this is still a problem that needs to be addressed, as many people with and without insurance still view the emergency room as their only way to access health care. They forget all about the benefits offered by urgent cares, or even just more regular visits to the GP. When people go to the hospital and can't afford their bill, the hospitals and the ER cannot refuse their care. Thus, that cost is spread evenly among all paying customers over time. This is part of the reason the healthcare industry's services regularly increase in price at such an alarming rate.