Why Does Preventative Care Matter?

• What is preventative care?
• How is diagnostic care different from preventative care?
• Is it safe to get preventative care during COVID-19?

Many healthcare visits are related to a specific issue. You get sick, or become injured, and you call your doctor for help. It’s very reactive. However, primary care practices like AMA Medical Group do much more than provide treatment like this to help patients when something goes wrong. 

In fact, one of our primary services is preventative care.

John S. has been a patient of the AMA Medical Group since 2016. The practice has handled all of his medical needs during that time. He says, “The biggest benefit of it is it is so close to our residence. We feel so comfortable with the nurses and doctors.” 

He and his family visit AMA Medical Group routinely for preventative care to help them stay healthy; but what is preventative healthcare and why does it matter to your health?

Your car needs maintenance to keep it running properly. When you think of the human body, it’s like a complex, finely tuned automobile that needs periodic service to keep it from breaking down. Preventative healthcare is designed to catch any medical issues that could cause you problems down the road. 

Did you know about 80% of chronic diseases can be positively affected by lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise? This includes everything from cancer to cardiovascular disease, or diabetes to stroke. Studies show 80% of heart disease and 91% of diabetes can be prevented by adopting a healthy body mass index (BMI), increasing physical activity, not smoking, and eating healthy foods. The idea of preventative care is that patients will see their doctor to consult about ways to prevent serious diseases that could shorten your life.

Yet only 8% of Americans regularly receive preventative healthcare. Missed prevention opportunities cost the U.S. about $55 billion every year in treatment costs for diseases that could have been caught earlier. These statistics are alarming, but you have a partner in preventing disease before it happens – that’s the idea behind a primary care practice like AMA Medical Group.

Primary care practices provide both diagnostic and reactive care after you’ve become ill but also preventative care to stop illness before it happens. 

John recommends AMA Medical Group for both types of services and says, “The staff definitely treats us like family. That’s what makes us feel most comfortable about this clinic”

Diagnostic care is reactive healthcare provided after you are sick or injured. In a diagnostic visit, the doctor is looking for a specific cause of a patient’s illness. In these visits, time is of the essence, with the goal of making the patient feel better fast.  

“As we arrive here, we don’t waste any time. We don’t have to sit forever. When we come in, we are called in right away and taken care of,” says John.

The goal of preventative care is to prevent the diagnostic visit. In other words, this model seeks to conduct a number of tests to look for disease before it becomes a health problem. This approach potentially saves the patient the time, money, and suffering that comes with illness that may be preventable.

There are really three stages to preventative care treatment:

1. Primary prevention designed to keep you from getting sick later on
2. Secondary prevention catches conditions early before they cause significant health problems
3. Tertiary preventative care helps manage a condition after you’ve been diagnosed

Primary Preventative Care

In a primary preventative healthcare visit, sometimes called an annual or wellness exam, the goal is to prevent you from getting a condition in the first place. In a typical primary preventive care exam, you and your doctor may discuss:

• The state of your current health
• Your family health history
• Any past illnesses or surgeries you’ve had
• The risks that you’ll develop certain conditions later on
• How to maintain your health

During the visit, a number of preventative screenings may be ordered, along with recording the current state of your health. For example, you can expect the clinical team to:

• Check your temperature, weight, height, blood pressure, and pulse
• Listen to your lungs and heart 
• Check your skin, ears, eyes, and abdomen
• Draw blood and order testing on things like your blood sugar or cholesterol
• Cancer screenings may be ordered, such as a mammogram to detect breast cancer
• You may have a prostate exam to check for cancer or a breast exam to detect lumps
• You also may be asked if you want an immunization, such as a flu shot

The good news is that preventative annual visits are typically covered in full by most major insurers. Our office can check to determine your specific coverage.

Secondary Preventative Care

During this type of primary care visit, the physician will diagnose and treat a health condition that has already occurred but early on before it becomes a problem. This is an important visit to limit the severity of the illness, treat and cure it, or manage it effectively. For example, if breast cancer is diagnosed early, the survival rate is near 90%.

Tertiary Preventative Care

The third type of primary care visit is designed to help you manage a chronic condition such as diabetes. For example: 

• A primary preventative care visit would be designed to help you change lifestyle habits so you don’t get diabetes later on
• A secondary preventative care visit would diagnose the diabetes and begin treatment
• A tertiary visit would help you maintain and live with the disease to prevent other types of side effects such as kidney disease

Some of the most typical preventative care treatments should be a standard part of your care. For example:

• The preventative check-up itself should occur once per year
• We also recommend the flu shot annually, which is also covered by most health insurance plans
• For women, a mammogram is typically ordered once a year after age 40
• A colonoscopy, which is a screening for colon cancer should happen once every 10 years after age 50
• Vaccinations during childhood are also an example of preventative care

Click here to schedule your visit today or call us at 727-331-8740.