Getting preventive care reduces the risk of illness, disability, and death, but millions of people in the United States don't receive recommended preventive health care services.
Preventive care
can save your life.Preventive
care means spotting potential problems before they become real problems. Preventive care can dramatically increase your life expectancy because it allows you to detect things early and treat them much more easily.Preventive care is promoted as part of a population health approach and includes both preventive clinical services and screening tests. Increasing acceptance of preventive services requires multifaceted strategies, including, but not limited to, organizational leadership, education, measurement, and reimbursement. Some examples of relevant references include the CTFPC Red Book, which includes recommendations for lifelong detection and prevention. For example, those working in public health may see populations as all residents of a geographical area, while physicians may see populations only as those they have provided care to, blurring the line between disease risk and the disease itself, as well as between prevention and treatment.
Some of these prevention techniques may be active and involve individual participation and others are passive. Clinical prevention strategies exist for many chronic diseases; these strategies include intervening before the disease appears (primary prevention), detecting and treating the disease at an early stage (secondary prevention), and controlling the disease to slow or stop its progression (tertiary prevention). The primary level of prevention is a population health approach characterized by actions taken to prevent future health hazards and reduce factors known to increase disease risks. As a medical specialty recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), preventive medicine focuses on the health of individuals and communities.
Currently, most providers, including hospitals and doctors, are paid to treat rather than prevent the disease. Although primary prevention was not excluded, much of the discussion focused on secondary and tertiary prevention related to health care system interventions and community interventions linked to clinical services. Findings and conclusions are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official opinions of Deloitte Consulting, LLP, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventive care will detect diseases before they become too serious, which will drastically reduce the cost of treatment, or inform you of problem areas to look out for, which can prevent future illnesses altogether.
Here are seven benefits of preventive health care and why it's so important to stay on top of your health.
