Preventive Care & Preventive Screening for 2021

Prevention is better than cure, says the adage. In the long run, it is always better to avoid something before it happens. In the medical parlor, Preventive Care is a term that refers to health services, like tests and preventive screenings, which are performed to check your health status and keep you healthy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive care visits took a slump. While there are understandable explanations to have patients not communicating with their specialists directly because it has never been understood until now about the transmission of SARS-CoV- 2, the winter season’s start provides a reminder that patients mustn’t go without care forever. During COVID time, Childhood vaccinations, Mammograms, pap smears, Colonoscopies all declined by half.

The Significance of Preventive Screening

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention that systematically reviews the evidence of effectiveness and develops recommendations for clinical preventive services. These reviews are published as U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on the Task Force Web site and in a peer-reviewed journal.

Various ways of preventive care
There are different ways of preventive care screening:

Visits verification:
The doctor will check your blood pressure, height, weight, heartbeat. glucose and cholesterol levels
Vaccines:
Immunizations or “shots” are known as necessary preventive treatment beginning with infants. Adult tips include measles, tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough for all adults. Ask the doctor if it’s recommended, by the immunization plan.

Breast Cancer preventive Screening
October is the Awareness Month for Breast Cancer. A mammogram is an X-ray performed on the breasts checking for tumours. The survival rate is higher for women if they undergo a detailed health check-up and are diagnosed and treated early. It is also advisable for women above the age of fifty to have a mammogram every two years.

Cervical Cancer Screenings
A cervical cancer screening, also known as a Pap Smear, may help diagnose irregular or damaged cervical cells before becoming cancerous. Consulting with the doctor is always a good idea to understand the time of check-up. Colorectal cancer preventive screening is used in men or women at or over the age of fifty.

Screening and Counseling for Obesity.
This preventive screening includes testing your BMI Index and understanding other possible health risks. Obesity leads to other health problems like heart failure, high blood pressure, stroke, multiple cancers, osteoarthritis.

Diabetes Screening
If you have diabetes, it can only be managed not cured. The USPSTF suggests preventive screening for abnormal blood glucose due to cardiovascular risk management of people aged above forty and overweight or obese. A balanced diet and daily exercise to maintain a healthy weight are essential to diabetes prevention.

Depression screening.
Depression is a condition that can affect your emotions, anxieties, and movement abilities. The treatment is usually medication and counseling,

Follow the checklist of what health check-ups should you take care of and when so you can feel more positive about yourself during 2021. you can check your height and weight, blood pressure, once a year.

There is a couple of additional preventive health check-up at twenty to thirty years of age. Many of these preventive screenings may be completed every year, while some every few years. Both men and women should take a cholesterol test once they turn in the twenties and then every five years until middle age. Also, check for suspicious skin moles. Women should have the required preventive screening done for any lumps on their breasts and get their pelvic exam beginning at twenty. By thirty years of age, a woman can get a Pap smear every five years until they reach sixty-five. Both males and females must perform a preventive schedule of colonoscopy at the age of fifty, and afterward every ten years.

Women should take adequate preventive care to start mammograms annually at the age of forty. Prostate cancer-preventive screenings can be conducted on males aged fifty years old and over through a blood test (PSA) and should repeat every year. Both breast cancer and prostate cancer are curable if detected in the initial stage itself. A bone dense test is another wellness check-up of a preventive scheduled to be conducted every two to five years for women aged sixty and older.

Preventive care and insurance

Preventive care services are fully covered by your health insurance plan only when you receive these services, screenings, and tests from providers in your plan’s network. If you accept these services from providers who are not in-network, you will likely be responsible for some or all costs. (Source: Pacific Source Health Care, The United States Preventive Services Task Force, and Breast Cancer.Org)

Telehealth and RPM help with preventive screenings.

Remote Patient Monitoring is a healthcare delivery process based on telehealth technology to collect patient data outside the conventional care surrounding. It simplifies patient care by avoiding direct contact between health providers and patients at remote settings like home. Telehealth can provide many preventive screening services. For instance, people who need screening for colorectal cancer may indeed get a telemedicine appointment and then have a Cologuard scan delivered to their room for examination. They may do the screening at home and send it back through the mail for analysis.

2021 is the year to be positive with your wellbeing and take control of your healthcare. Your decision to go in for the necessary screenings plays a significant part in preventative care.