preventative medicine

10 Reasons Why Preventive Health Checkup Saves Money

April 30, 2021 By Kathryn Vercillo Leave a Comment

It’s really easy to put off going to the doctor. After all, you’re rarely excited to go spend time there. Therefore, it’s easy to think of plenty of other things you would rather do. If you’re feeling healthy and well, then it’s even easier to put off those appointments. However, there are a lot of good reasons to get regular checkups with your medical professionals. A preventive health checkup saves you money. More importantly, it can save your life.

10 Reasons Preventive Health Care Saves Money

The most important reason to keep your regular doctor checkups is that it lets you catch problems when they’re still small. Therefore, you can more easily correct issues. This can be lifesaving. Preventive health screening for heart attacks, cancer, stroke, diabetes and other major diseases can save your life.

So, that’s the big reason to keep those appointments. But it’s also important to recognize that a preventive health checkup saves money in a variety of different ways.

1. Treatment Is Less Costly When Problems Are Caught Early

Catching health issues early saves both lives and money. Nearly all treatments are significantly easier, less invasive, and less costly if you catch a health problem early on. The worse the problem gets, the more it invades your body. Therefore, the harder treatment is. Thus, the more it costs. Catching problems early makes it easier to treat them. This is better for your health and it’s better for your bank account, too.

2. Developing Rapport With a Doctor Helps You Make Good Decisions

If you keep those regular appointments with the same doctor year in and year out, then you really get to know them. This allows you to develop rapport. In other words, you trust each other. Having a good working relationship with your doctor makes it easier to discuss any type of issues that arise. You’re better able to make the decisions that are right for your health. Your doctor is able to understand your varied situations, including financial concerns. The more comfortable you feel discussing all things with your doctor, the more likely it is you’ll be able to work together to improve your health while saving you money.

3. You’ll Have Time To Research Different Options

If you wait until you’re already in a lot of pain before you see a doctor, then you’re going to feel desperate for an immediate solution. As a result, you might grab the first option you’re offered, no matter the cost. In contrast, a preventive health checkup saves you money by giving you time to consider all treatment options. You’ll know in advance whether a small issue might require greater care down the road. Therefore, you can compare treatment options, shop around for better rates for some treatments, etc.

4. Chances Are You’ll Develop a Healthier Lifestyle

If you know that you’re going to see your doctor on a regular basis then you’re probably going to implement those good habits that you know they’re going to ask you about. This goes for all medical professionals including therapists and dentists. For example, when I started making dental cleaning appointments every three months instead of every six months, I became much more consistent with twice daily flossing.

How does this save money? Obviously, the healthier you are the less you’ll spend on medication and other expensive treatments. But additionally, healthy choices sometimes also save you money. For example, switching from an expensive diet of processed food, soda and takeout to one rich in fresh produce and water might reduce your grocery bill. In this way, a preventive health checkup saves money.

One of the best money-savers in preventive health care is that a lot of people take the advice to stop smoking. Reducing your vices to improve your health helps saves you money.

5. You’ll Help Keep Health Care Costs Down at Work

Research indicates that preventive healthcare improves workplace productivity. Therefore, many employers offer incentives in order to keep up your preventive health checkups and routines. Plus, if you’re someone whose health issues might prevent them from regular work, those checkups are vital in getting you back to a steady income. This, preventive health care can help you to miss less work, earn more money, and take advantage of employer health incentives.

6. You Might Get Better Health Insurance Rates

Depending on your health insurance, you might be able to receive better rates when you commit to preventive health care. After all, your health insurance company doesn’t want to pay out large sums for people who are in terrible health. Instead, they are happy to pay small sums for you to keep your health issues under control. Check with your personal health insurance to find out if preventive health care can save you money on your premiums, deductibles, and/or co-pays.

7. You Might Improve Health Insurance Rates for All

The more people who engage in better preventive health, the better off everyone in society is. The costs of supporting those who can’t work due to illness can be very high. If more people work to support preventive health measures, overall health can rise. Working together in the community has the potential to lead to better health insurance rates for larger groups, not just individuals.

8. Preventive Health Checkup Saves Money on Life Insurance

Are you looking into getting life insurance? If so then you might want to visit the doctor first. Oftentimes your health directly affects your life insurance rates. Preventive health care improves your health. Plus it can show the life insurance company that you take care of yourself. As a result, you might get better life insurance rates.

9. Better Able To Set and Meet Goals

Taking care of your health improves the rest of your life. Preventive health care, including preventive mental health care, can help you optimize your wellbeing. As a result, you’ll have the energy and drive to pursue the things that mean the most to you. As you better set and meet your goals, you can improve your financial situation. You can pay down debt and increase savings as you move that energy towards higher levels of success.

10. You Set a Healthy Stage for the Next Generation

Making preventive care a priority in your life sets an example for the next generation. In the case of prenatal care and childhood preventive care, it also directly impacts your child’s health journey. As a result, you might find that the preventive care you do now saves money for the generations that came after you in your family. More importantly, it can significantly improve their quality of life.

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What is the Best Way to Prevent Kids’ Colds?

January 21, 2019 By Amanda Blankenship Leave a Comment

Everyone’s mother yelled after them to put on a coat, blow dry their hair, and take their vitamin C to stay healthy, but how likely are those factors to contribute to staying healthy? From vitamins to bundling up, here are the best ways to prevent kids’ colds.

How to Prevent Kids’ Colds

This time of year, it is difficult to avoid sniffles and coughing, especially if you have kids. On average, kids get between six and 10 colds per year, leading to about 22 million missed school days. More than half of parents have tried methods of preventing the common cold that have little-to-no scientific evidence behind them.

To get an idea of how much parents know about cold prevention, researchers took a survey of 1,100 parents in the United States. A shocking 71 percent of parents surveyed said they use “folklore” or non-evidence based prevention strategies.

“The positive news is that the majority of parents do follow evidence-based recommendations to avoid catching or spreading the common cold and other illnesses,” Dr. Gary Freed, co-director of the poll, said in a statement.

What Really Works?

When it comes down to it, 99 percent of parents say strong personal hygiene is their number one defense against the common cold. Researchers look to this as a positive sign that many parents are on the right track because good hygiene is one of the best ways to prevent kids’ colds.

Sickness is spread through mucous droplets from a person’s nose or mouth. When those droplets enter another person’s body through direct contact or the air, it can cause you (or your child) to get sick. Good hygiene can help kill those germs. Frequent and proper hand-washing is the best thing you can do to keep from getting sick.

If you can, avoiding contact with individuals who are sick can also lessen the likelihood of falling ill yourself. Additionally, cleaning surfaces like doorknobs, countertops, toys, and other frequently-touched items can help prevent the common cold. You should also encourage your kids to keep their hands away from their face/mouth and discourage them from sharing utensils and drinks with others.

What Really DOESN’T Work

Although many parents are practicing the prevention methods above, many are still placing too much stock in old wives’ tales.

Fifty-one percent of parents surveyed said they give their children some kind of over-the-counter vitamin or supplement to prevent colds. However, there is no scientific evidence that this actually helps. In fact, these over-the-counter products aren’t even required to provide any proof they are effective to be sold. For the most part, healthy children don’t need vitamins at all.

Around 71 percent follow old wives’ tales like “don’t allow your child to go out with wet hair” and “stay indoors when it is cold.” Typically, these thoughts have been passed down from your mother and grandmother. Like other “folklore,” there is no evidence to support using these as your only preventative measure.

Researchers hope these findings will encourage parents to focus on proven methods instead. “The best strategy is for parents to focus their preventive efforts on decreasing the spread of the cold viruses through strong attention to hand washing and avoiding direct contact of people with colds,” the report concluded.

Readers, have you placed faith in any old wives’ tales? Do you think they helped keep you healthy?

Fuzzy Head: Day 37

February 9, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 16 Comments

I’m pretty sure that my doctors think I’m nuts. Since my head has been “fuzzy” for a few weeks (and has progressed to the point where it was getting difficult for me to get anything done during the day), I decided that I better try to find out what was going on. The fist stop was at the optometrist:

Optometrist: “What seems to be the problem?”

Me: “My head is fuzzy.”

Optometrist: (giving me a funny look) “So, you’re not seeing well?”

Me: “No, I can see perfectly fine.”

Optometrist: “You can see fine?”

Me: “Yes.”

Optometrist: “So, why exactly are you here?”

Me: “I think I can see fine, but my head is fuzzy, so maybe I think I can see fine, but in reality I just think that I can, but I really can’t, and that is why my head is fuzzy.”

Optometrist: (with a look of complete confusion on her face) “I think that we should test your eyes and see if we find any issues…”

This is the first time I think I have ever been to see an optometrist in my adult life. I had no idea all the tests that they do. The results of the tests were that my right eye has 20/20 vision and me left eye has a slight astigmatism, but that overall I see fine and don’t need glasses unless I want them. My eyes were not causing the issue.

I next headed to my regular doctor and once again explained that the reason I was there was because I had a fuzzy head. After me trying to explain exactly what was going on, she said that she didn’t know what exactly was causing it, but had a few ideas of what it might be. Although she didn’t think it had anything to do with my heart, she wanted me to get an EKG just to make sure it was working properly. She thought that it was likely a thyroid issue, a vitamin deficiency issue or sleep apnea. She wanted me to get blood tests to see if it was the thyroid or vitamins, and if they both checked out, then do a sleep apnea test.

I took the EKG and the results came back a few hours later showing that everything looked normal with my heart, so that was ruled out. I took the blood test, but the result from those won’t be available until tomorrow.

I really don’t like going to the doctor unless I have to. While in theory I am all for preventative medicine, I’m not likely to go to the doctor unless there is something really wrong with me. The problem here was that the fuzziness was something that I could live with. I finally made the decision that spending the money was worth it because I realized how much it was affecting my productivity. It ended up being a financial decision in the sense that it wasn’t allowing me to be as productive or do all the things I wanted to do. Now, I realize that this isn’t the best reason to go to the doctor (I probably should have gone in earlier as soon as I noticed the fuzziness to be preventative), but it explains why I don’t mind spending the money in this case, especially if we can ultimately fine the culprit. The optometrist and doctor visit both came with a $25 copay, and I have a $10 copay for both the EKG and blood tests setting me back $70 on my minimum wage challenge.

Today’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $70.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $0.00

Total Spending

Food: $27.89
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $555.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $601.89

(Photo courtesy of Plutor)

Prevention and Honesty Are Always Less Expensive

September 25, 2012 By Jennifer Derrick 3 Comments

This summer in our area has been a terrible one for rabies. At least three dogs have had to be put down because their owners didn’t get them a rabies shot and the dogs later came into contact with rabid wildlife. While I won’t argue about what constitutes responsible pet ownership, I will argue about the financial irresponsibility of the decision not to get a pet vaccinated. One of the pet owners is currently in very deep financial trouble. Here are the problems he’s facing:

He had to put the dog down. While it’s sad, it’s also costly. He had to pay the vet for the procedure.
He and his family must now undergo rabies shots. That’s two weeks of daily shots. Even with insurance, there are still copays and deductibles. Not to mention discomfort.
He’s being sued by his neighbors. Since anyone who came in contact with the dog (human or animal) must also undergo preventative rabies shots or get boosters, his neighbors are suing him for their own treatments and that of their pets. (Apparently the dog was very friendly and roamed the neighborhood, playing with kids and other pets.)
He has to pay the fine. Since a rabies vaccination is state law here, he has to pay the fine for non-compliance.
He owes back taxes. Because he lives in a county that requires a pet ownership tax, the county is coming after him for the money that he never paid, plus interest and penalties. (More on this below.)

All of this over a shot that’s about $25 at the vet for a three year vaccine. (And you can get them for as little as $5 at clinics.) When asked why he didn’t have it done, he said it was because the information would have been reported to the state which would have triggered his county to levy the “pet ownership” tax on him. He thought he was being smart and dodging a tax.

In our county that tax is only $20 per year. Let’s just say the dog had lived twelve years. That would have only been four rabies shots, or $100. And twelve years in taxes would have been $240. So a grand total of $340 over the dog’s lifetime compared to the thousands he’s now facing in treatments, back taxes, and lawsuits. Not to mention the death of his dog. Doesn’t look so smart now, does it?

This is just one example of what happens when people try to skimp on prevention and/do something dishonest. They think they’re saving money by not going and getting that physical, skipping their own immunizations, not fixing that tiny drip in the faucet, dodging the tax man, not taking down that dead tree that’s hanging over the neighbors house, or ignoring their oil changes. They think it’s smart to cut corners and save money. In most cases, though, it’s really dumb to skimp on prevention. Sure, you may get away with something for a while. But when the poop hits the fan (and it probably will) you’ll be faced with costs that make the preventative cost seem like buying a gum ball out of a machine.

When the car dies from lack of maintenance, that’s thousands of dollars in repair or replacement. When the faucet drip becomes a flood, that’s thousands of dollars in flood damage. When that dead tree falls on your neighbors’ kid or house, you’re going to face a huge lawsuit. When you’ve skipped enough physicals and discover that you have a disease that will now cost hundreds of thousands to treat, you’ll wish you’d paid the $30 copay and just gone to the doctor. When you don’t report things to the county or state that you’re supposed to and they find out, they will come after you for everything you owe plus penalties and interest. Trying to be dishonest or dodge things you need to do just leads to more trouble than it’s worth.

If you want to save yourself a lot of money (and headaches), just do what you’re supposed to do. Take care of preventative tasks when they first arise. Deal with the maintenance of your body and property. Don’t think you’re being smart or “sticking it to the man” if you try to dodge your taxes. Just pay up, be honest and deal with it. It’ll be far cheaper in the long run.

(Photo courtesy of Tobyotter)