We’ve all heard that the best offense is a good defense. Can this be applied to your healthcare, too?

Absolutely. Preventative medicine is about taking steps to prevent illness, injury, and disease before it becomes a problem. This means not waiting to try and solve already-existing health problems.

Preventative Care

Visits for prevention are one of the most important things you can do to stay healthy. Medicare thinks it’s important, too; it covers one each year for free.

Under Medicare Plan B coverage, you can visit your primary care provider for one annual wellness visit each year at no cost. At this visit, your provider will go through an in-depth health risk assessment with you. “It’s a tool for a comprehensive health evaluation,” says Dr. Rachel June, a primary care provider for seniors with Kettering Health Years Ahead.

“It’s really comprehensive,” Dr. June says. “It asks overall how their health has been, then breaks down into further categories. Categories include concerns about hearing or vision, how they’re doing at home, their ability to manage medications, and their risk for falling at home.”

Dr. June added that other areas, such as incontinence, mental health, and substance abuse, are also assessed during these visits. Oftentimes, these visits can help uncover small issues before they become larger problems.

Putting together a plan

After this assessment, you and your provider will work together to create a personalized health plan that fits your lifestyle. They may also suggest follow-up appointments and screenings if your assessment shows anything of note or needs further treatment.

“I go through the assessment with the patient and see if there’s anything they flag as a potential problem,” Dr. June said. “It helps us create a plan for each patient, based on their concerns and where they see risk.”

Dr. June added that this is also a time when she can check on a patient’s routine immunizations and screenings—such as mammograms or colonoscopies—to ensure they are being done when they should.

As a primary care provider, Dr. June said it’s important that patients take advantage of these visits each year to make sure their care is coordinated, too. Even if their health has not changed significantly year-to-year, their care team might have, and that’s valuable information for any primary care provider.

“I see myself as a kind of care team coordinator,” Dr. June said. “My patients often have several other specialists. This is a chance for me to make sure I know what’s going on at all of their appointments and be on the same page to help them be as healthy as possible.

“People often don’t have this opportunity, so you only see them for their problem visits. It’s a good check-in point to make sure they’re okay, active, and functioning to the best of their ability.”

How to Request an Annual Wellness Visit in MyChart

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