Why Preventive Care Lowers Health Care Costs

Preventive care is any medical service that defends against health emergencies. It includes doctor visits, such as annual physicals, well-woman appointments, and dental cleanings. Some medicines are preventive, such as immunizations, contraception, and allergy medications. Screenings, such as tests for skin cancer, high cholesterol, and colonoscopies, are effective preventive measures. 

The goal of preventive care is to help people stay healthy. The idea is to nip diseases in the bud before they become catastrophic. That keeps health care costs low.

It also keeps people productive, enabling them to keep earning well into their senior years. Most people don't realize that health care costs are the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy. They also don't know that 46% of retired people were forced into it before they were ready because of healthcare problems.

How Preventive Care Lowers Health Care Costs

Preventive care helps lower health care costs in by preventing diseases before they require emergency room care. Why is this a problem? Hospital care is very expensive, making up one-third of all health care costs in America. A surprising one out of every five adults goes to the emergency room each year.

One reason is that a lot of them use the emergency room as their primary care physician. Almost half of them or 46.3% went because they really had no other place to go for health care.

That's especially true for the uninsured. The cost of emergency room care for the uninsured can be extremely high. This cost gets shifted to your health insurance premiums and to Medicaid.

The other half went because their doctor sent them. Sadly, the four leading causes of death are caused by totally preventable chronic diseases. These diseases are heart disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and stroke. Heart disease and strokes are primarily caused by poor nutrition and obesity. Lung cancer, the most common type, and COPD are primarily caused by smoking. Obesity is also a risk factor for other common forms of cancer.

Even before they reach emergency room status, these chronic diseases are expensive to treat. Half of adult Americans have a chronic illness, but they are responsible for 85% of health care costs. They cost an extra $7,900 each, five times more than a healthy person.

Many patients get tired of taking so many medications or can’t afford it. When they cut back, they wind up in the emergency room with heart attacks, strokes, and other complications.

Source: https://www.thebalance.com/preventive-care-how-it-lowers-aca-costs-3306074