Preventative Medicine in Fort Collins
What is preventative medicine?
Preventative medicine is exactly as it sounds, it is the science (and art) of preventing diseases and conditions before they occur. While some conditions cannot be entirely prevented, depending on genetics or other factors, many can be delayed, reduced in severity or prevented all together. A close relationship with your health care provider with access to your history, family history, risk factors, who can track you over time and make modifications even while you are healthy is one of the best ways to help keep you healthier, longer.
Preventative medicine comes in many forms depending on your age, medical history, education and skills. It is our job to assess you as a patient to determine areas that may be be addressed.
Tracking patients is one of the secrets to predicting (and modifying) long term health of patients. Knowing your baseline and what your “normal” is while you’re healthy is the easiest way to being able to spot when something goes awry. Many patients believe that when they’re healthy they have no need to go see their health care provider and can go years before they finally check in. At Starlight Health we are much more proactive in your care.
How is preventative medicine different compared to a Traditional practice?
In a traditional ‘fee for service’ that most patients come from the cost of doing labs, procedures and office visits when someone is well is an unjustifiable expense for many patients. It can run into the thousands of dollars per year just to do all the recommended vaccinations, screenings and monitoring that healthy patients often will neglect. Additionally, the ‘business’ of medicine often gets in the way. To illustrate this point take a diabetic patient: The best thing that could ever happen to this patient is that their provider took an hour out of their day to sit down and teach them about diabetes. The intricacies of medication management, which foods to eat, how to monitor themselves, how to use their insulin, etc... However, the amount of money a provider would make teaching that one patient for an hour they could make nearly 4 times more if they cut their visits down to 15 minutes and saw four patients instead. Some insurance companies may not pay providers for preventative medicine at all. They pay to treat illnesses, not teach people how to stay healthy. This is a fundamental difference in philosophy between Starlight Health and how the traditional healthcare system works. The end result of all these factors is that patients can go months or years before seeking help and can often lead to complex disorders that could potentially have been treated or reversed if caught sooner
Preventative medicine is a lot like maintenance on a car. You have monitors and gauges that tell you when its time to change the oil or fill up on gas, schedules that tell you when to get a tune up and check the break lines and tire rotations. All these things help keep your car running in good order for longer even when it’s running fine and help prevent any catastrophic failures while you’re driving on a highway. On the other hand, if you wait to see the mechanic until your car breaks down because you didnt change your oil in 5 years you may not like what they have to say.
Services offered
Age appropriate Well Checks and Physicals
Discounted labs (IE: affordable!)
Routine vaccinations (coming soon!)
Age / Gender appropriate screenings
Health Education
Nutrition / Exercise counseling
and so much more!