Should Medicare practitioners play a preventive role?

As it stands today, Medicare for seniors means treatment of ailments by doctors attached to the Medicare schemes. There does not seem to be any incentive for doctors to do more. Maybe it is a question of reimbursement. However, what most patients can expect right now is diagnosis of current ills and medication for them.

However, it might be a lot more fruitful in the long run if prevention of ailments were to be given importance. If seniors were given more information about fitness, prevention of heart problems and good nutrition, it would be better for them and better for all of us as a nation because of the considerable amount we could save on healthcare costs.

Look at the problems of obesity right now. We have a whole lot of overweight, obese children who are pre-schoolers. Can you imagine how much they would cost as far as healthcare went as they grow up? Considering that obesity in children has gone up three times since the 80s, this is a worrying trend. Even more worrying is that young children are being treated for Type II diabetes and heart diseases. So maybe where the spending of healthcare money should be done is in prevention so there is very little need for cure later.

According to healthcare experts, it is vital that this trend is not only checked but reversed if we don’t want all our money going down the drain after diseases like diabetes and heart ailments. Since people who are ill thanks to unhealthy lifestyles are responsible for up to 70% of healthcare spending every year, it is probably time to take stock and put prevention measures into full gear.

Will unhealthy lifestyles, especially those leading to obesity be the worst epidemic we need to fight? The good news is that it can be prevented. Even among seniors, if there was a system in place to make more time to teach them how to eat better, exercise better and live better, there could be less of Medicare money needed to cure ailments.