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The Rise of Preventative Care in Wellness
For the longest time, the healthcare industry has relied heavily on reactive care. Which seems fairly reasonable, right?
If experiencing an emergency, you’ll need urgent care. However, more times than not, emergencies deemed as “reactive” are preventable. Yet, most healthcare providers advocate reactive care. Why?
Let’s take a deeper dive, starting with each definition.
Reactive Care
Reactive healthcare reacts to unanticipated diseases, injuries, conditions, or symptoms.
Think of an automobile. If a tire bursts, the engine light turns on, or your car suddenly breaks down altogether, you’ll most likely take it to the shop. That’s reactive care.
You may wake up one morning with a fever, body aches, and a stuffy nose. As a result, you visit the doctor. The doctor reacts by giving a proper diagnosis and prescribing you the antibiotics needed to help your body fight the infection. Reactive care combats injury, disease, and other ailments as it happens.
Proactive Care
Proactive healthcare takes action before symptoms even occur.
Back to the car reference: rather than waiting for the tire to burst, the engine light to turn on, or your car to break down in the middle of the road, you take the proactive approach instead. This may include scheduling regular maintenance, getting frequent oil changes, and switching out tires when you notice wear and tear to prevent a breakdown from occurring. That’s proactive care.
Proactive healthcare prevents certain ailments, such as a cold or flu, by creating personalized health plans. This could involve comprehensive health evaluations, holistic therapeutic plans, metric-tracking tools, care coordination, and other preventative healthcare programs. It’s also as simple as drinking plenty of fluid, building healthier eating habits, taking vitamins, etc.
Why Does the Current System Lean Towards Reactive Care?
It all boils down to money—how much providers can make for a specific person. The healthcare industry prioritizes money over outcome. In fact, the sick and injured lead the way in healthcare expenses; take them away, and the healthcare system has little to offer.
Frankly, preventative care will hit the pockets of reactive care clinics, surgeons, and therapists—all healthcare professionals relying on you to get hurt. It is only when healthcare professionals see proactive care as an advantage over their current system that it will gain traction in the healthcare industry.
In Conclusion: Consider Your Options
As a private-paying customer, you have a choice. You can seek out preventative care professionals to stop problems before it causes injury. You can work actively every day to better your health and take care of your body.
Or you can run to urgent care when the worst happens—when stress, aging, and bad habits prohibit you from getting through the day.
Unaddressed issues pile up, setting your body into a repetitive injury cycle that may never recover fully without a costly replacement. Find someone who will assess you, give you feedback, and provide you training that focuses on preventing further breakdown.
A Lifestyle Athlete Collaboration with Cody Wood
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Reference:
On Healthcare and Automobiles - Proactive or Reactive? https://www.goatamovement.com/blog/on-healthcare-and-automobiles-proactive-or-reactive