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Alarm­ing­lyone in every four peo­ple in the US did not go to their annu­al health check­up last year, accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC). If you’ve ever missed an appoint­ment and are look­ing to make your­self health­i­er mov­ing for­ward, be mind­ful that skip­ping out on your annu­al health check is not the way to go. annual check up l yearly check up l health checkup l medical check up l routine check up There are mul­ti­ple rea­sons why going for an annu­al health check­up with your trust­ed physi­cian should be a pri­or­i­ty. Here are some of them:

1- Building A Better Relationship With Your Doctor

Only 29% of peo­ple around the world report hav­ing con­fi­dence in their health­care providers, accord­ing to Gallup. As health­care is a very per­son­al mat­ter, not trust­ing your doc­tor is detri­men­tal to your over­all care and health. Thank­ful­ly, going on your annu­al health check­up can help you build a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with your doctor. Annu­al check­ups often involve sev­er­al exam­i­na­tions that pro­vide mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties for you to assess if your cur­rent doc­tor is the one you wish to be a part­ner in your health and wellbeing. It is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to change your doc­tor if you are uncom­fort­able and build a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with your new one. Always remem­ber that you are in con­trol of who will help you main­tain good health.

2- Getting A Current Assessment Of Your Health

Around one in every three adults across the world have mul­ti­ple chron­ic ill­ness­es, accord­ing to the Yale School of Pub­lic Health. If you are uncer­tain if you have a chron­ic con­di­tion, an annu­al health check­up can give you a cur­rent assess­ment of your health. Your doc­tor can ask you to sub­mit blood sam­ples and stool sam­ples to deter­mine your health con­di­tion. An annu­al check­up can inform you if you have any chron­ic bow­el con­di­tions and oth­er health com­plaints that may need to be addressed. It also pro­vides a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask your health­care provider for rec­om­men­da­tions for activ­i­ties, vit­a­mins, or med­ica­tion that can help you improve your present health. Hav­ing a clear base­line of your present health con­di­tion will make it eas­i­er for your doc­tors to detect any changes to your health, as your records will be up to date. 

3- Laying Groundwork For Better Long-Term Health

An annu­al health check­up is your tool to lay the ground­work for your pro­longed health by giv­ing you the infor­ma­tion that you need. While pre­ven­tion of con­di­tions is ide­al, ear­ly detec­tion is the true key to bet­ter long-term health. Your doc­tor will nor­mal­ly include var­i­ous can­cer screen­ing tests in an annu­al check­up, although this may be depen­dent on your age and gen­der. As you age, the tests that you will require will change as well. This is why get­ting an annu­al check­up is a must. Skip­ping it for a year or sev­er­al years robs you of the oppor­tu­ni­ty for ear­ly detec­tion that may end up sav­ing your life. 

4- Lowering Overall Healthcare Cost

The aver­age health­care cost of a per­son with chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease with com­pli­ca­tions goes to about $7374 for each hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, as pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Nephrol­o­gy Jour­nal. Chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease is whol­ly preventable. Oth­er pre­ventable chron­ic dis­eases include heart dis­ease, lung dis­ease, type 2 dia­betes, and liv­er dis­ease. Your annu­al check­up can let you know if you are on the path to pre­ventable chron­ic dis­eases and can effec­tive­ly low­er your over­all health­care cost down the line by right­ing your diet or lifestyle. In the event that the devel­op­ment of any chron­ic dis­ease is found, an annu­al check­up can help low­er your health­care costs by pre­vent­ing any com­pli­ca­tions from aris­ing by pro­vid­ing you with a guide.

5- Updating Immunizations

Get­ting vac­ci­na­tions is a sim­ple but effec­tive way to pre­vent cer­tain dis­eases. While most indi­vid­u­als will have a full course of vac­ci­na­tions as infants, there are cer­tain vac­ci­na­tions that are only avail­able once you have reached a cer­tain age, like the HPV vaccine. Based on the find­ings of the CDC, around 80 mil­lion indi­vid­u­als are present­ly infect­ed with HPV. HPV is also a link to poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous can­cers. Oth­er vac­ci­na­tions that adults need to update include measles, whoop­ing cough, tetanus, chick­en­pox, shin­gles, and pneumonia. Last­ly, An annu­al check­up can give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to update your vac­ci­na­tions, so you do not leave your­self at risk.
Jen­nifer Kinn has writ­ten this article

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