Invest in Preventive Care Now to Avoid Urgent Care Later

In our busy and distracted lives, it’s all too easy to not fully grasp how much attending to one’s own health is truly worth.

Most people do a better job of scheduling their next oil change than their next dentist appointment.

We simply don’t think of preventing the breakdown in our bodies (let alone OPTIMIZING our physical and mental performance) because there’s a pervasive belief that adverse health events JUST HAPPEN, out of the blue, completely randomly. Needless to say, this is NOT TRUE.

Everyone needs to be mindful about investing in themselves as they would in their dream car or dream vacation or retirement plans- because, without a happy, healthy, functional, uncumbersome YOU, all those other things will not be your’s to enjoy.

Due to recent changes in Colorado policies governing urgent cares centers/emergency departments (UCs/ERs), we’re now able to better quantitate at least one aspect of the return on investing in your health. These policies require that UCs/ERs tell their customers UP FRONT how much costs they should expect to incur following a visit.

This is a BIG deal!

As recently as last year, if one were to go to the ER for a heart attack, a cough, or a headache, one of the things that would emerge from that visit was a bill without much rhyme or reason.  Asking for a price breakdown or anticipated costs in advance was near impossible.

Now we’re able to peer into that black box and get a better (albeit not a definitive) idea of just how much not caring about our health in advance can cost us.

So how much are we talking on average? Well, let’s assume you go in for shortness of breath. Believe it or not, this visit easily qualifies for a Level V visit as 30-40% of all visits do- $11,828 out of the gate.  Most such visits will entail basic blood work (e.g. CBC, BMP, Troponin), an EKG, intravenous fluid, 2 hours of observation, possibly a CT scan of the chest.  We’re talking about $200×2 + $160 + $600 + $600 + $300 + $9000, respectively. That’s nearly $23,000 to start!! Sure, if you’re fortunate to have adequate health insurance and all involved providers are “in-network”, this financial burden may not fall to you full force (might be a big assumption in itself). However, at the end of that visit, even if everything goes according to plan, YOU WILL NOT BE HEALTHIER, HAPPIER, OR MORE FUNCTIONAL. All this buys you is a reassurance.

A question often comes up- why are we leaving “traditional medicine”- this is just one example of why. Regenerative Medicine does the exact opposite- it provides the individual with the tools they need to heal themselves.  Don’t take for granted all that you can do for yourself right now.