As a doctor with over 30 years of experience, I’m always seeking to better understand the overall context of my patients’ lives. This helps me better customize my care to address their health needs.
Our bodies are the vehicles, the cars, with which we transport ourselves through our lives. As a physician, I don’t just want to kick the tires and perform some maintenance; I want to know where each vehicle is headed.
For example, if I’m asked to do a preoperative evaluation on a patient for a hip surgery, I’m not just looking at their physical readiness. I also want to know whether their circumstances are conducive to a successful surgery.
Will they have adequate care at home, or are they the sole caregiver for an ailing spouse? Or, perhaps they have hidden depression that the pain and immobility of a major orthopedic surgery will exacerbate. Or, maybe they’re an athlete who’ll tell me, “You can’t take my joint; golf season’s coming up!”
The same medical question can have very different answers depending on the overall context of an individual’s life. For truly high-quality, responsive healthcare, the full picture is necessary.
The same is true in determining how to maximally leverage preventative healthcare for each patient. At its core, prevention is really about individual lifestyle. Anyone can recommend a mammogram to a woman over 40, but to really address the deeper fundamentals of prevention, you have to understand how a person lives. Then you can work with them to modify their lifestyle.
True prevention isn’t checking off boxes on a preventative care checklist in a cookie-cutter fashion. It’s a much more personalized, intimate process.
The Typical Preventative Care Checklist
You’re likely familiar with many of the items on the typical preventative care checklist in conventional medicine. You’ve heard about them your entire adult life. They include studies such as:
- Mammograms
- Pap smears
- Colonoscopies
- Prostate exams
- Lung CTs
As practitioners of concierge medicine, we don’t believe your health is adequately protected with a simple checklist. You need something much more comprehensive for true prevention.
Of course, at Banner Peak Health, we still recommend all the above tests — but we go much deeper. And there’s no one-size-fits-all checklist for the amount of customization we do.
In addition to the tests and screenings on the standard preventative care checklist, we also take advantage of state-of-the-art screenings and equipment. Here are just a few of the ways we help our patients stay proactive about prevention:
- Coronary artery calcium score — early detection test for cardiovascular disease risk
- GRAIL Galleri test — early cancer detection test administered through a simple blood draw
- InBody — body composition screening that goes beyond BMI to consider what percentage of your body weight is fat versus muscle
- Emotional health screening tools — means of diagnosing hidden depression and anxiety. These are very intimate, and vital in understanding how to best treat other physical needs.
The unique model concierge medicine provides allows us to offer this more in-depth, customized care. We aren’t beholden to insurance companies, who would dictate what tests we can run and what equipment we can use. We’re free to prioritize your health, rather than commoditize it.
Banner Peak’s Priority
Your body is your vehicle, and it needs to stay in proper working order. To make that happen, we need to know your destination. That way, we can help provide the right maintenance along the way and get you there in the best condition.
We’re proud to offer a robust preventative care checklist — but one that’s customized to every patient. By connecting with each of our patients and taking the time to learn about their lifestyles, priorities, and health goals, we’re able to offer the individualized care they need and deserve.
If our approach sounds like it would be a good fit for you, contact us today. We’d love to help!
