Why Routine Healthcare Visits Are Important for Preventive Health

As a primary care physician, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected my practice in a number of ways. One of the most significant and challenging was transitioning to telemedicine as a primary means of meeting with patients.

At the beginning of the pandemic, staff and patients were scared to come into the office out of fear of possibly being exposed to the virus. As a result, many people canceled routine physicals and follow-up visits. This presented a challenge in the way we care for patients.

Telemedicine has been really helpful in accessing patients during the pandemic, but it hurt us in other ways and led to poor health outcomes for some people. There’s no way to replicate the advantages of physical touch during an exam. So we struggled in some cases to make diagnoses without that ability.

Because so many patients missed preventive health visits, we had to play catch-up as people were coming out of lockdown. That put us in a situation where we were trying to see lots of patients at one time, trying to squeeze people in before the end of the year because they had to get their physicals in for their job. We were bombarded with patients trying to schedule or reschedule their healthcare visits.

Physicals are critical touchpoints with our patients. They are an opportunity to provide education on health, wellness, and preventive care. Many people missed out on getting this education by staying home and avoiding their care visits. Unfortunately, a lot of patients came back to us with issues like higher cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, or weight gain because they hadn’t been screened as they typically would have.

In some cases, people even missed essential cancer screenings, like mammograms. This can lead to devastating outcomes, like delayed cancer diagnoses that could have been caught earlier had the patient attended their screening as scheduled.

We’re starting to see the effects of other poor health choices that increased during the pandemic.

One of these is lack of exercise. With so many people staying home and avoiding going outside or being around other people, many stopped exercising or going to the gym. Many people had a hard time getting back on track after restrictions eased.

We’ve also seen the consequences of increased alcohol use during the pandemic. Many Americans suffer from mental health conditions like depression and anxiety, and with the added stress of the pandemic, some started to self-medicate using alcohol.

Increased alcohol use can lead to several adverse health outcomes. First, drinking can disrupt sleep, which is critical to many bodily functions. We found that more people were fatigued during the day as a result. Drinking can also contribute to weight gain. Finally, excessive alcohol use is also associated with liver problems, so we’ve also seen an increase in fatty liver disease.

We want people to understand that primary care doctors are your cheerleaders. We care about preventing issues with your health. For us, it’s about education and teaching people how certain behaviors can affect their bodies, especially in the long term. You need your cheerleader to keep you on track, and that requires prioritizing your healthcare visits.