Most of us don’t even bother thinking about our health until we’re already sick, but waiting until there is a problem can be quite costly. The following is a list of tips that can help you improve your health and well-being while saving you time and money!
Locate Local Services Before You Need Help
If you woke up one day and discovered you have a health problem, would you know where to go for help? If you have a true health emergency you can call 911 to be transported to your local hospital, but do you know where to go when you need help if it’s not a life or death situation?
ER visits can easily run into the thousands of dollars. Going to a local doctor’s office or urgent care clinic instead will save you money. That’s why it’s important to choose a local provider for your healthcare before you need help. Your local hospital or health department can usually provide you with a list of local healthcare professionals, or you can search online for one in your neighborhood.
Another provider that you should choose beforehand is a local pharmacist. Pharmacists not only fill prescriptions, they can be an excellent resource to answer questions about possible drug interactions. While you could just wait to choose a pharmacy until you need to get a prescription filled, you can save yourself a lot of time, money and aggravation by choosing a preferred pharmacy beforehand.
If you’ve been asking yourself, “how can I find a pharmacy near me?” perhaps the easiest solution is to use a search app to find a local pharmacy. Tools like this are helpful because not all pharmacies carry every medication, especially specialty formulas that must be compounded on site. Using a search app to find the closest one means you don’t have to waste time and gas searching for one.
These apps also provide additional helpful information such as hours of operation and driving directions. Some apps let you check the price of a medication at a specific pharmacy, helping you to save even more!
Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle to Reduce Your Need for Medical Care
According to research on the Increasing Prevalence of Lifestyle Diseases, first published in The Indian Journal of Medical Research, cardiovascular diseases account for over 30% of all deaths around the globe. While some of these diseases have a genetic component, a majority of cardiovascular diseases are as a result of lifestyle choices. Other symptoms and illnesses are a direct choice of our lifestyles as well.
Making healthier choices and adopting healthy habits can reduce your need to seek medical care for cardiovascular disease and other conditions, such as obesity, that is connected to lifestyle. That’s why there are many everyday things people can do to avoid seeing a doctor, for a serious health condition like heart disease or stroke.
Good habits to adopt include eating a balanced, nutritious diet, exercising each day, getting enough rest, and taking steps to reduce your stress levels. If you have unhealthy habits, such as smoking, excessive drinking, an addiction to drugs, or other unhealthy behavior, make a concerted effort to quit.
Breaking free from a destructive habit can be hard, so don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help. Counseling, group therapy, support groups, and even practices that reduce stress and temptation, such as meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga may all work to help you be able to live a healthier lifestyle.
Get Regular Checkups
One reason why healthcare is so expensive is that many folks put off getting care until they are in an advanced stage of a disease. For example, many folks are unaware that they have pre-diabetes, which indicates that their body is becoming resistant to insulin.
Many medical professionals believe that with diet, exercise and medications that help the body use insulin more effectively, many of these folks can delay or prevent the development of full-blown type II diabetes which is more difficult, and expensive to treat, and which can lead to additional health complications that will also require more medication and treatments to deal with.
Many cancers are also easily treatable, often curable if they are caught in an early stage. Since many cancers, such as cervical, colon, prostate, and breast cancer are silent until they reach late stages, having regular checkups and screenings can help patients with early stages of these types of cancer to be diagnosed earlier in the process when treatment is less costly.
About The Author:
Stacey Smith is the freelance health writer. She is passionate to write about women’s health, dental health, diabetes, endocrinology and nutrition and provide in-depth features on the latest in health news for medical clinics and health magazines.
