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player ready...In Minnesota, all the major health plans and medical groups have collaborated on guidelines for medical practice across the state — and they don’t recommend annual physicals.
Instead, physicians are advised to ask patients whenever they come in if they’re eating well and exercising, and whether they’re up to date on recommended tests, such as colonoscopies.
“At any patient encounter, you review how the patient is doing in terms of preventive health service” instead of saving it up for a checkup, explained Dr. Marcus Thygeson, associate medical director of Health Partners, a Minneapolis health plan with 700,000 members.
Many older patients schedule appointments anyway for help with such chronic conditions as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension or arthritis. And younger patients generally don’t need to go to the doctor more than every three years if they’re healthy and taking proper sexual precautions, Thygeson said.
Health Partners doesn’t want to leave prevention to chance. Doctors get regular updates on how many of his or her patients have received recommended services such as mammograms or colonoscopies. Before every appointment, staff checks to see if an updated cholesterol count or other test should be scheduled. Afterward, they often follow up by phone.
“The patient and the physician are prompted to have conversations about good health by the way things work, so it doesn’t get overlooked,” Thygeson said.