What is a Health-based vs Disease-based Healthcare System?
A health-based system is proactive and tries to prevent disease from beginning. This is done by building a team of healthcare providers which develop individualized plans to meet the goals and needs of each patient. Through education and proactive care each person can become as healthy as they choose to be.
Instead, the American “healthcare” system is reactive and only treats you if you have diagnosable disease. This is what I refer to as a ‘disease-care’. This is unfortunate because most diseases have signs and symptoms of a problem long before they truly arise. Pain and body breakdown are the last stages of any disease.
With proper education, stress management and proactive care, many health problems can be prevented. For example, how many times have we heard about people going to their physician for stomach pain and acid reflux. For months and even years the doctor is not able to find anything wrong. Instead of nutrition counseling, bacterial gut checks, and/or stress reduction therapies, the patient is given a pill for “the burn.” That is until an ulcer is finally found. Now the patient is eligible for treatment.
How sad is that! Is this really helping people stay healthy or is it just treating disease when it arises?
The same issues happen in the dental world. Sadly, most people do not realize that cavities, gum disease, and tooth pain are the final stages of dental disease. There are many signs and symptoms of issues “brewing.” They could have been stopped, managed, and even prevented.
Our goal should be to make health a priority and stop the disease cycle that plagues the current American “healthcare system.” To start, each person deserves to have an evaluation and one-on-one discussion with their dentist (or any healthcare provider for that matter). By working together, we can create an individualized plan that addresses your specific needs and stops the disease cycle. Take back your health and never deal with “disease-care” again.