The COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pandemic has disrupted regular appointments with your healthcare team, making it difficult or impossible to receive timely and highly necessary preventive healthcare services. Delays in this preventive healthcare will have serious repercussions across the board, including lack of diagnosis and treatment of disease such as cancer.
If severe disease is not caught and treated early enough, it can lead to fatal consequences. We have now developed ways to practice medicine thoroughly and successfully while keeping everyone as safe as possible from the novel coronavirus.
Let’s talk about why you should keep up with your doctor’s appointments now that we are slowly easing out of the pandemic, and where you can go to have preventive healthcare in a trusted, safe medical facility right here in The Bronx.
Why You Should Keep Your Preventive Care Appointments
The need for preventive healthcare doesn’t go away just because there’s a pandemic. The reasons remain the same, which are so you can do the following:
Stay on Top of Your Health
Health checks and screenings help you stay as healthy as possible. Every symptom, no matter how seemingly mild, is worth getting checked out by your primary care doctor.
However, many diseases often do not cause symptoms, including hypertension (high blood pressure), osteoporosis, and some cancers, until it’s too late. Fortunately, health screenings such as mammograms can detect early-stage cancer before it starts causing symptoms, and while it is still highly treatable.
Stay Up-to-Date on Recommended Vaccines
Vaccines are a form of preventive healthcare, as they prevent you from developing the disease – or at least enable your body to fight it well enough that it only causes mild symptoms. Current guidelines suggest that people should get a booster shot for COVID-19 if more than five months have passed since receiving the initial vaccine. Of course, you should also get your annual flu shot as usual.
For people who are immunocompromised, such as those who are on cancer treatment, those who have received an organ transplant and take high-dose corticosteroids, or those who have AIDS, are recommended to get a booster shot three months after receiving the first COVID-19 vaccine.
Manage Chronic Disease
Even if you have a chronic disease, COVID-19 should not put a stop to managing it properly. Diabetes, which is a risk factor for having poorer – even fatal – outcomes from COVID-19, should be properly managed as usual with the help of a primary care doctor. Regular checks of blood glucose levels, and physical examinations of the eyes, feet, and kidneys, are key to maintaining your health with diabetes.
Healthcare facilities must follow strict cleaning and disinfecting guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. If you want to know how your doctor’s clinic is following these guidelines, you can call your primary care doctor’s clinic, and they will be glad to give you that information.
Preventive Care Services in The Bronx, NY
Starling Diagnostics is a multi-specialty practice that provides comprehensive preventive care services, including regular checkups. Our physicians are currently accepting new patients.
We perform certain key screening tests on-site, and we are particularly proud of our Women’s Specialty Health program. We conduct 3D mammograms, DEXA bone density scans, and ultrasound scans in our clinic, which means not having to travel to another facility for these tests.
We are committed to keeping our patients safe and healthy at our primary care clinic in The Bronx, and we adhere to strict guidelines on cleaning and disinfecting. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, call our friendly staff today at (718) 319-1610 or fill out our convenient online request form now. We look forward to being your primary care doctor!
