The age-old statement, “Prevention is better than cure” always holds true! Have you thought of how relevant the quote is to your everyday life? Especially when it comes to the health of you and your employees?
Preventive and curative health care are two of the different types of healthcare, and commonly used terms in the medical and healthcare industries. While you’ve heard of the terms, do you know the difference between preventive and curative health care?
It’s important to keep this distinction of preventive vs curative healthcare in mind, especially when you’re offering your employees group health insurance. Since both preventive and curative health care services play a vital role, we present a comparative analysis of the two to help you make the best possible choice for you and your employees.
What Is Preventive Healthcare?
As the name suggests, preventive healthcare is care aimed towards preventing medical conditions, or detecting them before they become serious. Things like flu shots, immunizations, certain screenings, tests, etc. are a few examples of preventive care. What it does is reduce any additional risk factors and if you are diagnosed with a condition, you can catch it early on and minimize the effects.
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You might think: what is the point of going through tests and checkups when your body is not showing any evident sign of problems or diseases.
The answer is, however, quite simple.
- First, when your body actually starts exhibiting problems, it is already too late for preventive treatments.
- Second, regular checkups might point out some underlying serious conditions in your seemingly healthy body.
- Third, your body, like any machine, needs regular inspection and checkups to function smoothly.
- Finally, catching a condition early can save you money later on, by preventing expensive emergency care and treatments.
Preventive care is preferable to curative care because it is the first step towards your health: stopping a problem even before it arises.
Early detection of medical problems, illnesses, and diseases also helps your healthcare provider give you proactive care and treatment.
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What Are Examples Of Preventive Care?
Screenings, annual tests, vaccination are all examples of preventive healthcare, targeted towards stopping or preventing a disease. Let’s look at some examples of preventive care:
1. Regular screenings:
An annual screening can diagnose a number of diseases, some of which can be very serious, and even terminal. For example, regular breast examinations or mammograms for breast cancer, screenings for blood cancer or colonoscopies can diagnose cancer at the earliest. You can start treating them in the first stage before their rapid growth.
2. Shots and vaccinations:
The covid-19 pandemic has shown how necessary vaccinations are. Shots and vaccination are important forms of preventive care, which strengthen your immune system and prevent diseases.
3. Wellness programs:
Wellness programs fall under the umbrella of preventive care. With options such as nutrition sessions, yoga, Zumba, pilates, mental health counseling, and more. All of which are targeted towards preventing chronic illnesses from occurring and maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle.
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4. Regular tests:
Blood sugar or diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc. are all chronic conditions. You can treat them in a better fashion if you catch and diagnose sooner rather than later. Regular tests help with catching diseases early on.
What Is Curative Healthcare?
Curative healthcare is the opposite of preventive healthcare. This form focuses on curing a disease or promoting recovery from an impairment, injury, or illness.
The intent is to completely resolve any illness and bring the patient back to the form of health prior to the illness.
For instance, if you find out you have breast cancer, you go in for curative care with the aim of eliminating any evidence of the cancer and return to the health you were in before the diagnosis of the cancer.
What Are Examples Of Curative Care?
A lot of things can fall under the category of curative care. Here are just a few examples.
1. Chemotherapy or radiation:
The use of chemotherapy and radiation helps treat and control the spread of cancer.
2. Dialysis:
In cases of acute kidney failure or damaged kidney function, dialysis is used to remove waste products and excess fluid from the blood.
3. Surgery:
In cases of issues like appendicitis or heart disease, surgery is the chosen option.
4. Medication:
Medication is one of the most common and frequently used forms of curative care that healthcare professionals prescribe to treat diseases like diabetes, hypo and hyperthyroidism, high blood pressure, anxiety, nerve diseases, and much more.
Top 5 Differences Between Preventive And Curative Healthcare
1. Aim:
The primary difference between preventive vs curative health care lies in their names.
a. Preventive healthcare is a proactive approach with an aim of dealing with any conditions before you require to visit an emergency room or until an illness progresses past the point of effective treatment.
b. Curative cure is to control or treat a condition
2. Approach:
It is important to note the approach to the two forms take towards healthcare.
a. For preventive healthcare, health is a positive, holistic notion that needs you need to maintain and improve. It focuses on the overall quality of life and health.
b. With curative medicine, it focuses on removing the disease which is the hindrance to good health.
3. Costs:
Healthcare spends can amount to considerable expenses if you do not plan beforehand.
a. Especially with curative healthcare, in procedures such as radiation, chemotherapy, etc., the expenses can quickly rise. Even insurance coverage is more expensive with if you have pre-existing diseases, etc. It goes without saying; you get better coverage when you are healthier.
b. Preventive healthcare can, thus, forestall a massive expense by warding off dangerous chronic illnesses.
4. Treatment time:
The time taken for treating illnesses is another factor you can take into consideration.
a. With preventive care, you don’t spend a lot of time of treating yourself. When you schedule regular screenings, tests, vaccines, etc. you know you can thwart any illnesses before they turn critical. Thus, time spent on preventive care is far less.
b. With curative care, depending on the condition and the severity, you may spend months, years or sometime your entire lifetime on treatment. Isn’t it better to treat yourself before things get worse?
5. Futuristic outlook:
It goes without saying that preventive care has a more futuristic outlook as compared to curative care.
a. Preventive care works extremely well as it goes merely beyond doctor visits - you can incorporate it into your daily routine. For instance, stress management, sleep, exercise, diet can all help chronic conditions and fight diseases.
Wearable technology makes it super easy to track every single one of these parameters in a personalized manner. Similarly, telemedicine helps you tackle any problem the moment it arises, without having to wait to visit a doctor or undergo tests.
b. Unlike what you read above, curative care doesn’t follow a similar pattern. Clearly, you’re treated only after you’ve been diagnosed and sometimes even endure long-term treatment. So when you have access to tools and technologies at the palm of your hands, make use of it and lead a healthier, happier life!
Which Is Better Among Preventive Care Vs Curative Care?
While preventive care and curative care are both important, it is much better, less risky, and less expensive, to prevent diseases, than to cure them. As Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Preventive care improves physical, emotional, and mental health, resulting in holistic wellness. Let’s not forget, it lowers current and future healthcare expenses, leading to individuals being healthier and more productive.
Speaking of healthcare expenses, preventive care also ensures you don’t reach the state of claims and rake up unnecessary medical bills. You can nip issues in the bud!
Want to know more about the importance of preventive care and why you should offer it to your employees? Click here to learn more!
Preventive Care Is The Future
Prevention, thus, is indeed better than cure. It saves you the time and money which you would otherwise spend on treatments, along with the worry and anxiety - not to mention the pain and discomfort - that comes with diseases.
You can now incorporate preventive care in your healthcare, simply by partnering up with a company like Loop. We offer comprehensive health insurance plans along with preventive care, wellness programs, and more. It is pocket-friendly and user-friendly, and offers incredible value-added preventive care plans.
When in need, simply open the Loop app and chat with dedicated medical advisors 24X7 who can help you in your healthcare journey! Our chatbot speed responses means no waiting in line and consultation from the comfort of your home!
