Health Screening Checklist

[braumeister]

I ran across this the other day in the WSJ and thought it was useful.

Quote:

Figuring out just what illnesses you should be poked and prodded for, and when, is one of the most important ways you can take care of yourself. ... don’t assume that your doctor will keep track of these tests for you. Few health-insurance plans, including Medicare, adequately reimburse physicians for the time they spend counseling patients about such preventive measures. ... Equally valuable—and a bit quicker—is an article (and checklist) about preventive services in Better Health While Aging, a website published by Leslie Kernisan, a specialist in geriatrics. Dr. Kernisan has gone to the trouble of sifting through the Preventive Services Task Force recommendations for older adults as well as Medicare’s coverage of preventive services.

Go to the site and search for "26 recommended preventive health services". Most of them are not annual tests, and some probably don't apply to you at all. But it's a good quick overview of screening tests that most of us should at least be aware of.

[Teacher Terry]

Nothing new there.

[RAE]

I just skimmed their list, but it seems somewhat outdated and incomplete to me. Still emphasizing cholesterol testing, when the latest info. shows that to be pretty worthless. Nothing about men having their ferritin level checked, which to me is very important. They did mention blood glucose testing, but I did not see the hbA1C test mentioned, which is a better test than fasting glucose. Nothing about C-Reactive Protein test, which is an indicator of the amount of inflammation happening in your body (important). So there is some good info. there, but I certainly don't think it's complete or that it represents the latest info..