Preventive Care Project

Preventive health care can reduce the risk of developing diseases, becoming disabled, or dying; however, many American adults do not get preventive health screenings. A mere 8% of US adults over the age of 35 have received all appropriate screenings, with that number increasing to 22% who have received at least 75% of appropriate screenings¹. Personally, I don’t remember scheduling a yearly physical since I became an adult. I mostly wait until I need to get something checked out before making an appointment, something I think many of us are guilty of. This is despite most insurance plans covering a yearly no-cost-to-you preventive physical.

I recently had the opportunity to work with a local family medicine practice that was worried about the rate of preventive care their patients were receiving. The practice had methods for tracking children’s physicals and Medicare patients who receive yearly Medicare wellness checks, but that left a group of adults who might be missing out on low- or no-cost exams. My task was to identify which of their patients were missing preventive care appointments and to create a patient follow-up list.

I got to work digging through their electronic medical record (EMR) database to find patients who fit this description. With a combination of EMR sleuthing and Python know-how, I generated an extensive list of patients slipping through the cracks in preventive care. The manager of the practice was shocked to learn that 2/3 of patients had not been seen for a physical in the past year, nor were they scheduled for one in the future. With the annual average premium for civilian workers at $1,663 per year and $6,384 for families², it is a missed opportunity for most Americans with potentially deadly consequences, and a reminder I need to schedule one for myself, too.

1. Borsky, A., Zhan, C., Miller, T., Ngo-Metzger, Q., Bierman, A. S., & Meyers, D. (2018). Few Americans Receive All High-Priority, Appropriate Clinical Preventive Services. Health Affairs, 37(6), 925–928. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1248 ↩︎
2. Medical care premiums in the United States, March 2023 : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024, April 11). Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/ebs/factsheets/medical-care-premiums-in-the-united-states.htm ↩︎