Preventive Care: Taking Charge Of Your Health

What’s better than curing a disease? Preventing it from happening in the first place. 

Preventive care refers to actions taken that help prevent illness and disease. These include services and treatments such as health tests, screenings, counselling, immunisations, dental cleanings, and more.  

Preventive care is important to help you identify any health concerns before it actually becomes problematic. It is often far easier, a lot less painful and much cheaper, compared to treating the illness or disease when the condition has turned serious.   

There have been calls for the Malaysian healthcare system to place stronger emphasis on preventative care to increase health resilience among the people.

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Being proactive

Preventive care is about taking charge of your life and health. It means not waiting till you are sick, in pain, addicted or in a mental health crisis to get help, but taking early action to give you the best chance at avoiding any potential chronic health issues. 

Doctors can provide invaluable services and help you choose the right path to health. But before that can happen, it is up to you to take the initiative - and even after you’ve taken the first step, no amount of doctor visits will help if you don’t continue playing your part in managing your health.  

So what should you do? Besides ensuring you stick to your regular doctor’s appointments, getting a few simple tasks in place and building these essential habits will greatly help your doctor help you:    

• Know your family’s health history
• Organise your medical records
• Pay attention to your mental health
• Eat healthily
• Stay fit and active
• Practise good oral hygiene
• Limit, or better yet, stop bad habits such as smoking and excessive alcohol consumption
• Get enough good quality sleep

Prevention is always better than cure. Every preventive action you take, even the small ones, can go a long way in protecting your long-term health.    

By practising preventive care, you are making a positive lifestyle choice that will keep you happy, healthy, active and productive, well into your senior years. 

There is one other important part of your long-term preventive care that you shouldn’t ignore: your financial health. 

Why is that? Because not caring for your financial health can have negative consequences - the stress it causes can lead to poor physical and mental health, as well as low performance at work. You may even be tempted to postpone any medical care that you need to keep your monthly costs down, which is never a good idea as it could lead to even worse health outcomes and higher medical bills. This, in turn, will result in greater financial stress.

Protecting your financial health will ensure your physical and mental health stays protected too. A comprehensive health insurance plan can help stave off any financial stress by serving as a financial cushion during medical emergencies. You’ll be able to focus on recovery, and not worry about expensive medical bills. 

Gibraltar BSN offers a range of affordable medical insurance, including i-Med, a medical plan that starts from RM41.85 a month, as well as i-Protect, a critical illness plan from as low as RM7.60 a month. With these affordable plans, you won’t have to break the bank to achieve financial security.