The Importance of Preventive Care

Preventive care is comprised of routine health care which includes screenings, check-ups and patient counseling to prevent illnesses, diseases, and other health-related problems.¹ These services can also detect illness at an early stage when treatment is likely to work best.² According to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), preventive care services are no-cost to a patient when they get care from a healthcare provider considered to be in-network by their medical plan.  

A review of preventive care trends found that the use of certain services increased after the ACA provision went into effect, including colon cancer screenings, HPV vaccinations, Medicare annual wellness visits and contraceptive use, among others.³ Currently 150M people with private insurance and 81M Medicaid/Medicare beneficiaries benefit from the ACA preventive services provisions. The review found that preventive care services in the early and middle decades of life, when people are more likely to be covered by private health coverage, may help people live longer lives.  

Here are some common benefits of having access to no-cost preventive care: 

Benefits for women: 
 • Breast cancer mammography screenings 
 • Breastfeeding support and counseling 
 • Birth control 
 • Pap tests 
 • Wellness visits 

First Stop Health (FSH) 

FSH helps our members with no-cost (for most), convenient access to high-quality preventive care services with our Virtual Primary Care solution. Services are delivered to patients throughout the U.S. from our virtual medical practice.  Patients spend an average of 30 minutes with a physician each visit to discuss whole person wellness, behavioral health, and adherence to recommended preventive screenings. Our Virtual Primary Care aligns preventive screenings with United States Preventive Services Task Force guidelines to ensure members receive the best preventive care or chronic care management. Since care from FSH runs outside the medical plan, we will continue to support and deliver no-cost (for most) preventive care services and care that people love.® 

1. https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/preventive-services/#:~:text=Routine%20health%20care%20that%20includes,disease%2C%20or%20other%20health%20problems.  
2. https://www.healthcare.gov/blog/learn-the-importance-of-preventive-health/#:~:text=Routine%20health%20care%20that%20includes,is%20likely%20to%20work%20best.  
3. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/786fa55a84e7e3833961933124d70dd2/preventive-services-ib-2022.pdf