Prevention of Illness: Evidence-Based Screenings and Counseling

Prevention of Illness
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Introduction
Prevention of illness which is also known as Preventive Healthcare consists of steps taken towards prevention of disease as opposed to treatment of the disease. Prevention of illness relies on preventative actions that involve primal prevention, primary and secondary prevention as well as tertiary prevention (Eileen, 2013). Besides improving people’s health, prevention of illness also reduces costs of health care as well as improves care quality. Though prevention of illness seems to have so many benefits, there are people who are opposed to it.
Why are some people for it and others very much against it?
Following the eruption of many chronic diseases, many people are supporting prevention of illness. The supporters of Preventive measures believe that through healthy habits, many illness can be avoided hence leading a healthy and long life. Through prevention of illness, some diseases can be successfully treated unlike when they have existed in the body for long without being detected. A good example is cancer screening. When a patient is detected with cancer at an early stage, treatment is easy unlike when it has become chronic. People also support prevention of illness because through this step they are able to avoid painful and uncomfortable symptoms, they feel livelier and they enjoy their day-to-day activities. Lastly, the supporters of prevention of illness believe that by so doing they save a lot of money, which otherwise could have been used on treatment (Eileen, 2013).
On the other hand, there are people who oppose the idea of prevention of illness. Screening is one major critique in prevention of illness. People against prevention argue that screening is expensive and does not prevent disease from occurring. It may help detect the disease at an early stage, but the patient will still incur the cost of treatment. Screening is also considered to have little value especially when directed regularly to a healthy society. Critics are also against secondary prevention payment stating that it is expensive when offered randomly to people of all classes.
What impact does the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have on this argument?
Affordable Care Act (ACA) has a key provision that requires private insurance plans to recommend preventive services that does not involve cost sharing with the patient. Many people are not able to access preventive measures from healthcare due to costs involved. The coverage by ACA helps in eliminating this barrier (Henry, 2015). The private insurance plans are expected to cover the following by ACA:
Evidence-Based Screenings and Counseling
Insurers are now to cover adults’ evidence-based services that have “A” or “B”. The grading of “A” or “B” letter grade shows that there is high assurance that the services have a moderate or substantial benefit. Services to be covered include: de...