Your Health Care Game Plan

When you live independently, you’re responsible for performing all the tasks that keep you healthy and secure, from following a healthy diet to exercising and washing your hands. It also includes managing your schedule of health care visits. 

While some of your appointments with doctors, dentists, and other providers will happen as a response to a problem — you come down with an illness or chip a tooth, for example — it’s important to keep up with your preventive care as well. Regular checkups help ensure that you catch any health problems and address them before they become problems.

In fact, the CDC says that if everyone in the U.S. received their recommended clinical preventive care, 100,000 people’s lives would be saved each year. It’s that important.

How do you know which checkups you need and when? Here’s a checklist to get you started!*

• Wellness Visit/Annual Checkup: See your doctor once a year for a regular checkup, separate from any visits for sickness or injury. During these visits, your doctor will gather information about your height, weight, blood pressure, and other subjects such as your mental health, your current physical state, and maybe even your vision and hearing. They may also order screenings, such as a blood or urine test, or suggest vaccinations. The doctor may then make recommendations about actions you can take to improve your health.

• Vision Exam: You should plan to visit your eye doctor (optometrist) once every year to determine whether there have been changes in your vision or eye health. The doctor will look for issues such as glaucoma and will examine your retina, the back of the eye, to make sure it’s healthy. They may also provide a prescription for glasses and/or contact lenses; in many cases, you can order both through the doctor’s office.

• Dental Checkups: The American Dental Association says you should have a visual exam of your teeth and gums, along with a professional cleaning, every six months, or whatever intervals are recommended by your dentist. You should also have regular x-ray images taken of your teeth so that the dentist can see issues that may occur beneath the gums or inside the teeth that a visual exam won’t catch. The Center for Dental Excellence recommends x-rays every 12-18 months, but that may adjust based on your particular dental needs.

• Gender-Specific Health Screenings: Adults 18 and up should begin seeing their doctors for annual gender-specific screenings that address the health of their reproductive systems. Some of these exams are things you can do at home by feeling and visually looking at the area for anything that looks out of the ordinary, such as lumps, rashes, etc. The typical screenings done are as follows.

• Women’s Health: 
  • Breast exams (self-exams and clinical exams)
  • Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) testing
  • Pap smears

• Men’s Health:
  • Prostate cancer screenings (if you’re considered high-risk)
  • Testicular self-exams
  • Yearly sexual health checkups

*Not a complete list. This list is not a substitute for medical advice. Please consult a physician about your specific wellness needs. 

Helpful Resources

For more information about important screenings and exams, check out these additional resources:

• American Family Physician, One-Page Adult Preventive Health Care Schedule  
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention: “Are You Up to Date on Your Preventive Care?”
• U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “Health Screenings”