Preventative Care Coverage versus Medical Care Coverage
Many insurance companies now cover preventative care services without copays or deductibles. These services typically include an annual preventative visit, routine vaccines and screenings for medical conditions such as cancer, high cholesterol and diabetes. Insurance companies do not consider medication refills, monitoring chronic conditions or assessing and managing new symptoms as preventative care. For insurance purposes, these services are treated as two separate visits and must be billed as such.
For your convenience, we often complete both of these services at one office visit. However, if we discuss chronic medical conditions (refill medications, monitor labs, etc) or manage new symptoms at a preventative visit,you may be subject to whatever co-pay or deductible your insurance requires for a routine medical office visit.
Thus, you can schedule both types of services together, but please be aware that your insurance will likely consider these two separate visits on the same day.
We advise that patients consult your own insurance company if you have questions regarding preventative vs. routine medical care.