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HEALTH
Your Medical Philosophy Worksheets
I originally created these worksheets for people to use with their physician. Doctors don't ask patients about their medical philosophy. But the patient's personal philosophy of medicine can have a huge impact on the doctor patient relationship. A version of these worksheets appeared in What Color Is Your Parachute? For Retirement.
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Your state of health for retirement has two parts-- biology and medicine. That's why health is the bio-medical dimension of well-being.
Biology relates to our own physical vitality, and it's something that is a part of us. We're born with certain biological characteristics, our environment has an effect on our biology, and ultimately we make many life decisions that largely determine how much physical vitality we'll build up for retirement. Like our financial and social resources, we create our level of health over many years.
Our level of health will have an enormous effect on our out of pocket medical costs over our decades of retirement. What body do you want to take into retirement?
The best way to check on the state of your biology is the RealAge test. It's free!
GO TO REALAGE.COM
On the other hand, medicine is a system outside of us. It's something we want access to, and use to support our own biological functioning. We use medicine when we get sick. And hopefully, preventive medicine to help us keep from getting sick.
But multiple surveys have shown that at least 40% of Americans use alternative medical approaches. Your tendency to use conventional and alternative treatments affects your relationship with your physician, the other practitioners you want access to, and ultimately your out of pocket cost for medical care in retirement. After all, most alternative treatments aren't covered by Medicare or private insurance!
Another factor in your personal medical philosophy is your tendency to seek intervention, or treatment. For significant health concerns, avoiding treatment can lead to bigger problems -- and bigger costs -- down the road. Avoiding treatment is a bad idea!
However, whether you tend to seek treatment for small issues or allow them to simply run their course, can affect your medical costs.
Similarly, whether you tend to stick with your primary care practitioner, or quickly to seek out specialists, will have an effect on your costs, too.
CONVENTIONAL OR ALTERNATIVE?
HIGH OR LOW INTERVENTION? |
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