Wellness Healthcare Check Ups Still Important

While most focus in medical clinics has been about COVID-19, patients may be pushing wellness health check ups to the side.

Wellness exams have not been the primary medical focus over the past two months. Crossville doctor John Sherrill said these exams are critical for a patient’s health maintenance.

“I think it is time to step up as much as possible and soon as possible to make sure that your getting ongoing care before you have acute illnesses as a result of no maintenance,” Sherrill said. “It’d be the same as you vehicle. If you didn’t check the oil or do other kind of maintenance aspects on it, next thing you know you’ve got a crisis.”

Sherrill said the focus has been on immediate health instead of long term, such as heart health and diabetes. He said continued wellness checks allow continued care for patient’s well being.

“It’s hard for people to be grateful for the heart that they did not have,” Sherrill said. “We know just based on science and observation, that if we do the right steps ahead of time that we can make a big difference in people’s lives and futures. In that sense, wellnesses are very important.”

Telemedicine and conference calls are valuable tools for Sherrill’s office, not only for convenience but also for social distancing. Sherrill said he believes this is the future of healthcare.

“People have traditionally discounted [wellness healthcare’s] value,” Sherrill said. “Maybe they feel like they’re just doing it because the insurance company says you should, or the government says you should. It’s actually one of the few opportunities that, appropriately, the government and your insurance companies have been encouraging physicians to make time to fully assess where do you stand healthwise.”

Sherrill is an internal medicine doctor at Crossville’s Covenant Health and director of the Cumberland Diabetes Center.