Disease By Choice
“Why should I take my blood pressure medication,” you ask? The more I do this thing called hospitalist medicine, the more I appreciate the power of lifestyle choices we all make.
Every opportunity I get I give my patients my smoking lecture and charge their insurance a CPT 99406. Everybody knows that smoking is bad for you and it causes lung cancer. Nobody knows all the other stuff. They’re always shocked.
Maybe it’s time for me to start a blood pressure lecture. I often have patients who say: “Why should I take my blood pressure medication?” They always answer their own question with the same answer: “I was feeling fine. I didn’t see a reason to take my blood pressure medication.”
You see, these are people with insurance. These are people with the Medicare National Bank. These are people who don’t have to lift a finger or a dime to pay any out-of-pocket expenses for their healthcare. And yet, they still lack the motivation to care for themselves, even with incredible resources out there these days to help them — things like great online blood pressure chart sites for home monitoring.
Whatever the reason — whether it’s ignorance, laziness, lack of motivation, lack of remembering, or selfishness — people just don’t take care of themselves. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*