- Collaborates with PCP to assist with chronic disease prevention and management
- Helps patient to increase awareness of impact of negative health behaviors
- Identifies health-related knowledge gaps and provides appropriate education
- Uses motivational interviewing when needed to positively affect readiness to change and confidence level
- Fosters patient self-efficacy
- Assists patient in setting health behavior change goals
- Provides accountability, encouragement and help with overcoming challenges
- Offers longer term support to facilitate maintenance of change
Benefits for counseling/anticipatory guidance/risk factor intervention reduction may vary from one
plan to another. Please reach out to your insurance company to see what preventive counseling
benefits are available with your plan!
Self-pay arrangements are available and are based on the type of visit. Visits based on current fee
schedules can usually be estimated to be in the range of $98 to $186.00 per visit.
For more information about the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, please visit lifestyle medicine.org.
According to the CDC, “90% of the nation’s $3.8 trillion in annual health care expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions.”2 These chronic conditions include diabetes, heart disease and stroke, cancer, and obesity, all of which share common lifestyle-related risk factors. The goal of lifestyle medicine is to address the root causes of these chronic diseases, namely lifestyle-related modifiable risk factors, in order to prevent, manage and potentially reverse these conditions.
Numerous clinical practice guidelines recommend therapeutic lifestyle change as a critical aspect of chronic disease management and prevention.
2019 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: “The most important way to prevent atherosclerotic vascular disease, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation is to promote a healthy lifestyle throughout life.”3
JNC 7: “Adoption of healthy lifestyles by all persons is critical for the prevention of high BP and is an indispensable part of the management of those with hypertension.”4
ADA: Class A recommendation “Refer patients with prediabetes to an intensive lifestyle behavior change program modeled on the Diabetes Prevention Program to achieve and maintain 7% loss of initial body weight and increase moderate-intensity physical activity (such as brisk walking) to at least 150 minutes/week.”5
American Cancer Society: “For the great majority of Americans who do not use tobacco, the most important modifiable determinants of cancer risk are weight control, dietary choices, and levels of physical activity.”6
Sources:
1. American College of Lifestyle Medicine. https://lifestylemedicine.org. Accessed March 23, 2022.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, https://www.cdc.gov. Accessed March 23. 2022.
3. Arnett et al. 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines. Circulation, Vol. 140, Issue 11, September 10,2019.
4. JNC 7 Express, The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of high Blood Pressure. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov. Accessed March 23. 2022.
5. American Diabetes Association. Prevention or Delay of Type 2 Diabetes: Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes–2021. Diabetes Care 2021; 44(Supplement_1)S34-S39.
6. American Cancer Society guideline for diet and physical activity for cancer prevention. https://www.cancer.org. Accessed March 23, 2022.