HENDRICKS COUNTY, Ind. — Staying on a schedule and being active is important to Linda Lupear.
“I have a routine and I get up and I move every day,” Lupear said.
Lupear is 81 and much of that movement is around the five acres surrounding her home in Hendricks County.
“I trim trees and I like working outdoors,” Lupear said.
Lupear is now retired from a career spanning decades as a TV reporter at WISH and WRTV in Indianapolis. She covered the health beat for part of her career and it taught her the value of prevention.
“It's better to find something and face it than to ignore it, and have it turned into something really bad,” Lupear said.
She stays up on her screenings and schedules an annual Medicare Wellness Visit with her doctor Souhaila Richardson at Ascension St. Vincent.
“(A) Medicare wellness visit covers preventative services. It looks at making sure that you're up to date on your colon cancer screening, breast cancer screening, lung cancer screening (and) if it's needed prostate cancer screening. It also has other screenings involved that a normal annual wellness visit wouldn't get (with) commercial insurance. It looks at depression screening, a fall risk screen, and even a cognitive screen,” Richardson said.
The visits are longer than a typical clinical visit, cover several topics and are covered at 100 percent with no deductible. But during the pandemic routine doctors appointments nationwide dropped off and delays can be deadly.
“I had a patient wait 18 months to get her mammogram because of the pandemic and she had metastatic breast cancer, which was heartbreaking,” Richardson said.
These visits cover the four M's: mobility, mental, medicine, and what matters most to the patient.
“Right now if my life continues the way it is, for 10 more years or more, I'd be happy,” Lupear said.
To qualify for these visits you must be 65 and older and enrolled in Medicare Part B or Medicare Advantage plan.
You are encouraged to set up an appointment with your provider or call the Check-Up 13 hotline and Ascension St. Vincent staff will get you scheduled.
Learn more about scheduling a visit courtesy of Check Up 13 at this link.