Chronic Care Management

Chronic Care Management services offered in Ocala, FL

Six out of 10 adults suffer from chronic health conditions, and more than half have multiple chronic diseases that further compromise their well-being. If you’re in this group, living a long, healthy, active life depends on comprehensive chronic care management at Marion Heart Center & Marion Physician Associates in Ocala, Florida. Its experienced team creates management plans for all chronic diseases, helping to slow disease progression and promote optimal health. Call the Downtown or Ocala West office or schedule a chronic care management appointment using the online booking feature today.

Why do I need chronic care management?

Today’s treatments can’t cure chronic diseases. These conditions are also progressive, gradually causing more damage to your organs and leading to life-threatening problems like heart attacks, kidney failure, and strokes.

Chronic care management provides integrative therapies to relieve symptoms, stop or slow disease progression, prevent severe complications, and protect your life.

What health conditions require chronic care management?

Chronic diseases needing long-term medical management include:

Heart disease
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Diabetes
Arthritis
Asthma
Chronic kidney disease
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Alzheimer’s disease and many cancers are also incurable chronic conditions.

What happens during chronic care management?

Your Marion Heart Center & Marion Physician Associates provider learns about your medical history and symptoms and completes a thorough physical exam. They also order blood work and other tests to diagnose the chronic condition.

Your care is always customized to meet your health care needs. However, chronic care management involves two fundamental approaches: lifestyle interventions and medication.

Lifestyle interventions

Though there are a few exceptions, like asthma and dementia, unhealthy lifestyle habits cause most chronic diseases.

You can prevent chronic disease by changing your lifestyle before it takes hold. Your daily habits have such a significant influence that changing them is the first line of treatment after a chronic disease develops. Lifestyle modifications are also essential for chronic care management.

Your provider works closely with you, creating a plan that you can stick with whether you need to change your diet, exercise more, or lose weight. Managing a chronic disease also depends on issues like stopping smoking, reducing stress, and cutting back on alcohol use.

Here are two examples showing how your lifestyle affects disease management:

If you have diabetes, you must keep your blood sugar within the healthy range to prevent nerve and blood vessel damage and complications like heart disease and kidney disease. The most essential step for managing blood sugar is monitoring your carbohydrate intake.

In the same way, reducing dietary salt and eating potassium-rich foods may be all you need to do to lower your blood pressure.

Medications

If lifestyle changes don’t work or your chronic disease has already reached an advanced stage, your provider prescribes the medications necessary to control the condition.

Call the nearest Marion Heart Center & Marion Physician Associates office or use online booking to schedule a chronic care management appointment today.