I think we are also heading this way.
We now have to offer all patients treatment for stopping smoking and if they decline or not we have to document it.
It makes the facility a little billable money, but the long game is to take smokers out of the pool.
There is no such education for people who are at risk for HIV.
Or runners who need hip and knee replacements by their mid forties, sometimes two replacement each.
Or soccer playing females who lose their knee use in their early twenties.
Or plumbers and electricians whose backs go out in their late forties.
Before Mrs. rktman quit smoking, her cardio doc would always “counsel” her and BOOM! $45.00 for ‘smoking cessation counseling’. Even after she quit, a casual question about smoking “Are you still not smoking?” would elicit another $45 charge. Finally she told the doc to quit asking cause she had quit. No more bills for the “counsling”.
As someone who is still running at 60, there is no way to know if running in your 20s will damage your knees or not. But if someone has problems with knee pain, and they run, then "Walk" might be a good prescription. Or "bike".
"Doctor! Doctor! Every time I play tennis, my elbow hurts!"
"Stop playing tennis. That will be $20!"
California essentially decriminalizing giving people HIV was absolutely the WRONG direction to go with this.
Giving people a fatal disease that costs hundreds of thousands to slow down is both murder and costly to society ... and they act like it is giving someone herpes.