Preventive Guidelines for Your Health
Good Health Starts with Prevention
Hill Physicians recommends certain screenings and exams for early detection and treatment of health risks before they become problems, or to monitor and manage your known risk factors. Recommended screenings and their frequency vary according to gender, age and your health status. These guidelines are general in nature and the judgment and experience of your physician, informed by these standards of care and as applied to your specific case, are the final determinants of patient care.
The following guidelines are intended to help you begin discussing an appropriate schedule of screenings for you, your spouse or your child.
Prevention Starts with Immunization
Vaccinations are an essential part of preventive health. In the United States, serious illnesses such as measles, polio and hepatitis B are rare because most children have completed a regular schedule of vaccinations. Completing vaccinations in a timely manner not only protects your child, it also prevents disease from spreading to others. It is equally important for adolescents, teens and adults to continue receiving booster vaccinations throughout one’s lifetime.
Whooping Cough/Pertussis Vaccinations
Whooping cough/Pertussis reached epidemic proportions in California in 2010. As a result, Assembly Bill 354, now California law, requires students to be immunized against pertussis. For the 2011-12 school year, all students entering 7th through 12th grades will need proof of a Tdap booster shot before starting school.* For 2012-2013 and future school years, all students entering 7th grade will need proof of a Tdap shot for school.
Hill Physicians members who are unable to get Tdap boosters from their physician's office can get reimbursement for vaccinations at retail locations.
*Read about the Governor's new "grace period" law here...
Safety Concerns
In the past, some parents avoided vaccines because they feared these shots could cause developmental problems. According to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, research does not support any link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine or the pertussis component of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine and autism.
View recommended childhood and adolescent immunization schedule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
Print a blank childhood and adolescent immunization record for your child.
Flu Vaccinations
Hill Physicians recommends a flu shot for everyone in your family. If your Hill Physicians Primary Care Provider does not have the vaccine, you may be reimbursed for retail location shots.
Hill Physicians Zostavax Vaccine Reimbursement Program
In certain cases, Hill Physicians will reimburse members for Zostavax vaccines administered outside the Hill Physicians network. Click here to learn more and download the appropriate reimbursement form. . .
Managing Side Effects
Side effects of vaccinations include fever, crankiness and soreness at the site of the shot. If your child experiences these side effects, give him or her acetaminophen and a warm compress at the site of the shot for comfort. Symptoms should disappear after one to three days.
Member Vaccine Reimbursement Forms