A: Excluding shots, the Medicare website lists 20 different preventive & screening services covered by Part B. Of course, naming them is one thing. Actually taking advantage of these preventive services and screenings should be your real focus. You’ll find many of these services are offered at no charge to you. The Part B annual deductible and 20% coinsurance will not apply.

Go ahead; see how many you can list.

If you’re like many people on Medicare, you came up with the obvious ones – mammograms and colon cancer screenings (there’s 2 of the 20). Don’t forget the one-time “Welcome to Medicare” visit when you first start Medicare and the “Annual Wellness Visit” in each following year (now we’re up to 4 of 20).

Diabetes is something we hear a lot about so you know there’ll be some services related to that (two; now we’re up to 6 of 20). Add in cervical & vaginal screenings. And prostate cancer screenings (8 of 20).

And then there are the screenings and counseling services designed to identify/quantify/rectify the damages some of us inflicted on our bodies in our youth (some of which may still be ongoing) - alcohol misuse screenings, obesity screenings and tobacco use cessation (that brings us up to 11 out of 20).

To see what you may have missed, go to www.medicare.gov and search “preventive services”. More importantly, make the effort to actually use these services. You and your family will be glad you did.