Journal Article

Improving Value in Health Care — Against the Annual Physical

Mehrotra, Ateev, Prochazka, Allan

2015

Overview

Annual physicals do not reduce morbidity or mortality, and they waste time and money. To address their overuse, relationship-building visits could be created, preventive care could be updated in other ways, and reimbursement could be changed accordingly. The past few decades have seen numerous calls to eliminate the annual physical examination. In 1979, the Canadian Task Force on the Periodic Health Examination recommended “that the annual checkup, as practised almost ritualistically for several decades in North America, be abandoned.” In 2013, as part of the Choosing Wisely campaign, the Society of General Internal Medicine recommended against annual preventive examinations in asymptomatic patients. Nevertheless, about one third of U.S. adults receive an annual physical (also called an annual preventive exam or periodic health exam) in any given year, and that trend has not abated (see graph). This ongoing . . .

• Publisher: Massachusetts Medical Society
• Subject: Adult / Contraindications / Cost control / Health care access / Health care policy / Humans / Insurance, Health, Reimbursement / Medicare / Morbidity / Mortality / Patients / Physical Examination - economics / Physical Examination - trends / Physical examinations / Physician-Patient Relations / Physicians / Prevention / Preventive Medicine / Primary care / Primary Health Care - methods / Quality of care / Quality of Health Care - standards / United States