If you’ve put off scheduling your annual physical or checking in with your primary care physician since spring 2020, you’re not alone. Nearly half of Americans (47 percent) said they had delayed or canceled health care services since the pandemic started, according to a March 2021 survey by the American Psychological Association.
During a physical exam, your doctor checks your blood pressure, heart rate, lung function, height, and weight. And Heidi Marie Meyer, MD, a family medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, says that doctors don’t tend to find anything wrong in young, healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 50 who feel fine.
Meyer says she doesn’t like to push yearly checkups on her patients unless their medical background suggests they need them,“but I know people who’ve gone in for a full physical, and a lump or bump was found and cancer was caught. So there’s always those incidental things. If you have a spidey sense that maybe something’s going on, and you just want a checkup, we’re happy to do it.”
These exams are important for establishing a relationship between you and your primary care doctor, and it’s easier than ever nowadays to connect with them. More health care providers are offering digital chat appointments or phone appointments for patients to address any questions or concerns and, if needed, you can schedule a physical exam online.
Meyer says that annual checkups can be more productive when the doctor is already clued in to any specific concerns, like back pain or increased fatigue: “That’s where our physical exam skills really come into play—not for screening people who otherwise feel healthy.”
Who Should Make An Appointment
So who needs an annual physical exam? Minors need routine annual exams to make sure they’re developing properly. Adults should be looking
at yearly checkups once they’re over 50 or if they have any chronic health issues like heart disease, diabetes, or arthritis. Between age 18 and 50, Meyer says that patients with no health issues should be looking into screenings instead of annual physicals.
Specifically, she suggests skin cancer screenings, depression screenings, and mammograms for women over 40. If a woman has a history of breast cancer in her family, then she may need to go in earlier. For men, colorectal cancer screenings are recommended after age 45. (She warns that, out of cancers that affect both men and women, colorectal cancer is the second-leading cancer killer in the US—but it is survivable when caught early, and screening is important for everyone, since most people diagnosed do not have a family history of the disease.)
In summary, Meyer says: “The value of your time with your doctor is not in that physical exam when you’re otherwise feeling well. It’s really in making sure that we’re checking all of those screening boxes, and that we’re establishing that rapport and relationship, so when you do have something going on, you’ll have that relationship to fall back on
Time for a Checkup
