The annual physical is useless – but we still do them

“Even though a panel of experts has thrown cold water on the automatic need to get an annual checkup, physicians and their patients haven’t always gotten the message, a new survey says.

The survey, published Monday, found that while there’s no evidence annual physicals for healthy people are useful, 65 percent of primary care doctors think they are necessary and nearly 9 out of 10 said they perform the exams.”

I read the article from the Archives of Internal Medicine yesterday. Some say that both physicians and patients use the annual physical as an opportunity to get to know one another – where the opportunity isn’t available during a focused visit.