The tradition of the annual physical exam may be a waste of both time and money, according to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
According to researchers, annual checkups in the
The value of annual checkups has been in doubt since the 1960s and 1970s, when large-scale trials found no evidence that they provided any medical benefit. According to lead researcher Ateev Mehrotra of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the RAND Corp., there is no major North American clinical organization that advises the checkups, yet 63 million adults in the United States still get one yearly.
According to the study, the average annual physical lasts 23 minutes and costs $116, including tests. Many potentially unnecessary tests, such as urinalyses or complete blood cell counts, are performed at these visits.
Meanwhile, less than 20 percent of patients received the eight important preventive tests tracked by the researchers at their annual physical. These tests, including mammograms and Pap smears, were more likely to be performed at a different visit.
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