Study questions value of annual medical check-up

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The customary annual physical check-up at the doctor's office may not be worth the time or money, researchers said on Monday.

About 63 million U.S. adults visit a doctor annually for a routine medical or gynecological check-up at a total cost of $7.8 billion, according to a study intended to help answer questions about the value of this trip to the doctor's office.

More than 80 percent of preventive care provided by doctors does not take place during this annual check-up, the study showed. And more than $350 million worth of potentially unnecessary medical tests are performed, the researchers said.

"We need to question encouraging everybody to come in for an annual physical," Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the RAND Corp., who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"There's a lot of money, a lot of visits, a lot of adults going to see their doctor for annual physical exams with a real unclear benefit. It's the No. 1 reason adults see their doctor, and yet we don't know whether it's helpful or not," he added.

The study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

These check-ups account for one in 12 adult outpatient visits to the doctor's office, the study found. On average, they lasted 23 minutes and cost $116, including laboratory and radiology services, the researchers said.

The study also documented differences across the country in routine annual physicals. People in the Northeast are far more likely to get them than those in the West. The kinds of care and testing provided by doctors also varies by locality.