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An annual physical exam costs $400 USD on average in the USA
- droptablemain 3y agoMeanwhile 37% of Americans lack the funds to cover a $400 emergency expense.
- johntiger1 3y agoIt's truly sad, since most likely those 37% are exactly the folks who unfortunately who would be uninsured and need to pay out of pocket.
- droptablemain 3y agoIndeed. It's quite expensive to be poor. A cruel joke.
- maerF0x0 3y agoAnd it's supposed to be free, right? Even with fairly good insurance I've never been able to get out without some bill surprising me.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoTry it with below median income in a southern state (us, 10 years). Healthcare generally wasn't on the table if we wanted to eat - and our story was far from exceptional.
- readthenotes1 3y agoMy annual physical cost me $30 with ACA bronze. The uncovered portion was from the blood testing place and not worth complaining about for me.
- tzs 3y agoIf you ask the wrong kind of questions during your physical it can turn from a preventative visit (100% covered) to a diagnostic visit (often not 100% covered). See https://www.bluecrossmn.com/members/wellbeing/preventive-care/why-did-i-get-bill-preventive-care-visit https://www.bluecrossmn.com/members/wellbeing/preventive-car...
- JimtheCoder 3y agoIn Canada, my "free healthcare" doctor doesn't even do annual physicals, so...
- ceejayoz 3y agoThat might be the right call. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/a-checkup-for-the-checkup-do-you-really-need-a-yearly-physical-201510238473 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/a-checkup-for-the-checku... > Careful reviews of several large studies have shown that these annual visits don't make any difference in health outcomes. In other words, being seen by your doctor once a year won't necessarily keep you from getting sick, or even help you live longer. And some of the components of an annual visit may actually cause harm. For example, lab tests and exams that are ordered for healthy patients (as opposed to people with symptoms or known illnesses) are statistically more likely to be "false positives" — that is, when test results suggest a problem that doesn't exist. Even if these inaccurate findings affect only a tiny percentage of the more than 200 million adults who would undergo such exams, the monetary, practical, and emotional costs are huge.
- JoshTriplett 3y agoThat sounds less like the exams are the problem, and more like the incorrect handling of false positives is the problem.
- gruez 3y ago>and more like the incorrect handling of false positives is the problem. And what would be the "correct" way of handling it? Remember, you don't know that the test returned positive, not that it's a false positive or not. Are you going to tell the patient, "your breast cancer test returned positive, but given your age and other risk factors the probability that you actually have breast cancer is pretty low, so we won't do anything about it"? Even if that's the right thing to do from a statistical perspective, can you imagine the public outrage directed at the bureaucrat/politician that implemented this policy, if it turned out the patient did have breast cancer and died 2 years later?
- helsinki 3y agoI mean, is that supposed to be unreasonable? Sounds about right to me.
- thatfrenchguy 3y agoaround 10 times the price of other developed countries?
- persedes 3y agoIs this supposed to be after insurance? Otherwise I'd pass on a 40$ physical....
- Freedom2 3y agoI actually pass on a $400 one as well. The quality of the physical only increases with price, after all!
- isaacremuant 3y agoWell, it depends. Are you getting it immediately? Because a lot of "countries" with alleged healthcare simply delay it and you have to fight a bureocracy shield and even the paid insurance sucks and tries to use the public one. USA is terrible at healthcare for those that don't have a safety net but many countries, such as UK, are terrible for the middle income/stable job types, because you don't even have options (unless you pay a fortune) without months on end. It's just a different type of scam. There's definitely better implementations.
- munk-a 3y agoAs someone living in Canada I will freely admit that it can be extremely difficult to book a complex surgery, especially if the condition is not considered life threatening - but for common medical care it's trivial to just show up at a walk-in and get treatment for free - ditto for lab tests. Regular checkups are free and usually prescheduled though not everyone has a stable GP (and it can be a bit difficult to find a GP up here - there are ways to forcefully claim a GP though).
- prepend 3y agoThis is a mandatory wellness check that is required for all insurance in the US since ACA came out in 2010 or so, right? I don’t pay anything out of pocket for my annual physical and I have really bad insurance. I think this is one of those prices that no one pays as insurance covers it, or you don’t have insurance and won’t be getting any wellness exams paying out of pocket. I wonder if it’s this level just as a negotiating tactic with insurance. I didn’t look at my explanation of benefits, but I don’t expect my insurance paid anywhere near this much.
- jrmg 3y ago"This is a mandatory wellness check that is required for all insurance in the US" sounds like you're saying paying for this is required to _get_ insurance - but I think you intend to mean that it's required that any insurance plan cover one check annually (which is sort of the opposite meaning)?
- hunson_abadeer 3y agoMandatory? Unless I'm seriously out of the loop, I don't think there are mandatory annual wellness checks in the US?
- henryfjordan 3y agomandatory that you are offered one by your insurer, not mandatory that you show up to one
- cmurf 3y agoPPACA mandates it as a minimum essential coverage benefit, i.e. you don't pay extra for it. Included benefit as part of the plan.
- jt2190 3y agoAh. Mandatory for the insurer to offer, not for the patient to do.
- djohnston 3y ago
- jasmer 3y ago[dead]
- readthenotes1 3y agoThe blood testing costs are extraordinarily high--well beyond what I've ever paid even without insurance. I do not believe the average person in the United States requires an EKG every year. There is some evidence that annual physicals actually do more harm than good. ACA mandates that a annual wellness check be provided for free to the patient, and that includes a blood test. It may well cost the insurer $400 but that is because that is how they want to run their grift, not for any other reason. Put these together and I think this is basically irrelevant.
- yboris 3y agoIs It Worth Getting an Annual Physical Exam? The answer seems "no" for most people. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-it-worth-getting-an-annual-physical-exam/ https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-it-worth-getting-an-annu...
- canucker2016 3y agoNPR from 2015: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/06/397100748/maybe-you-should-skip-that-annual-physical https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/04/06/3971007... "Each visit usually costs insurers just $150, but with so many people getting them, that adds up fast. "We estimate that it's about $10 billion a year, which is more than we spend as a society on breast cancer care,""
- djohnston 3y agoThat seems like a dumb statistic. What we spend in absolute dollars on breast cancer vs an exam that everyone has is a silly comparison.
- _8j50 3y agoDon't go to a hospital if you're not sick. Even people that work in medicine agree on that. They'll find something wrong with you or that could go wrong and the treatment will cure that but give you 10 more things. You are not the customer, insurance companies are. This is another way to maximize profit for them. Our bodies are good enough at informing us when things are wrong.
- khebbie 3y agoAlso in this regard USA is not a developed country but offers its citizens the same service as under-developed countries