Annual Wellness Visit

What is a wellness visit?

Most doctor visits happen when there's a problem that needs to be treated right away, like a rash, illness, or pain. Those visits tend to be short and focus just on the urgent problem. A wellness visit is different — it's a way to check in with your primary care doctor, talk about your health in a more general way, and get the preventive care you might need.

These visits go by a lot of names. They are also called well visits, periodic health exams, annual exams, or physical exams.

Why is it important?

Even if you don't have a chronic condition that requires a lot of care, many doctors and patients find that a wellness visit, typically once a year, is important for building or improving their relationship and for talking about preventive care and health counseling. Many insurance plans cover this type of exam or wellness visit, including Medicare.

Who needs it?

Depending on your age and sex, you'll need different preventive care or screening exams at different time intervals, like a flu shot every year or a colonoscopy every 10 years.

If you're relatively young and healthy, you typically won't have a long list of recommended screenings and may not need to visit every year. It might be a good idea to see your doctor and ask how often you should schedule return wellness visits.

What to expect

Before your visit, it's a good idea to think about what you want to talk about and write a list of questions in order of importance (in case you can't get to everything on the list). Make two copies, one for yourself and one for your doctor.

When you check in at the front desk, you may get some forms to update with any changes in your health or any new medicines you might be taking. You might also be asked to fill in information about your family members. (A family medical history can help doctors decide whether or not you need certain screenings, or whether you might need them more often than most people.)

At wellness visits or physicals you'll typically have your height, weight, and blood pressure checked. Your doctor will likely spend time asking about your lifestyle — the kinds of foods you eat, how much you exercise and sleep, whether you smoke or drink, when you had your last dental and vision exams, and other things that can affect your health and quality of life. Although the exact questions will vary, doctors generally cover the same topics.

Many doctors will also do a quick check of a few areas of your body during the visit (like listen to your heart and lungs). Women who are due for a breast exam or Pap test may have those done at the same visit.

If you're due for any vaccines, such as a flu shot, you might get them in the office before you leave. In case you need any blood tests (like a cholesterol test), some offices can draw your blood at the same visit; others will give you a form to take to a lab. For any other screenings, such as a mammogram (a type of X-ray), you'll get instructions on how to schedule those.

Good to know

Most wellness visits are no longer "comprehensive physicals" that involve lots of tests. These days, wellness visits or periodic health exams are designed to find out your health risk and deliver preventive care that's evidence-based (proven to have a benefit). If you have a newer plan under the Affordable Care Act, many of these services are typically available at no cost to you.

There's some debate about whether visit are really necessary every year if you don't have any symptoms or health problems, or aren't due for any preventive care. While there are guidelines on how often to have different types of preventive care, there are actually no firm rules on wellness exams themselves. Talk to your doctor about what's right for you.

Selected references

• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Preventive Visit and Yearly Wellness Exam. Medicare.gov.
• US Department of Health and Human Services. Get Your Well-Woman Visit Every Year. Healthfinder.gov.