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Comment by Jommi | Hacker News Reader

FYI the above is american-focused healthcare language. There are no annual checkups in most other countries outside of certain age or risk groups.

You might however get a health checkup from occupational healthcare sometimes!

Just putting this a note here for non-american readers so they don't get confused.

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My family doctor in Canada does an annual check-up (BMI, basic physical, blood and urine) that's covered by provincial healthcare. In addition, those over 50 get a colon cancer check every two years that used to be a full colonoscopy but now it's a new poop sample test.

I'm surprised other countries with free government healthcare don't do that. I would assume it's more economical to detect signs of serious issues early.

> I would assume

So would I (Germany), yet it’s only one blood test every 3 years from the age of 35 on.

Which province? I've never been offered this from my doctor in Ontario, in fact when I requested blood tests it was denied so I had to drive to the US to get my own.

Yes, Ontario. You might need to shop around until you find a family doctor who "believes" in annual checkups. OHIP doesn't seem to object to it (except Vitamin D, which is now out-of-pocket).

You can look into the health benefits of annual checkups, there's a bunch of research showing that it's pretty much useless before say 50-60yo

That's kind of shocking to me. The normal narrative is about how much better the European model is for healthcare, but then you're saying it's missing one of the most fundamental and effective aspects of healthcare (preventative care & early intervention)?

Do you go to the dentist for regular cleaning & exams or only go if you have a toothache?

Annual checkups seem so critical to overall health outcomes- it's far better to catch cancer at stage 1 than stage 4, or to address blood pressure before having a stroke or heart attack rather than after, I'd have thought they'd be strongly prioritized and incentivized my government-controlled healthcare systems.

How many cancers are you going to catch at stage 1 with an annual BMI & bloods check-up?

Yep, I had to Google PCP (I know one acronym PCP, and I was _fairly_ sure that wasn't what the commenter was referring to).

Primary Care Physician for anyone else wondering (equivalent to a GP in England I think)

That being said most people in America don’t get annual checkups unless they have issues either. And there’s also a school of thought that more preventative medicine would be a good thing, so maybe other countries should consider it.

Tangentially, it’s common for your employer’s health insurance provider to provide a discount if get an annual physical.

Edit: (US specific)

Again, this is very USA-specific.

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