I think it’s worth re-examining the necessity of the physical 

It’s a 100yr old practice started by life insurance companies in a time when a lot more people got messed up by diseases that just aren’t relevant anymore 

We need to unwind some of this belief that “more” is “better” with medicine — this might be a good place to start

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Have you asked a primary care doctor what they think?  The ones I know are huge fans.  These appointments being covered free by your health insurance since Obamacare has increased participation considerably.  We ration healthcare in this country because it’s so expensive.  Preventative care saves $$

Is that out of health or protectionism that doctors love the physical? 

Targeted preventive care is on the table but blanket annual physicals for the entire adult population I think is outdated 

Here, they looked at general health checks for 230,000 participants with long-term follow-up across ~15 studies and found no benefit https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23076952/

https://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e7001

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I don’t think doctors love the physical as an appointment.  They’re time consuming and under reimbursed. They can see far more patients in the same time if they’re seeing sick patients.  

My experience in this comes from a loved one who works in pediatrics.  Having well child checks covered every year gives one less excuse for parents to not bring them in, get checked for regular developmental progression, screened periodically for age appropriate illnesses and make recommendations for vaccines. It’s an important touch point for physicians to maintain continuity, to be able to observe and record how kids are progressing.  If they are only brought in when sick some kids would go many years between appointments and their doctors would miss many opportunities to help educate and recommend appropriate preventative care.

If you're 16-45 and your body does the things you want it to, you probably don't need a yearly.

I'm in favor of well child checks because that is where autism, asthma, and a lot of other diseases can get caught early, plus keeping on the vaccine schedule (MMR, TDAP, Varicella, HIB, HPV are great, don't at me)

At 45 (and in some, 35) the "silent killers" really start: hypertension, diabetes, colon cancer, etc. Women have the added fun of cervical cancer screening at younger ages (although expect this to change as more people get HPV vaccinated)

A big issue is people thinking tests are harmless. Tests very frequently show things that are "abnormal" but will never cause a problem. Then we biopsy and cause real harm that was unnecessary. As a hospitalist/ICU doc I get to clean up the disaster side effects of "routine" biopsies gone wrong on a regular basis. 

Medicine is an art

I would say well child checks fall under targeted preventative care. I am primarily objecting to generalized visits for healthy adults. I liked this plan

I would say well child checks fall under targeted preventative care. I am primarily objecting to generalized visits for healthy adults. I liked this plan https://farcaster.xyz/0x-omen.eth/0xcbbda746

Public health requires simple messaging.  Is it easier to tell folks to get a physical every year or to get one every year from 0-16 and then 36-99?  A huge portion of those healthy young people are going to skip and simpler guidelines are 10x easier to communicate.  

Most advice given at a population level can have holes punched in it easily.  It doesn’t mean it was bad advice.