The Doctor Visit You Keep Putting Off
You’re here because something made you search for information about physicals or checkups. Maybe it’s been a few years. Maybe longer. Maybe you have a nagging feeling that you should get things checked, but you haven’t gotten around to it.
You don’t need another lecture about why preventive care matters. You already know. What you need is a reason to actually book the appointment.
The Real Cost of Skipping Checkups
Here’s what happens when people avoid routine physicals for years:
A 52-year-old man comes in for his first checkup in eight years. He feels fine. Blood pressure: 168/102. That’s stage 2 hypertension. His kidneys show early damage. His cholesterol ratio puts him at high cardiovascular risk. None of this hurt. He had no symptoms. He’d been walking around like this for years, and every year the damage accumulated.
A 45-year-old woman finally schedules a physical after a decade. Fasting glucose comes back at 142. That’s diabetes, not prediabetes. Her A1C suggests she’s had elevated blood sugar for at least two to three years. She’s been slowly damaging her blood vessels, her nerves, her eyes, her kidneys, with no idea.
These aren’t hypotheticals. These are the cases that make family doctors wish they’d seen the patient five years earlier.
The conditions that kill the most Canadians don’t announce themselves. High blood pressure doesn’t hurt. High cholesterol doesn’t hurt. Early diabetes doesn’t hurt. Colorectal polyps don’t hurt. By the time you feel something, you’re managing damage instead of preventing it.
What You Can Check Yourself This Week
Before you even book an appointment, here’s how to get a rough picture of where you stand.
1. Find out your blood pressure.
Most pharmacies have free blood pressure machines. Shoppers Drug Mart, Rexall, Costco. Sit down, rest for five minutes, take a reading.
Under 120/80: normal. 120-129/under 80: elevated. 130-139/80-89: stage 1 hypertension. 140+/90+: stage 2 hypertension.
If you’re above 120/80, that’s worth a conversation with a doctor. If you’re above 140/90, book that appointment this week.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation (heartandstroke.ca) estimates that 1 in 4 Canadian adults has high blood pressure, and many don’t know it. It’s called the silent killer because you can walk around with dangerous numbers for years feeling completely fine.
2. Calculate your cardiovascular risk.
The Framingham Risk Score calculator (mdcalc.com/calc/38/framingham-risk-score-hard-coronary-heart-disease) gives you a 10-year estimate of your heart disease risk. You’ll need your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers. If you don’t have recent cholesterol numbers, that’s a sign you’re due for bloodwork.
3. Know your family history.
Before your appointment, find out what your parents and siblings have been diagnosed with. Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and at what ages. This information changes what your doctor screens for and how aggressively.
Your doctor can’t act on family history they don’t know about. Spend 15 minutes asking relatives before your checkup.
What Actually Happens at a Physical
If it’s been years, you might not remember what to expect. Here’s the process:
The conversation. Your doctor asks about changes since your last visit. New symptoms, new medications, new stressors. How you’re sleeping. How you’re feeling mentally. Whether you’re drinking more than you used to. This isn’t small talk. Every question has clinical relevance.
Be honest. Your doctor can’t help with what they don’t know. If you’re drinking a bottle of wine a night, they need to know. If you’ve been feeling depressed or burned out, they need to know. The medical record is confidential.
The vitals. Blood pressure, heart rate, weight, often waist circumference. These basic numbers reveal a lot about cardiovascular and metabolic risk.
The physical exam. Heart and lung sounds. Abdominal palpation checking for organ enlargement or masses. Lymph nodes. Skin check for suspicious moles. The specifics depend on your age, sex, and history.
Lab requisition. Your doctor sends you for bloodwork, usually at a LifeLabs or Dynacare location. Standard panel includes fasting glucose (diabetes screening), lipid panel (cholesterol), kidney function, liver function, and complete blood count. Depending on your situation, they might add thyroid, vitamin D, B12, or other tests.
The follow-up. Once results are in, your doctor reviews them with you, either at another appointment or by phone. You discuss what’s normal, what needs monitoring, and what needs treatment.
The whole process costs you nothing out of pocket. OHIP covers the appointment and the bloodwork. You’re already paying for it through taxes.
The Tests That Matter by Age
The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (canadiantaskforce.ca) publishes evidence-based screening guidelines. Here’s what applies at different life stages:
All adults:
Blood pressure screening at least every two years if normal, annually if elevated. This is the single most important vital sign for predicting cardiovascular events.
Blood glucose testing starting at age 40, earlier if you have risk factors (family history, obesity, Indigenous/African/South Asian/Hispanic ancestry, history of gestational diabetes). The Canadian Diabetes Association (diabetes.ca) recommends screening every three years for adults 40+.
Cholesterol testing based on cardiovascular risk. If you have risk factors or family history, earlier and more frequent testing.
Ages 40-49:
Cardiovascular risk assessment. Your doctor looks at the full picture: blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, smoking status, family history. The goal is catching problems while they’re still easy to reverse with lifestyle changes.
Mammogram discussion for women. Screening recommendations vary, but the conversation should happen.
Ages 50-74:
Colorectal cancer screening. The FIT test (cancercareontario.ca/en/types-of-cancer/colorectal/screening) is a simple at-home stool test that screens for blood in your stool. It’s covered by OHIP, mailed to your home, and takes five minutes. The Canadian Task Force recommends it every two years for adults 50-74 at average risk.
Colonoscopy if you have elevated risk factors or a positive FIT test.
Bone density testing for women, especially post-menopause. Falls become increasingly dangerous as bone density declines—see our guide on fall prevention for older adults for what you can do now.
Prostate discussion for men. PSA testing is controversial, and whether to screen is a shared decision between you and your doctor based on your risk factors and preferences.
What doesn’t require routine screening:
Full-body skin exams if you’re at average risk (though point out any moles that have changed).
Chest X-rays for lung cancer unless you’re a heavy smoker.
Annual ECGs unless you have heart disease symptoms or significant risk factors.
More testing isn’t always better. Your doctor will recommend what makes sense for your specific situation.
If You Don’t Have a Family Doctor
This is the hard part. About 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor, and that number is growing. We wrote a full breakdown of how the Canadian healthcare system actually works if you want to understand your options.
Walk-in clinics can do basic checkups and order bloodwork. But they don’t have your history, they won’t remember you next time, and there’s no continuity. Continuity matters because health data accumulates over time. Your blood pressure at 45 means more when compared to your blood pressure at 40 and 35. A walk-in doctor seeing you once can’t spot trends.
If you’re currently without a family doctor:
Register for Health Care Connect. Ontario’s official waitlist for family doctors. It takes time, but it’s the system. Register at ontario.ca/page/find-family-doctor-or-nurse-practitioner.
Check for Family Health Teams accepting patients. FHTs are group practices that often have capacity when solo practitioners don’t.
Look into virtual care options. Many conditions can be managed virtually, though you’ll still need in-person visits for physicals and bloodwork.
Consider clinics like Button Health. We’re a Family Health Organization in the GTA specifically designed to provide continuity of care. Your visits are covered by OHIP. You see the same care team over time. We believe preventive care works when someone actually knows your history.
The Excuses (And Why They Don’t Hold Up)
“I feel fine.”
The point of screening is catching problems before you feel bad. High blood pressure feels like nothing. High cholesterol feels like nothing. Prediabetes feels like nothing. These conditions do their damage silently, over years. By the time you feel something, the damage is done and you’re in treatment mode rather than prevention mode.
“I don’t have time.”
One appointment, once a year. The physical itself takes 20-30 minutes. Bloodwork takes another 15 minutes at a separate visit. You spend more time than that scrolling your phone in any given week.
The actual barrier isn’t time. It’s the friction of booking. So reduce the friction: book your next annual physical before you leave the current one. Put it in your calendar linked to your birthday or tax season. Make it automatic.
“I’m scared of bad news.”
Bad news doesn’t get better with age. A cholesterol problem caught at 42 is managed with lifestyle changes. The same problem caught at 58 might mean you’re already dealing with arterial plaque that’s harder to reverse.
Early detection means more options. Later detection means fewer options and harder treatments. The news you’re avoiding isn’t going away. It’s just compounding.
“I’m young and healthy.”
Heart disease begins in your twenties. Atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in your arteries, starts decades before it causes symptoms. The Heart and Stroke Foundation (heartandstroke.ca) notes that risk factors like high blood pressure and high cholesterol often develop in early adulthood.
Your twenties and thirties are exactly when you want to establish baseline numbers, when everything is presumably normal. Those baselines become the reference point for detecting changes later.
What To Do Now
This week: Get your blood pressure checked at a pharmacy. Know your number.
This month: If you have a family doctor, call and book your annual physical. If the next available appointment is months away, book it anyway. Future you will thank present you.
If you don’t have a family doctor: Register for Health Care Connect. And check whether Button Health has availability in your area. We’re specifically focused on providing the kind of continuous, relationship-based primary care that makes preventive medicine actually work.
Join our patient waitlist here.
Your blood pressure is doing something right now. Your blood sugar is at some level right now. Your cholesterol has a number right now. You just don’t know what they are.
One hour a year to find out. That’s the ask.
Button Health is opening new clinics in the Greater Toronto Area. We’re building the kind of primary care practice where you can actually talk to your doctor about what’s happening in your life, not just your physical symptoms. If you’re looking for a family doctor who takes your physical & mental health seriously, we’re accepting new patients.