Most Doctor Visits Are Useless -- Here's How to Fix That in 5 Questions

Tired of rushed doctor visits and generic advice? In this episode, Healthspan PhysioCoach Aaron Shaw shares five powerful questions to bring to your next primary care appointment—so you don’t just get treated, you get prevented. Learn how to spark real conversations about longevity, optimize your blood markers, explore VO₂ max testing, and shift your care from reactive to proactive. This is the episode your future self will thank you for.

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Transcript

Imagine you're walking out your car one day and you realize that your tires are kind of bald, all four of them. It's been a while. You haven't really taken care of them. High mileage tires wear out. And you also realize that, you know, the car has been sputtering a little bit. I mean, it still runs. Everything's going okay. But every once in a while it kind of has this weird, weird sound under the hood. And you say, you know what, what do I do? I got to go take another garage, get it fixed. Pretty typical. We've all been there. The check engine light comes on or whatever.

But imagine if you spent this time in the waiting room, your car's in the garage, you guys are working on it and they bring it back out and you realize they only changed one tire, but you can see the other ones are bald and nobody said anything about the sputtering engine that you have. Well, first of all, the first thing you think is, well, it's kind of a half ass job that the mechanic did, right? They didn't really give you everything you needed fixed when you went in there. And so it's an unsatisfying feeling, but this

idea of going in to see a professional, to see a specialist, to get something fixed, to have a thorough assessment done, but not having it truly be a thorough assessment, that is exactly what happens in human healthcare. That is what it's typically like when you see your primary care physician where you get a limited assessment, quick service, get you in and out the door, you make your copay, walk out the door, and you're done. It's unfortunate, but it is the reality.

30 years in the healthcare industry. know in obviously being a patient for over 50 years now, it is disappointing in a such missed opportunity. So what we're to do today is I'm going to arm you with a few thoughtful questions to ask your MD or ask your primary care provider or nurse practitioner. The next time you have a regular visit that will enable you to get enabled, actually them to give you the best guidance on your health as possible.

We're going to make sure that you have all four tires replaced. You get that check engine light, ⁓ sputtering engine checked and fixed before it becomes a big problem. So I'm going to arm you with five questions. Hey, this is Aaron Shaw. This is HealthSpan Digest. I am a HealthSpan Physio Coach. And yes, I've been in the healthcare industry for 30 years this year. I'm an occupational therapist, strength and conditioning specialist.

My life right now is talking about healthspan. It is coaching people who want to extend their healthspan specifically in the areas of exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, and preventative care. So this episode is going to be really a deep dive into preventative care and to give you some specific tools that when you do see your primary care provider that you will have, you'll be armed with knowledge and you'll let them give you their expertise to help prevent future problems.

down the road. Typical client of mine is middle-aged or older, has bumps and bruises as we all do, and really wants to take charge of their life and do it in a sustainable, science-backed way. No fads, no nonsense, just a straightforward science-backed way with expert support. Again, my 30 years experience is here for them. So here are five essential questions. And actually before that, let's just frame this with what is a typical doctor's visit like?

Typically, you go in to see your primary care provider, is blood pressure and height and weight. Maybe you get some blood work done. get some lab work done, some fasting blood sugar, maybe updating your prescriptions, and then you're out the door. But do they ever talk deeply about your nutrition? Do they ever really talk deeply about your nutrition and how that impacts your blood sugar, how that impacts your energy, how that impacts your muscle mass? Do they ever talk about exercise and

in how exercise impacts the length of your life, the quality of your life, the quality of your function, not only today, but in years and decades to come. Does your primary care provider talk to you about your sleep, your quality of sleep, the stages of sleep that you're in? The quality of sleep has a direct relationship to your cognitive abilities now and into the future, our mental health, our stress management, dementia, Alzheimer's, all these things have an impact based upon our sleep.

Is your primary care provider digging deep into those things? Typically the answer is no. Also, what is typically no is when, if I asked you the question, do they, they ever say, here's our strategy for the next six months to improve your health. Here's our game plan. No, they don't really talk about that. The reality is that it's, I mean, the healthcare system is not, it's really a sick care system. not really about health, but it's.

You're in, you're out, updated prescriptions, get out the door, here's your copay, and I'll see you next time. And we're gonna do the same thing over and over again as a quality of life. Your opportunity to improve your length of life and quality of life is gradually decreasing, but we need to change that. We need to make sure we go in to your next primary care visit with a few meaningful questions to stimulate meaningful conversations that will have.

a super impact on your healthspan, your lifespan, and to make sure that you're living the most vibrant life that you can. We need to remember that healthspan is exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, and preventative care. And this is the preventative care we're talking about here. Question number one for your primary care provider is what screenings or tests should I be getting based on my age, risk factors, and my lifestyle? And don't just rely on the default.

which is typically blood work or cancer screenings, which absolutely get those. ⁓ those are, you know, non-negotiable. What about something like a VO2 max test? You know, VO2 max is think of it as like your engine of your life. It's your volume of oxygen that you can consume and utilize in your body. And there is a really direct relationship between the better the VO2, the better chance you're going to live a longer life. The more vibrant you're to be during that life. Cause you have a bit again, like a big engine.

And that is, and I would love if somebody could hopefully comment and correct this, but to date, after 30 years of being in the industry, not one time have I heard a client, a patient going in to see their primary care physician, primary care provider, and they've come out and said, yeah, my provider wants me to get a VO2 max test now and then to see where it's at based on my age and sex and to see if it needs improvements. And then to give me some guidance on how to improve that.

That doesn't happen. I wish it did. I really, really wish it did. But going in asking what's appropriate, what tests, what screening should I get? It's a great question. Great lead in question. Question two, are there blood markers, the blood markers that I have, are they trending in the right direction? Even if they're normal. So there is a normal range for the blood work that we'll typically get. if you've had blood work done, hopefully you have, you'll typically

typically get this report that has 10, 15, 20, 30, sometimes multiple pages of all of these like little acronyms and it'll have like normal range. You know, you sometimes are color coded. you green, yellow or red? And it's good that you want to be in the green. It's good that you want to be within normal, but year over year, are you going from one level of normal and kind of like trending downward? It's great if you're in normal.

but you want to make sure that you're not slowly slipping without having some sort of conversation to say, hey, before this keeps slipping and then I go into the yellow zone or the red zone, what's going on? What can I do about it? Because we don't just want to avoid disease. We want to optimize our health. And if there's an opportunity to say, I know I'm in the normal range now, but what can I do to make it even better? Or if I'm slipping a little bit, what's going on and what can I do to stop this slipping?

So you can ask things about fasting glucose, glucose. can ask about a one C ask about LDL particle count, ask about vitamin D levels, all of these things, even just going in, asking these questions. Your provider may say, wow, you're, you're coming in armed with some really good questions. Let's dig into those a little bit. Question three to ask your primary care provider. Am I on the lowest effective dose on any medication that I'm taking or

Can I reverse this condition with lifestyle changes? And I think we can all, I can think of my grandparents for sure, my parents to some degree. My grandparents had these shoe boxes full of medications. This is shoe box full of chemistry. And it basically put them in a position of being a lab rat Each individual medication maybe has, it's FDA approved and they've, there's a certain dose that fixes a certain thing or addresses a certain condition.

But then you take that medication and you mix it with a different medication that they're taking on, you know, a different time of day, or they're these three medications together. These five medications over the course of a week is six or seven medications. It is, I mean, there's not studies that have, you know, 20 different medications that are unique to you in your lifestyle and your, what are the conditions of trying to be treated, much less all the side effects of all that stuff. You don't want to be the lab rat. You don't want to be this chemistry experiment. If there's an opportunity for you to.

make some reasonable changes in your lifestyle and maybe get off medication, or very least maybe just decrease the need for the dose. Maybe just need a little bit of a lower dose in what you're taking now. Ask the question, am I on the lowest effective dose or can I reverse whatever condition this medication is I'm taking this medication for through lifestyle changes? Take pause, let them think, let your provider think about that and it may be

It may be a plan that takes six months, 12 months or longer to kind of finesse your lifestyle in a way where you can start addressing the main, whatever the reason is that they gave you the medication to start with, but it's worth asking. Question number four, what's one thing I could do this year to improve my long-term health? Leave this open-ended. It's great open-ended question. It's a powerful open-ended question. And you really may be giving your provider

a real chance to, in a sense, kind of strut their stuff. I mean, they went to med school for crying out loud. They are super smart people. That's why they're in the position to be your primary care. They are literally in charge of your primary care, the main part of your care. So let them, let them think outside the box. Let them, let them look at you as somebody different than the last 10 people they saw and the next 10 people they saw where they're just going to go through the same top five things and then get you out the door.

Ask them, what is one thing I could do this year to improve my long-term health? Not just my today health or the, you maybe I got a, maybe I get a little bit of a cold right now. Like, yeah, what can I do for my cold right now with the flu? But what can I do for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years of my life? What should I be doing? What's one thing I could do this year? Or even ask it differently. Like, what would you do if you were me? Put them in the spot. if, imagine, you know, give them the opportunity to say, well, if I were you.

I would change this or I would lean into that, or I would think about modifying this certain thing. Give them a chance to answer you thoughtfully and then take it to heart. It's a, it may be one of the best questions you could ever ask a primary care provider is what, what can I do for my long-term health? What can, what's one thing I can do this year? And what would you do if you were me? Question five, can we talk about prevention and not just treatment? How about that? You know, the

The healthcare system is really a sick care system. The, I'm going to air quote healthcare, healthcare in the U S as it is designed is to treat illnesses and to fix broken things. It is not to prevent any, it's not to prevent anything. It's to treat things. The, the idea is when you go into the system, when you go into see your healthcare provider in the healthcare system, and especially if you have healthcare insurance, it is

find something broken, fix it, find an illness, medicate it. That's it. What is not designed to do is prevent something. We're gonna wait until you have, we're gonna wait until you're pre-diabetic and then diabetic, and then we're gonna treat you with some medicine. What it doesn't do well, if at all, typically it's just either absent or awful, is talk about prevention. How do we prevent?

something from happening down the road. Like give me an opportunity today to make some thoughtful decisions about my lifestyle and my decisions today that will eliminate the need for me to have insulin in 10 years or blood pressure medication in 10 years or whatever it may be. Give me a chance, help me prevent a condition so that in 10 years from now, I don't look back and think, damn, I wish I had known this before. Like I wish I had changed my nutrition habits.

10 years ago, you know, even if I did tiny, tiny changes 10 years ago, you know, once a month, I did a tiny little change over the past 10 years. wouldn't be feeling like crap. wouldn't be having multiple doctor's appointments treating whatever condition I have. I would have prevented it. Ask your primary care provider, what can I do to prevent anything down the road and make sure they are very specific about what action items that you can do within your control to do.

to prevent conditions down the road.

so those are the top five questions to come armed with your next visit. And I can promise you that if you can do that, you are gonna be the patient of the day and of the week because people in primary care clinics are, it's kind of like the conveyor belt of asking the same four or five questions, the same blood pressure, the same height and weight, change the medication, get you out the door, put a smile on your face, collect your copay, and that's it. But if you go in there and you're actually like,

truly curious and you have some really thoughtful questions, you're going to, again, you're going to let them show how smart they are. You're going to give them an opportunity to tap into their knowledge that they don't even normally get a chance to do because the system doesn't allow them to do that. So simply by coming in, having your questions written out or maybe messaging them on a online platform before and be like, Hey, I got a couple of five questions. I just want to run through during my visit. You were going to be the rock star. They're going to take you.

frankly, far more serious than most people that just come in, they just want their medications changed. It is an opportunity for you to live healthier, longer, more vibrant life because you're going to become armed with curiosity, interest, and thoughtful questions. Your doctor's visit should be a strategy session for your future. So the one thing you can do today, this is, here it is, the one thing you can do today, write down those five questions.

Email your doctor or message your doctor through the platform. Make sure you have a primary care visit on the books. So whether that's coming up this week or the next few months, have these at the ready. Think through all those, think through what's important to you, what's important to your health, write those down and have them at the ready. So when you do go to your next visit, you will do all the standard stuff and get your, you know, the standard appointment, but you're going to need more than that. You need more than that. You deserve more than that.

but you're not going to get more than that unless you come in and you lay it on the table. So in conclusion, your doctor's visit, your primary care visit is a strategy session for the future. is goal oriented. It is coming armed with curiosity and you taking ownership of your health, your doctor or your nurse practitioner or your physical occupational therapist or your personal trainer or a strength coach, whatever it is. We are

We are consultants in your health. You are the CEO of you. You're the chief executive officer of you. The rest of us, we are consultants and we can help you make decisions as the CEO when you ask us the right questions. And this is your chance. So I hope this episode sparked some ideas and maybe you can share it with somebody who needs to hear it. If you know somebody who's due for an annual exam.

send this along to them, share it with them. If you have any other questions that come to mind that you think would be really good ones, like top ones to ask a primary care provider, message me. And again, you are the CEO of your life, take charge. If you have any questions or anything I can do for your healthspan, reach out, cheers.