A baseline is a health snapshot taken while you feel fine. Most cover a broad blood panel, body composition, a fitness test and a detailed history. The real value comes later, when you retest and can see which way your numbers are moving.
What a baseline usually includes
Think of it like a photo of your health. One photo shows how things look today. Two photos a few years apart show what's changing, and that's usually the part worth knowing.
Broad blood panel
One blood draw that checks heart, blood sugar, hormones, inflammation, liver, kidneys and more. Expect a few numbers just outside the normal range. Most of them mean nothing.
Cash price: $50 to $1,000
For: Everyone getting a baselineDEXA scan
A low-dose X-ray that measures your fat, muscle and bone density, including the fat around your organs. You lie still for about 10 minutes.
Cash price: $65 to $249
For: Anyone tracking muscle, fat or boneVO2 max test
Measures how well your body uses oxygen while you exercise hard, on a bike or treadmill with a mask on. Fitness is one of the strongest signals of long-term health.
Cash price: $100 to $675
For: Anyone who can safely exercise hardHistory and the basics
Blood pressure, your family history, your medicines and how you feel day to day. Cheap and quick, but it decides which other tests are worth doing.
For: EveryoneBiological age test
Estimates how fast your body is aging from a blood or saliva sample. Interesting to track, but it is still a research tool, and different tests can disagree.
For: People who will retest the same way laterExecutive physical
A full day of tests in one place, often with imaging, a stress test and a doctor review the same day.
For: People who want everything done in one visitPrices that clinics publish on their own websites, across all the cities we cover. Prices change, so confirm with the clinic.
Checkups in Greater Boston, by the numbers
The rate of yearly checkups in Greater Boston is a bit higher than the national rate. In Greater Boston, 80.4% of adults saw a doctor for a routine checkup in the past year, compared with 76.9% nationally. That leaves roughly 710,000 adults across five counties who haven't had a routine checkup in the past year.
CDC estimates. PLACES figures are modelled from a national health survey, not counted from medical records, so read them as estimates.
See how the five counties compare
| County | Yearly checkup | Cholesterol checked (past 5 years) | No health insurance (ages 18 to 64) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Middlesex | 79.9% | 90.6% | 4.0% |
| Suffolk | 78.5% | 87.0% | 6.6% |
| Essex | 81.1% | 89.7% | 6.2% |
| Norfolk | 81.5% | 91.2% | 3.8% |
| Plymouth | 82.1% | 90.7% | 4.4% |
| Greater Boston | 80.4% | 89.9% | 4.9% |
| United States | 76.9% | 86.2% | 11.0% |
Source: CDC PLACES, 2023 county estimates. Greater Boston = Suffolk, Middlesex, Norfolk, Essex and Plymouth counties, weighted by adult population.
longevityclinicshub.comA yearly visit with your regular doctor covers the basics, including blood pressure and cholesterol. The tests above add more markers if you want a fuller picture.
