After Your Executive Health Assessment: A 90-Day Action Plan

An executive health assessment gives you an excellent snapshot of your health and then hands the hard part back to you. The research on what happens next is blunt: in a 2023 meta-analysis of nearly 30,000 people, about half of those who intended to be more active did not follow through.

Key takeaways

Key takeaways

1. Canadian executive assessments are thorough: Medcan's runs five to six hours and lists $4,250 plus tax; TELUS Health lists $1,995 to $2,995. Cleveland Clinic Canada and Copeman do not publish prices.
2. About half of people who intend to be more active do not follow through (Feil et al., 2023, 29,600 people), so the report alone rarely changes behaviour.
3. New habits took a median of about 66 days to become automatic in Lally's 2010 UK study, with a range of 18 to 254 days. One missed day did not matter.
4. Activity and eating programs that paired self-monitoring with goal setting or feedback worked better than those that did not (effect size 0.42 vs 0.26, Michie et al., 2009).
5. Pick two markers, build a daily 30-minute habit, and retest at weeks 6 and 12 with the same method each time.
6. Go back to your physician for any warning symptom, any home reading over their threshold, and at the 12-week mark.

So the assessment is rarely the problem. The 90 days after it is where the money you spent either turns into better numbers or turns into a PDF in your inbox. This page covers what Canadian assessments include and cost, why advice so often stalls, and the 90-day plan I would use with a founder or executive who walks into my gym holding their report.

What does an executive health assessment in Canada include?

The big programs look similar on paper. You spend most of a day moving between stations, a physician reviews your results, and you leave with recommendations.

Medcan's Annual Health Assessment in Toronto and Oakville runs about five to six hours, with up to 15 screening stations and testing on more than 100 biomarkers. It includes a physician-led physical exam, same-day results and a Medcan Health Score out of 100 based on your age and 10 modifiable biomarkers. Medcan says urgent findings get referrals, and less urgent issues go back to your family doctor.

Cleveland Clinic Canada's Executive Health Program in Toronto describes a full day with a pre-visit call, bloodwork, cardiac stress testing and ECG, spirometry, vision, hearing and cognitive screening, and strength and body composition. You see a physician, nurse, dietitian, exercise specialist and mental health professional. VO2 max testing and DEXA scans are optional add-ons at the Downtown Toronto clinic for an extra fee. Coaching is sold separately.

TELUS Health's Preventive Health Assessment lasts four to five hours and covers bloodwork, a physical, ECG or stress test, spirometry, vision and hearing, plus a dietitian consult. The higher Elite tier adds fitness and nutrition assessments, body composition and an abdominal ultrasound.

How much does an executive physical cost in Canada?

I have only listed prices I could see on the provider's own page, except where marked. Prices change, so confirm before you book. Many of these are eligible for a Health Spending Account, depending on your plan.

What are the options for executive health in Vancouver?

If you live in Metro Vancouver, you have two main choices without flying to Toronto.

Copeman Healthcare runs clinics in Vancouver and West Vancouver. Its site describes a team model that pairs physicians with other health professionals and mentions early disease detection and prevention support, but it does not publish test lists or fees. You need to call them.

TELUS Health lists a Vancouver Care Centre at 808 Nelson Street and a North Vancouver location. Its assessment page publishes prices but does not say which location runs the assessment, so confirm that when you book.

Either way, the assessment is the easy part to buy. For what the local follow-through options look like, I wrote a separate guide on executive health coaching in Vancouver.

Why does nothing change after the report?

Three findings from the research explain most of it.

Intention is close to a coin flip

Feil, Fritsch and Rhodes pooled 25 samples covering 29,600 people in a 2023 meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Among people who intended to be physically active, 47.6% did not act on it. The authors described turning intention into behaviour as "nearly at chance."

Habits take longer than your follow-up appointment

Lally and colleagues at University College London followed 96 UK volunteers for 12 weeks in 2010 as they repeated one daily eating, drinking or activity behaviour in the same context. Among those whose data fit the model, it took between 18 and 254 days for the behaviour to reach 95% of its automaticity plateau, with a median of about 66 days. Missing a single day did not materially set people back.

Plan for at least 10 weeks before a new habit feels automatic, and do not treat one missed day as failure. The study was small and drew on university volunteers, so treat 66 days as a rough guide.

Tracking plus support beats advice alone

Michie and colleagues analysed 122 evaluations of physical activity and healthy eating programs (44,747 adults) in 2009. Programs that combined self-monitoring with at least one related technique, such as goal setting or feedback, had a pooled effect size of 0.42, compared with 0.26 for the rest.

On coaching specifically, Oliveira and colleagues reviewed 27 randomised trials in 2017 and found health coaching produced a small but significant increase in physical activity (standardised mean difference 0.27). That review covered adults aged 60 and over, so it is not a perfect match for a 45-year-old CFO, but the direction is consistent.

The lesson I take from all three: the report tells you what to change. Tracking and someone checking in are what get it changed. I make the longer case for this, and for why fitness deserves top billing on your report, in why low fitness is riskier than smoking.

The 90-day plan after your executive health assessment

This is the structure I recommend. It is built on the 2% Solution I have taught since 2015: 30 minutes a day, split into 15 minutes moving, 5 minutes still and 10 minutes reading. It is coaching, not medical care. Your physician's instructions come first.

Weeks 1 to 2: baseline and pick two markers

Do not try to fix every flag on the report. Pick two.

1. Read the report with a highlighter. Circle every result outside the normal range or flagged as borderline.
2. Choose two markers that are modifiable through training, sleep or food, and that you can measure between assessments. Good candidates are resting blood pressure, waist circumference, a fitness test, grip or leg strength, and sleep duration.
3. Take your own baseline for each one at home or in the gym this week. A lab number from the assessment is your official baseline; a home number is your weekly tracking tool.
4. Book your 30 minutes into the calendar at the same time every day. Lally's data showed consistency of context mattered, so anchor it to something that already happens, like the first coffee or the end of the last meeting.
5. Ask your physician two questions if the debrief did not cover them: are there any limits on exercise intensity, and at what reading or symptom should you call before your next visit?

Weeks 3 to 6: build the 30-minute daily habit

This block is about showing up, not intensity.

• 15 minutes moving, every day. Brisk walking, a bike, a rower or a short strength circuit all count.
• 5 minutes still. Breathing or quiet sitting, which helps for sleep and stress markers.
• 10 minutes reading, on anything that teaches you something about the two markers you picked.
• Track one thing daily: did you do the 30 minutes, yes or no. Track your two markers weekly, same day, same time.
• Aim for 5 out of 7 days. One missed day is noise. Two in a row is a signal to change the time slot, not to give up.

Fifteen minutes a day adds up to 105 minutes a week, which is below the 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity in the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines. That is fine for weeks 3 to 6. The daily floor is the habit. The extra minutes come next.

Weeks 7 to 12: progress and retest

• Keep the daily 30 minutes. On three or four days a week, extend the moving block to 30 to 45 minutes so you clear 150 minutes of aerobic work.
• Add strength training on at least two days a week, in line with the same guidelines.
• Raise one variable at a time: duration first, then intensity, then load.
• Retest both markers at week 6 and week 12 using exactly the same method as your baseline.
• At week 12, write one page: what changed, what did not, and what you will keep. Bring it to your physician.

When to go back to your physician

• Immediately for chest pain, fainting, unusual shortness of breath or any symptom your physician told you to watch for. Do not wait for a scheduled retest.
• When a home reading crosses the threshold your physician set, especially for blood pressure.
• At about 12 weeks, to ask whether repeat bloodwork or a targeted retest makes sense for the markers you worked on.
• Before stepping up to high-intensity training, if your assessment flagged anything cardiac.

Which habit moves which assessment finding?

This table is coaching guidance, not a prescription. The retest timing is a practical schedule for tracking progress; your physician decides when lab tests are repeated.

On blood pressure, a 2023 network meta-analysis by Edwards and colleagues pooled 270 randomised trials and 15,827 participants. Every exercise type lowered resting blood pressure on average, and isometric training showed the largest pooled drop. Speak to your physician before starting isometric work if your pressure is high.

What to do this week

1. Open your assessment report and pick two markers.
2. Take a home baseline for each.
3. Put a 30-minute block in your calendar at the same time every day for the next 12 weeks.
4. Set two retest dates: six weeks and 12 weeks from today.
5. Decide who checks in with you weekly. A coach, a training partner or your physician's team all work. Going it alone is the version the research says usually stalls.

Whether that check-in happens in person or remotely matters less than whether it happens, though each has trade-offs that I cover in in-person vs online executive coaching. For the bigger picture on how I work with leaders, see executive health and coaching.

If you have a report sitting in your inbox and want help turning it into a 90-day plan you will actually follow, book a free 20-minute call and bring the report with you.