# Are expensive executive health programs worth it? By Dr. Rodante Saballa, DC, MS, CSCS, CCSP. September 26, 2026. Dr. Rodante Saballa, DC, MS, CSCS, CCSP. Concierge sports chiropractor, Los Angeles, California. Adapted from Dr. Saballa's voice memo and his own edits in review, September 2026. Author page: https://www.drrodantesaballa.com/about ## Summary - If you can afford one, have the time, and the results will change what you do, go get one. - What they do well is information. Labs, imaging, cardiovascular testing, specialist access, a real medical baseline. - What they miss is movement and hands. No functional movement assessment, and no one examining how your body actually feels. - More testing is not automatically better healthcare. A test earns its place when the result can change a decision. - A complete picture tells you what is inside your body and what your body is capable of doing. If you can afford one, you have the time for it, and the results are going to change what you actually do, then yes, go get one. Just go in knowing that the panel tells you what is inside your body, and it usually will not tell you what your body can do. ## What do these programs do well? They gather information, and they are good at it. These tests do one thing very well: they give you a lot of information. Blood work, diagnostic and cancer screenings, cardiovascular testing, X-rays, MRIs, panel after panel. They can be excellent for establishing a comprehensive medical baseline and uncovering important findings, especially when paired with access to the right specialists. None of that is a small thing, and I am not writing this to talk you out of any of it. But it is important to understand the model. At their core, these executive health programs are businesses, and part of their value proposition is volume: more testing, more screening, more data, and ultimately, more information. The goal is often to give you as much information as possible, which explains a lot about how these programs are built. That is where my one caution comes in. More information is not always more useful information. Sometimes what you uncover is incredibly valuable. Other times, it may have little relevance to your health, your risk, or what you should actually do next. ## What do they miss? Two things stand out to me, and they are closely related. The first is movement. Many executive health programs do not include a meaningful functional movement assessment, actually watching how someone moves. Often, nobody is looking at how you squat, reach overhead, balance, rotate, or shift your weight. The second is putting hands on the person. This may be the bigger omission. Person-to-person interaction, trust, and a physical examination can reveal things that numbers and imaging cannot. A report can tell you what your biomarkers look like or what appears on a scan, but it may not tell you where you feel restricted, how your joints move, where meaningful asymmetries exist, or what compensation strategies you use when you move. So the report can be incredibly thorough and still be missing something important: you. Sometimes what gets overlooked is the information that is most specific to the person standing in front of you. Within the first few minutes, my hands can tell me things a lab panel never will. For example, I may find a region of the spine that simply does not move like the others. I can feel differences in tissue tone and texture, identify where the body may be guarding, see how it compensates around that restriction, and connect those findings to how the person moves. A panel can give me important data about your health. It cannot tell me what your body feels like when it moves. ## Is physical capacity part of your health? I think it is, and I think this is where the gap exists. Physical capacity is often the missing piece. We may know someone's biomarkers, but we do not know how strong they are, how well they move, how they balance, how much power they can produce, or how much force they can generate. These are all physical qualities that change as we age, which is exactly why establishing a baseline matters. You can hold a folder full of numbers telling you what is happening inside your body and still have no idea what your body is actually capable of doing. Those are two different questions, and too often, only one of them is being asked. ## Does more testing mean better healthcare? More testing does not automatically mean better healthcare. Testing provides information, and information is part of the value these programs provide and ultimately how they justify their price point. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It is simply important to understand the model. The filter I use is simpler than volume: testing should be selected because the result has the potential to meaningfully change a decision. If a result comes back and it does not change what you do next, its value may be limited. Otherwise, extensive screening can create a long list of findings without necessarily creating a clearer path forward. More information is only valuable when we know what to do with it. ## Who are these programs for, and who are they wasted on? These programs are built for a specific person: someone who wants access to the best available resources and has the means to pursue them. In many ways, they are geared toward the top tier of the executive population because, first, you have to be able to afford them, and second, the results have to matter enough to you to act on them. That gives you a simple way to decide whether the investment makes sense for you. Three things need to be true: you have the money, you have the time, and the information matters enough that you are actually going to do something with it. If all three are true, there can be real value in these programs. If one is missing, the value becomes less clear. That is not a criticism of the program. The better question is: what are you going to do differently on Monday because of what you learned? ## So would I tell you to go do one? Yes. When someone has the money and asks me, I tell them to do it, and I tell them why: "you can only make informed decisions with information, and the more information you have, the better your decisions can be." If someone has the desire, the financial means, the time, and the results truly matter to them, I say one hundred percent: go do it. Then bring that information to someone who can add the other half of the picture. A comprehensive health assessment should not just tell me what is happening inside your body. It should also tell me what your body is capable of doing. "I think a comprehensive health assessment shouldn't just tell me what's inside your body, but it should also tell me what your body is capable of doing." That is the question I care about: What is your current physical capacity? Is it where it should be? And how can we improve it? Labs and imaging tell us one side of the story. How you move, how strong you are, how well you balance, and how much force and power you can produce tell us the other. Put both together, and you have a much more complete picture of your health. When someone walks in with an executive health panel, I do not replace that information. I build on it. I compare that information with what I find myself: how they move, where they are restricted, their strength, balance, physical capacity, and what I feel during the examination. The panel tells me a lot about what is happening inside the body. My job is to connect that information to the person standing in front of me and determine what we can actually do with it. ## One last thing This is education, not medical advice, and reading it does not make me your doctor. What is worth testing, and what any result means for you, is a conversation with the clinicians who ordered it. What I can tell you is the half of the picture those programs tend to leave out, which is what your body can actually do. ## Common questions ### Are expensive executive health programs worth it? If you have the money, the time, and results that matter enough to act on, yes. The panel is real information. Just know what it leaves out. ### What do executive health programs miss? A meaningful functional movement assessment, and the person-to-person part. A report does not tell you where you feel restricted, how your joints move, or what you compensate with. ### Does more testing mean better healthcare? No. Testing provides information, and volume is part of how these programs justify their price. A test is worth running when the result can meaningfully change a decision. ### Who are these programs for? Someone with the money, the time, and results that matter enough to change what they do on Monday. If one of those is missing, the value is less clear. Request a consultation: https://www.drrodantesaballa.com/consult Canonical: https://www.drrodantesaballa.com/journal/are-executive-health-programs-worth-it Site brief: https://www.drrodantesaballa.com/llms.txt