A few preventive activities were recorded in Croatian family medicine (FM) from 1995 until 2003, and then in 2004,
additional fee-for-service reimbursement for general check-ups for people aged 45 to 65 years was introduced. The aim of
this study was to investigate the trends in preventive activities before and after the introduction of those measures by using
the Croatian Health Service Yearbooks for 1995–2012 as the main database. Data on the number of preventive, general,
and total number of check-ups were collected. The results showed that the total number of check-ups registered in
FM was low, suggesting that the additional reimbursement did not bring any improvements. In fact, the trend in the
number decreased after 2004. These results are not unexpected because of the ineffectiveness of general check-ups as indicated
in the literature. General check-ups should be replaced by targeted preventive interventions with evidence-based effectiveness
