"Just Getting a Baseline" Is Not a Clinical Reason

A new NP hands you her draft orders for a healthy new patient. CBC, CMP, TSH, lipid panel, maybe an EKG.

You ask what one of them is for. She says she is getting a baseline.

She is not being careless. She has watched experienced NPs and physicians order exactly this on nearly every adult who walks in, and nobody has ever told her why. The list gets passed down. The reasoning does not.