Good morning. You have a valued question. It is possible to prescribe medication without blood work. This is possible. In fact when you enter the doctor s room he started immediately checking on you. Then he asks you questions on how you are feeling. From just asking questions the doctor gets at 80% of the reason of your illness. Then after that the doctor will do a physical examination, he can ask you to lie on bed or he can do a quick check. In this physical examination the doctor can confirm what he thought of during the conversation with you. So he will confirm his thoughts. Then if there is doubt that is when the doctor will request blood work and medical tests. For the case of your husband he was told he has anemia. The doctor would check if he feels weak all the time, feels his heart beating, feels dizzy all the time, loosing weight etc. Then when the doctor checks on his eyes and hands he can see that these are pales. They would be whitish from poor hemoglobin presence in blood. The pulse might feel high volume, etc. Then the doctor can tell you that he has anemia even before blood work. Some cases are so obvious that the doctor does not need blood work to tell one is anemic. It is good to say one is anemic but it is better to search for the cause of the anemia. Is the patient not eating well? Does he has malnutrition? Does he has gut problems preventing the intestines to absorb the nutrients necessary to making blood? Is there something in the body destroying blood causing the anemia? This is where the value of blood work comes into play because the doctor wants to find the actual cause of the anemia. Usually I will run these tests to determine what kind of anemia it is, what could be the cause and then treat the cause. Anemia can be treated with ferrous sulphate if iron is little in blood. In some cases you do not use iron. It could be maybe folate. It could Vitamin B12, etc. I recommend going back to the doctor and ask to run tests to find out the really cause of the anemia. Usually the doctor will value this because he sees that you care for your health.