Aim. To study the efficiency of a methodology for the active detection of coronary heart disease (CHD) and cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) during medical examination and to determine the need and possible ways of its improvement. Subjects and methods. The medical examinations of 19.4 million people (94.6% of all the citizens who had undergone medical examinations in all the regions of Russia in 2013) were analyzed and the methodological aspects of identification of the circulatory diseases (CDs) that were induced by coronary and cerebral vessel atherosclerosis and had common risk factors, primarily CHD and CVD, were assessed. Results. The medical examinations revealed 2,915,445 cases of CDs and their suspicions, during which its clinical diagnosis was established in 57.2%. The suspected disease requiring that its diagnosis should be further specified; off-medical examinations revealed hypertension in more than 770,000 cases, CHD in 232,000, and CVD in 146,000. The proportion of stable angina pectoris of all angina cases was much higher at a young age (25.6%) than at middle (15.6%) and elderly (11.3%) ages. Brachiocephalic artery stenoses were detected in almost 13,000 cases. According to the official health statistics, within the years preceding the introduction of large-scale medical examinations, there was a slight rise in new CD cases among the adult population of Russia, which was more significant in 2013 (according to the preliminary data) than in 2012. Conclusion. The methodology for the active detection of CDs through a two-step medical examination, which is used during a follow-up, makes it possible to substantially increase detection rates for CDs. There has been shown to be a need for the better quality and completeness of diagnostic examination in real practice.