Health checks by age in Australia: what's recommended and when

There is no single annual check-up in Australia that every healthy adult is meant to book. Preventive care is spread across different ages, intervals and risk factors instead, which is why the honest answer to what checks you need at 40 looks nothing like the answer at 55. Cervical screening starts at 25, bowel screening at 45, routine breast screening invitations at 50, and lung screening is for a narrow group from 50. Everything else depends on you rather than your birthday.

Why there isn't one annual check-up for everyone

More testing is not automatically better preventive care. Screening finds disease earlier, which saves lives, but it also produces false positives, incidental findings and follow-up investigations that turn out not to have been needed. Those are real costs, borne by real people who were well when they started.

That is why Australia's screening programs are built around defined groups rather than a yearly list of tests for everyone. A program gets introduced when the evidence shows that, for that group and at that interval, the likely benefit outweighs the harm. Outside those groups the sums come out differently.

Plenty is still worth keeping an eye on outside the national programs. Blood pressure, cardiovascular risk, diabetes risk, immunisation and skin changes all matter. The timing just depends on your age, history and risk rather than one universal anniversary.

Australia's national cancer screening programs

There are four for adults. Each is for people without symptoms, and each has its own eligibility rules.

• Cervical screening: people with a cervix aged 25 to 74 who meet the program criteria, generally every five years.
• Breast screening: free screening every two years, with routine invitations for women aged 50 to 74. Women aged 40 to 49 and over 74 can screen free as well, but are not routinely invited.
• Bowel screening: eligible people aged 45 to 74, every two years, using a test you do at home.
• Lung screening: eligible people aged 50 to 70 with the required smoking history, using low-dose CT roughly every two years.

Bowel screening from 45, and why the first kit may not arrive

Bowel screening begins at 45, but how the first kit reaches you depends on your age, and this is the single easiest thing on this page to miss.

From 50 to 74, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program posts you a free kit every two years when you are due. Nothing is required of you. From 45 to 49 you are equally eligible, but the first kit has to be requested: online through the National Cancer Screening Register, or by calling 1800 627 701. You can also ask your doctor for one.

After that first test is completed, you join the automatic cycle and the next kit arrives on its own two years later. So it is one request, once, and then the program takes over.

The starting age dropped from 50 to 45 in July 2024, which is exactly why this group gets missed. They became eligible without joining the group that gets posted a kit unprompted.

Between 40 and 44 there is no program, but it is still worth a conversation. A doctor may offer a bowel test funded through Medicare in the lead-up to program eligibility, depending on your circumstances.

Breast screening in your 40s and from 50

BreastScreen Victoria routinely invites women aged 50 to 74 for a free breast screen every two years. No GP referral is needed. You can book directly.

Women aged 40 to 49 can screen free as well, but are not routinely invited, and BreastScreen Victoria recommends only screening in this age group after talking to a doctor. Breast tissue is denser at that age, which makes screening less effective and changes the balance of benefit and harm.

After 74 the reminders stop, but you remain eligible to screen for free. Whether it is still useful is a question about your individual health, and worth raising with your GP rather than deciding alone.

Under 40 you are not eligible for BreastScreen. That is not an oversight; it reflects how poorly mammography performs on younger breast tissue. Symptoms at any age are a different matter and need assessment.

Cervical screening from 25

The National Cervical Screening Program covers eligible women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 74 who have ever had sexual contact. Routine screening is generally every five years.

The test now looks for human papillomavirus rather than using the old two-yearly Pap smear. That is why the interval stretched from two years to five. It is not a reduction in care; HPV testing catches the thing that causes almost all cervical cancer, and it catches it earlier.

Everyone eligible for screening can now choose to collect their own sample with a swab rather than having a clinician do it. No speculum, done privately, same accuracy for detecting the high-grade changes that matter. That choice has been available to all screening participants since 2022.

Self-collection is for screening. If you have symptoms, or you are being followed up after a previous abnormal result, that is a different pathway and needs a clinician-collected sample.

Lung cancer screening from 50

The National Lung Cancer Screening Program started in July 2025. It is deliberately narrow, because it is built for people at substantially higher risk rather than everyone who turns 50.

To enter, you need to be aged 50 to 70, have no symptoms suggesting lung cancer, currently smoke or have quit within the past ten years, and have a smoking history of at least 30 pack-years.

The ten-year rule applies at the door. Once you are in the program, you do not get pushed out because more than ten years have passed since you quit. You keep screening until you age out or your results take you down a different path.

The test is a low-dose CT scan. If nothing needs earlier attention, the next one is in two years. Some findings bring that forward to three, six or twelve months.

What Medicare health assessments are available by age?

Separately from the screening programs, Medicare funds structured health assessments for particular groups. These are not open to everyone, and each has its own eligibility and frequency rules.

• 40 to 49: a type 2 diabetes risk evaluation, if an AUSDRISK assessment puts you in the high-risk group. Once every three years while eligible.
• 45 to 49: a one-off health assessment for people their doctor considers at risk of developing chronic disease. Once only, so it is worth using well.
• 75 and over: an Older Person's Health Assessment, once every twelve months.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: a dedicated health assessment at any age, where one has not been provided in the previous nine months.
• Separate assessments also exist for people with an intellectual disability, refugees and humanitarian entrants, former Australian Defence Force members and aged care residents, each with its own rules.

These are not interchangeable appointments, so say which one you are asking about when you book. Some of the requirements were updated in March 2026, mainly to strip clinically outdated or overly prescriptive elements out of the older-person, intellectual-disability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander assessments.

Is there a Medicare menopause health check?

Yes, and it is new enough that most people have not heard of it. A menopause and perimenopause health assessment was added to Medicare on 1 July 2025.

It is available to Medicare-eligible patients experiencing premature ovarian insufficiency, early menopause, perimenopause or menopause symptoms, or being treated for them, and can be claimed once every twelve months. It runs at least 20 minutes and covers your history, where you are in the transition, a basic examination including blood pressure, and a discussion of management.

Unlike some other assessments, it can be claimed alongside a separate health assessment with no minimum gap between them. It is defined by symptoms rather than by age, so there is no birthday that switches it on.

What about a Heart Health Check?

The Medicare Heart Health Assessment is still available. It runs at least 20 minutes and covers your cardiovascular history, blood pressure, cholesterol, a formal risk assessment and a management plan. Medicare-eligible patients aged 30 and over can have one where it is clinically appropriate.

That is not an instruction for every healthy thirty-year-old to book one. Australian cardiovascular guidelines recommend formal risk assessment for most people without known heart disease from 45 to 79, from 35 for people with diabetes, and from 30 for First Nations people.

One practical catch: a Heart Health Check generally cannot be claimed if you have had another Medicare health assessment in the previous twelve months, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health assessments the exception. If you are eligible for more than one, it is worth asking which is the more useful this year.

Age is only one input anyway. Blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, kidney disease and family history all move the answer.

If you are under 40

Being under 40 does not mean preventive care is irrelevant. It means fewer programs apply to you automatically, which is a different thing.

Cervical screening starts at 25. Blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors can be checked well before 45. Diabetes risk, skin changes, sexual health and immunisation all depend on your circumstances rather than a threshold.

Family history is the one that changes things most at this age. A strong family history of cancer, cardiovascular disease or an inherited condition can move when surveillance should begin, sometimes by decades. Make sure your GP actually knows about it rather than assuming it is on file.

What happens during a Medicare health assessment?

There is no single appointment length. The general health assessment items are time-tiered, from a brief assessment of up to 30 minutes through to a prolonged one of an hour or more.

The shape is similar across them: your history is reviewed, relevant examinations or investigations are done or arranged, your overall health and risk are assessed, and anything worth acting on is discussed or referred.

Rather than guessing which appointment type to pick online, tell reception you are booking for a specific health assessment. The practice can then allocate the right appointment and the right amount of time.

What does screening cost?

It varies by program, and the differences are not obvious from the outside.

• Bowel screening kits through the national program are free.
• BreastScreen mammograms are free for eligible participants.
• Low-dose CT scans under the lung screening program are mandatory bulk billed, so the scan costs nothing. The consultation used to check your eligibility and request it may still carry a fee.
• Cervical screening is Medicare subsidised. Some practices and pathology providers bulk bill and some charge above the rebate, leaving a gap.
• Medicare health assessments use their own items. Whether you pay anything depends on how the practice bills them.

How to keep track of what you are due for

You are not expected to remember all of this. Most of it is tracked for you.

The National Cancer Screening Register records your participation in the bowel, cervical and lung programs and can send reminders when something is due. Its participant portal is reachable through myGov, or you can call 1800 627 701.

BreastScreen Victoria runs its own invitations and records separately. Medicare claims and your assessment history are in your Medicare online account or the myGov app. If you remember the Express Plus Medicare app, it was retired in 2025 and those services moved into myGov.

Before you book

Some of this needs no GP at all, and it is worth knowing which. If you are 45 to 49, you can request a bowel screening kit yourself. BreastScreen takes bookings without a referral. Neither needs an appointment here first.

A GP appointment earns its place where the answer depends on you rather than your age: family history, cardiovascular risk, whether earlier or different screening makes sense, a symptom you have noticed, or whether you meet the criteria for a particular Medicare health assessment.

At Chapel Street Medical Centre in St Kilda, every GP appointment is with Dr Michael Battat, and the practice runs a consent-based recall system to help keep track of follow-up over time. If you are booking for a specific health assessment, or want to work out which checks actually apply to you, say so when you book so the right appointment can be arranged. You can book online or call the practice on (03) 9534 5151.