When a person reach age of 50, a doctor will normally ask to have a proper health check if he or she never had one done before. The recommended health check should include:
- Blood pressure
- Blood tests for fasting cholesterol, sugar, full blood count, electrolytes, kidney function, liver function tests
- Iron studies, vitamin B12, thyroid function test, folic acid, PSA and Vitamin D level are subject to patient's condition. A doctor will need to ask question to justify these tests are necessary
- Skin check especially Caucasians to look for skin cancer such as basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma and etc
- *Faecal occult blood test to detect bowel cancer
PSA testing still remain controversial. RACGP guideline does not recommend routine PSA screening for prostate cancer. In most circumstances, man usually die with prostate cancer and not of prostate cancer. Positive PSA reading does not mean a man will definitely have prostate cancer. This can lead to unnecessary anxiety and invasive test such as prostate biopsy. At present, PSA is not a good test to detect aggressive prostate cancer. In the meantime, a lot of research is still being done to look for better test to replace PSA to improve detection of aggressive prostate cancer. Please speak to your doctor to discuss about this when requesting for this test.
For women, additional tests should include mammogram and make sure Cervical cancer screening test are all up to date. This should be done every two years as per screening guidelines. Mammogram can be done free through Breastscreen.
For National Bowel Screening program, bowel kit is usually posted to you when you reach 50 and every 2 years subsequently until the age of 74. If you missed out the tests or did not happen to have the test, please ask your doctor about this. Unless if you have colonoscopy recently, you don't need to have the test.
NB: There is items number for health assessment provided by Medicare for health check between 45-49 years old. Patient will need to make special appointment informing reception about long consult by booking with the nurse first and then doctor for health assessment. Depending on individual doctors, whether a doctor will bulk bill for the test. I do bulk billing for this item.