A long-delayed review of Medicare health assessments has called for a single mid-life health check.
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has published a review of MBS health assessment services dated December 2025, almost 10 months after it was completed.
The report made 18 recommendations for reform, including replacing separate assessments for menopause and perimenopause, chronic disease risk, type 2 diabetes risk and heart health with a single time-tiered mid-life assessment.
It also recommended further work on allowing nurse practitioners to provide health assessments in areas of workforce shortage, and consideration of new telehealth items.
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But at least three of the recommendations had already been agreed by government before the report was publicly released.
The review itself said “initial, short-term reform, agreed by government” would commence from 1 March 2026, including updating assessment items to reflect current screening and vaccination advice and changing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander assessment requirements to better align with clinical guidelines.
A third recommendation, extending temporary heart health assessment items until June 2028 while the proposed mid-life assessment was developed, was agreed in the 2025-26 Budget and implemented from July 2025.
The review found there was “little published evidence” that broad general health assessments improved overall patient outcomes, although there was evidence supporting many individual components when appropriately targeted.
It nevertheless found “strong sector recognition” of their value in preventative care, but only modest use by patients and providers and low rates of repeat assessments even where patients were eligible every year.
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Just 1.2% of eligible patients received a heart health assessment in 2022-23, while fewer than 10% of eligible 40-49-year-olds received a time-tiered assessment for type 2 diabetes or chronic disease risk.
Among people under 40 with intellectual disability, fewer than 13.4% received an assessment between 2016-17 and 2022-23 and just 2.3% of those who did received more than one, despite being eligible annually.
Access was particularly poor in remote Australia. In 2022-23, 3.48% of people in metropolitan areas received a time-tiered assessment, compared with 1.99% in remote communities and 1.07% in very remote communities.
The review identified complex MBS requirements as one barrier, saying they could restrict clinicians’ flexibility and increase concerns about Medicare compliance.
One survey respondent told the review: “Doctors don’t use them … fear of being audited as the requirements are very complex.”
The Royal Australian College of GPs said increasing administrative burden was becoming a barrier to uptake and warned this was occurring “in the context of an MBS system that already favours acute care”.
The review recommended retaining Medicare health assessments but simplifying and better targeting them, including reconsidering age eligibility and frequency across a patient’s lifespan.
It also proposed blended or other non-MBS funding for general practices and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations to provide low-intensity services such as nurse-led nutrition, cholesterol reduction and smoking cessation programs following an assessment.
And it recommended recognising the currently unfunded time GPs could spend consulting residential aged care staff and patients’ families and carers as part of assessments conducted in aged care facilities.
The department consulted on the review in 2024. The report was completed in December 2025 but was not published until today.
The Medical Republic reached out to the Department asking why the report had not been published for 10 months.
It replied with: “the department undertook this review – which included stakeholder consultation – as part of standard ongoing MBS policy processes. The recommendations and any further changes to health assessments will be considered by Government through the usual Budget processes.”
Read the full report here.
