What counts as preventive care in general practice?

Preventive care covers health checks and conversations that aim to prevent disease before it develops, or catch it early. This includes cardiovascular risk assessment, cancer screening discussions (breast, bowel, cervical, skin), immunisation review, smoking cessation counselling, weight and metabolic health review, bone density and osteoporosis prevention, mental health check-ins, and alcohol and drug use screening. These are well-supported by evidence and many have dedicated Medicare Benefits Schedule items — but they require time that is not always available in a standard 15-minute consultation.

How do I make the most of my GP appointment for preventive care?

Book a longer appointment and say specifically what you want to cover when you book. Most general practices offer 30-minute appointments for health checks or annual reviews. Arriving with a written list of concerns is not presumptuous — it is one of the most effective things a patient can do to use consultation time well. You can also contact the practice ahead of time to let your GP know what you want to discuss, so they can prepare.

What Medicare items fund preventive care in general practice?

Several Medicare Benefits Schedule items specifically fund preventive health consultations. The 45–49 year health check (item 717) is designed for mid-life risk assessment and is fully Medicare-covered. The GP Health Assessment (items 701–715) is available annually for certain groups including those aged 75 and over, people with intellectual disability, and refugees. Indigenous health checks (item 715) are available for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. Ask your GP whether you qualify for any of these items — many patients are eligible but unaware.

Your GP wants more time for preventive care — the system won't give it

There is a gap between what general practice is designed to deliver and what it has time to do. A new survey of 2,316 GPs, reported by newsGP this week, found that 75% report insufficient time to deliver preventive healthcare services. That lands alongside Australia’s own data: the RACGP’s Health of the Nation report (2025) found that 83% of GPs want to provide more preventive care — but only one in three have the time to actually do it.

The gap between wanting and doing is worth sitting with.

What is actually being lost

When a consultation runs to 15 minutes, something gets queued. In a standard appointment with a patient presenting about blood pressure, the sequence is already full: the presenting problem, medication review, a measurement, documentation, safety-netting, anything outstanding from the previous visit. If the patient also mentions they have been smoking more lately, or that their mother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and they have not had a mammogram in three years, or that they have been sleeping poorly for six months — those items move to the end of the queue.

Not discarded. Queued.

The RACGP data identifies the clinical areas most often squeezed: in-depth smoking cessation conversations, holistic health guidance, exploring patient treatment preferences, and preventive lifestyle advice. These are not peripheral topics in general practice. They are the conversations that general practice uniquely exists to have — the long relationship, the whole-person view, the discussion that does not happen in a specialist’s appointment either.

RCGP President Victoria Tzortziou Brown described the dynamic precisely: “In a busy consultation there may not be enough time to explore in depth whether they want to stop, what has made it difficult in the past.”

That is what time pressure costs — not just the information exchange, but the quality of understanding that makes a clinical conversation effective rather than pro forma.

Both sides of the problem

It is worth naming the structural forces here rather than defaulting to a narrative of an overburdened profession.

The Australian Medicare rebate for a standard consultation has not kept pace with the cost of delivering it. The consequence is that general practices run on volume to remain financially viable, and volume means shorter average appointment times. GPs are not choosing to deliver compressed care. They are operating within a reimbursement system that prices extended consultations as exceptional rather than routine.

Australia’s Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Advisory Committee has recently proposed time-tiered MBS items to support varied consultation lengths — a policy response that acknowledges the structural nature of the problem. Whether those items translate into practice-level change depends on whether the rebate difference adequately compensates the reduced throughput.

There is also a narrative that patients need to do more to access the care they want. That narrative is partially true and partially unhelpful. A patient who books a longer appointment, arrives prepared, and specifies the preventive topics they want covered is more likely to get through them. That is real. But it requires health literacy, confidence, and the flexibility to book an extended appointment — none of which are evenly distributed across the people who most need preventive care conversations.

What this means for your own health

If you have been avoiding a preventive conversation with your GP because it felt like it would crowd an already-rushed appointment — you were reading the situation accurately. The system is under-resourced for exactly that kind of consultation.

The practical path is to separate the acute from the preventive. When you have a cold, a rash, or a specific immediate concern, that is the wrong appointment to also address your cardiovascular risk review. When the acute issue has resolved, book a longer appointment — or a dedicated health check — specifically for the preventive conversation.

For patients aged 45–49, there is a Medicare-funded health check (item 717) specifically designed for mid-life risk assessment. It is a fully-covered extended consultation that your GP can book when you present for that purpose. Most general practices offer it; many patients do not know it exists. For patients aged 75 and over, an annual GP Health Assessment (items 701–715) is similarly Medicare-funded.

If you are in mid-life and you have not had a dedicated health review in the last two years — cardiovascular risk, cancer screening, bone health, metabolic check, immunisation review — this poll is a reasonable prompt to book one. Not because your GP has been neglecting you, but because the appointment that addresses your acute concerns is a structurally different appointment from the one that addresses your long-term health picture. The system creates that distinction. Working with it, rather than against it, is currently the most effective path available.

The broader picture

General practice is the part of the health system most capable of preventing the expensive, late-stage disease that occupies hospital beds and specialist waiting lists. The evidence for this is not contested. Early detection of cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, type 2 diabetes, and melanoma consistently demonstrates better outcomes at substantially lower cost than the same conditions managed at late presentation.

A health system that underfunds the part of itself that prevents those costs is making a specific choice. That choice is visible in the data — in the 75% of GPs who cannot deliver what they entered medicine to provide, and in the 83% who want to.

The policy trajectory is moving in the right direction. But the gap is open now, and understanding it is the first step to navigating it.

Verdict: yes — book a dedicated preventive health appointment, separate from acute care visits. Ask your GP about the relevant Medicare health check item for your age group.

Sources cited

GP poll a warning on ‘squeezed’ preventive care — newsGP, 28 September 2026: https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/gp-poll-a-warning-on-squeezed-preventive-care