One day. One complete picture of your health.

A whole-body check-up is a comprehensive preventive examination that covers several organ systems in a single appointment instead of spreading them across individual specialist visits. It typically includes a detailed medical history, physical examination, a broad laboratory panel, cardiac diagnostics with ECG and ultrasound, vascular diagnostics, lung function testing, abdominal and thyroid ultrasound, and body composition analysis. The term is neither protected nor standardised: what providers mean by it ranges from an extended blood panel to a multi-hour programme including imaging. At YEARS the check-up covers 25 functional examinations and 89 laboratory biomarkers in one day, assessed by physicians and consolidated into a written prevention plan.

The range in the German market is wide because the term is not defined. Laboratory-only packages start in the low hundreds, comprehensive private programmes including imaging run into four and five figures. Three factors drive the price: whether cross-sectional imaging is included, how much physician time is scheduled for discussing the findings, and how broad the laboratory panel is. At YEARS, Core costs €1,900 with 89 biomarkers and 6 hours on site, Evolve €7,600 adding whole-body MRI, liquid biopsy and 120 biomarkers, Ultimate €16,900 with 230 biomarkers plus epigenetics, neurology and microbiome analysis. Privately insured patients submit a GOÄ-compliant invoice and are reimbursed for a substantial share depending on their policy.

A complete same-day check-up takes between four and nine hours depending on scope. At YEARS it is six hours for Core and nine for Evolve and Ultimate, including breaks and meals. The sequence is fixed: fasting blood draw and medical history in the morning, then functional diagnostics and imaging, and the findings discussion in the afternoon. That discussion is where programmes differ most visibly. At YEARS, 60 minutes with a specialist physician are reserved for it. Laboratory values with longer turnaround and the MRI report follow afterwards, and the written prevention plan is delivered through the patient portal.

Not necessarily, and the question is medically less clear-cut than marketing suggests. Whole-body MRI works without ionising radiation and detects findings ultrasound cannot reach. A systematic review in European Radiology (2025) covering 10 studies with 9,024 asymptomatic participants found a confirmed cancer diagnosis in 1.57 percent of cases. At the same time the evidence shows a high rate of incidental findings that trigger further workup without leading to treatment. Proof that whole-body MRI without clinical indication reduces mortality is still missing. At YEARS the MRI is therefore included from Evolve onwards and labelled as a research-adjacent procedure rather than a standard for everyone.

Statutory health insurance covers the health check-up defined by the Federal Joint Committee: every three years from age 35, once between 18 and 34, comprising medical history, physical examination, a small laboratory panel and urinalysis. The established screening programmes for skin cancer, colonoscopy and mammography are added within defined age groups. A comprehensive whole-body check-up goes beyond that and is self-pay. Privately insured patients and civil servants with Beihilfe are in a different position: services are billed under the GOÄ fee schedule and reimbursed in full or in large part depending on the policy. The remaining out-of-pocket share is then well below the programme price but depends on tariff and deductible.

No fixed threshold follows from the evidence, because risk profile matters more than year of birth. As orientation: from around 40, the likelihood rises that a comprehensive assessment finds something still amenable to change — cardiovascular risk markers such as ApoB and Lp(a), insulin resistance, early fatty liver. It becomes useful earlier with a family history of early-onset disease, with symptoms that have no explanatory finding, and with values that lifestyle does not account for. Below 30 and without predisposition, a primary-care baseline of blood pressure, lipids, HbA1c and vaccination status usually yields more than a comprehensive programme.

There is no evidence-based interval for the full package, though there is for its individual components. The established screening programmes have clearly defined intervals: colonoscopy every ten years, mammography every two years, skin cancer screening every two years. For laboratory values and functional diagnostics, the interval depends on the baseline finding. Anyone with unremarkable values and no particular risk profile gains little from annual repetition; every two to three years is usually sufficient. Anyone with an abnormal finding or actively working on specific values benefits more from targeted follow-up of individual markers than from repeating the entire programme. This assessment is part of the findings discussion.