The best health check in Monaco, and how to choose

The hospital one day check-up

There are three main routes to a check-up in Monaco. You can spend a day at the hospital check-up unit, build a check-up with your own doctor over several visits, or take the screening the government organises for insured residents.

The Check-up Unit at the Centre Hospitalier Princesse Grace was inaugurated in February 2016 and occupies the top two floors of a modern building at the hospital, with private suites looking over the sea [1] [2]. It offers general, specialised and tailor-made check-ups. Each one starts with a medical questionnaire or a first consultation about your history, risk factors and symptoms, and the head of the unit plans the day from it [3].

On the day you are usually welcomed at 7:30 into a suite of 70 square metres. A nurse records your weight and blood pressure, takes blood and urine samples and performs an electrocardiogram. Nurses then take you to each consultation and scan, which may include ultrasound, MRI, CT, a PET scan or a treadmill stress test. At the end a doctor goes through your results and the report with you, and the unit arranges any further tests [3].

Hello Monaco reported in 2019 that the unit was seeing about 200 clients a year by the end of 2018, that 20% travelled from abroad, and that most clients left with their results the same day. It also described a nurse who speaks four languages and a chef on the unit’s staff [4]. The hospital received the top grade, A, from the French National Health Authority in July 2015 [5].

The specialised check-ups, and who each one suits

Alongside its general and tailor-made check-ups, the unit lists five specialised check-ups, each with its own set of tests and a dietitian consultation in most of them [6]. They suit someone with a particular concern or family history.

• Cardiovascular, with a cardiologist, a cardiac ultrasound, a cardiac CT and a treadmill stress test.
• Digestive, with a gastroenterologist, a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy under anaesthesia.
• Gynaecological, with a cervical smear, a mammogram and breast and pelvic ultrasound.
• Junior, for young people aged 12 to 18, with a paediatrician and breathing tests [6].
• Senior, with a geriatrician, a memory consultation and a brain MRI.

Organised screening, and your own doctor

If you are insured in Monaco, screening for several cancers is organised for you. The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs invites insured people aged 50 to 80 with no personal or family history of polyps, bowel cancer or inflammatory bowel disease to take a home test every two years, and the kit is free of charge [7]. Over 20 years the programme has carried out more than 26,000 tests and found 852 positive results. The same centre runs campaigns for breast, cervical and lung cancer and for osteoporosis [7].

Your own doctor is the other route. A doctor who knows you can order the tests your age and history call for, spread over a few visits. The Check-up Unit itself says a check-up can be requested by the patient or recommended by their general practitioner [8].

The route through your own doctor suits someone who prefers tests spread out, or whose insurance pays for consultations and not for a preventive package. The one day route suits someone with little time, or who wants every result explained in a single sitting.

What a check-up can and cannot do

A general check offered to everyone has a weak record. A Cochrane review of 17 trials, 15 of which reported outcomes for 251,891 people, found that general health checks made little or no difference to deaths from any cause, from cancer or from heart disease [9].

Those trials studied the same checks offered to whole populations. Screening for a specific cancer at the recommended age, and tests chosen because of your own history, were outside their scope. Your doctor can tell you which of those apply to you, and which tests in a check-up package you can leave out.

Six questions to ask before you choose

These questions apply to any provider, including us.

• Who plans my check-up, and will the same doctor go through my results?
• Which tests are included, and why is each one right for me?
• Is the price all inclusive, and will I have it in writing first?
• Does my insurance pay for a preventive check-up?
• Will a doctor explain every result to me before I leave?
• If a further test is needed, who arranges it and who follows it up?

Appointments in Monaco

Our executive health assessment in Monaco costs from €4,400. Anyone can request an appointment in Monaco now.