What to Add to a Health Screening, and What to Skip

The add-on list at checkout is not a menu of upgrades. It is a mix of tests with grade A evidence behind them, tests that named guideline bodies recommend only for defined risk groups, and tests that allergy and cancer-screening bodies advise against using this way at all.

This page sorts them. For each add-on it answers three questions: which body recommends it and for whom, what it finds that the base package does not, and who should decline it.

Prices are ours, in US dollars. Each package now has one provider, and many single tests can only be added to particular packages, so for each item below we say where you can buy it. If you have not chosen a base package yet, start with which screening package is right for you.

What makes an add-on worth buying?

Three tests, in order.

1. Does a named guideline body recommend it for someone of your age, sex and risk profile?
2. Does it find something the base package would miss?
3. Would the result change what you or your physician actually do?

An add-on that fails the third test is an expensive way to generate a number. Every clinical decision below belongs to you and a physician who knows your history.

Which add-on has the strongest evidence behind it?

Colorectal screening, and it is not close. Grade A is the strongest recommendation the US Preventive Services Task Force issues, and no imaging add-on on this list matches it.

Our Digestive: Upper Endoscopy & Colonoscopy is $499. It can be booked on its own at iHope Clinic or added to the Convenient, Premium, Advanced, Light, Complete or Plus package. The Convenient Pro and Vital packages take a $250 upper endoscopy instead, without the colonoscopy. The catalog notes that anesthesia and the bowel preparation kit are included, and that polyp and gastric ulcer biopsy fees are not.

Budget for the biopsy separately, because a screening colonoscopy that finds something becomes a procedure that removes it. Our comparison of colonoscopy cost without insurance covers the US side.

The upper endoscopy half of that pair has a narrower indication. The American Gastroenterological Association's 2025 clinical practice update on gastric cancer screening in the United States names the groups who should be considered for it:

• First-generation immigrants from high-incidence regions.
• Possibly other non-White racial and ethnic groups.
• People with gastric cancer in a first-degree relative.
• People with certain hereditary syndromes.

The update states that endoscopy is the best test for those groups, and that Helicobacter pylori eradication is essential alongside it.

Who should skip it: nobody in the graded colorectal age band who has not been screened. The upper endoscopy is the part to question if you fall outside the AGA's named risk groups.

Should you add a heart scan?

The two cardiac add-ons are not equivalent, and the guidelines treat only one of them as a decision aid for people without symptoms.

The 2019 ACC/AHA primary-prevention wording is specific. In adults at intermediate risk, defined as a 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk of 7.5% to under 20%, or selected adults at borderline risk of 5% to under 7.5%, "if risk-based decisions for preventive interventions remain uncertain, it is reasonable to measure a coronary artery calcium score to guide clinician-patient risk discussion."

The guideline also explains what the number does.

That is the whole clinical purpose: it settles a statin conversation that the risk calculator left open.

The counterweight is the USPSTF, which in 2018 concluded that the evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of adding a coronary artery calcium score, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein or the ankle-brachial index to traditional risk assessment. Our calcium score cost article covers the pricing side.

The 2026 ACC/AHA dyslipidemia guideline keeps the calcium score in the same role. In the ACC's summary, selective use of a non-contrast CAC scan is recommended for men from age 40 and women from age 45 at borderline or intermediate 10-year risk, and any amount of CAC supports an LDL-C goal below 100 mg/dL.

Our Heart Calcium Score CT Scan is $209. It can be booked on its own or added to the Light package, and the Complete, Plus, Premium and Advanced packages already include a calcium score. Our Coronary CT Angiography is $899, bookable on its own or added to Light or Complete; Plus includes it.

The distinction that matters for the second one is that the ACC/AHA recommendation for refining risk in asymptomatic borderline and intermediate-risk adults names coronary artery calcium. It does not name CT angiography.

Who should skip both: anyone whose statin decision is already settled, in either direction. The calcium score exists to break a tie. If there is no tie, it changes nothing.

Is a brain MRA worth adding?

Only for two named risk groups, and the peer-reviewed literature has described them for two decades.

Those two figures come from a review in Lancet Neurology. The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association published a guideline on the management of patients with unruptured intracranial aneurysms in 2015, and it covers screening among its topics.

That same review makes a point most add-on menus omit. Before referring someone for non-invasive imaging of the cerebral vessels, the physician should discuss three things:

• The implications for holding a driving or flying licence.
• The implications for life insurance.
• Whether the patient wants to be told about incidental findings at all.

Our Brain MR Angiography is $699. It is sold only as an add-on, to the Light or Complete package or to another scan at Central Clinic & Hospital, and the Plus package already includes it.

Who should skip it: people with no family history of subarachnoid hemorrhage and no polycystic kidney disease. The review's own conclusion is that screening people outside those groups will have little effect on the incidence of subarachnoid hemorrhage in the general population.

What does a single-region MRI actually answer?

A single-region MRI is a good test with a question attached and a poor one without. Our Single Region MRI Scan without contrast is $310, bookable on its own or added to Light, Complete or Plus. With contrast it is $550, booked on its own.

The American College of Radiology's 2023 statement on screening total body MRI explains the failure mode. Imaging people with no clinical symptoms, risk factors or relevant family history "will lead to the identification of numerous non-specific findings that will not ultimately improve patients' health but will result in unnecessary follow-up testing and procedures, as well as significant expense."

The same logic applies to a region chosen because it was on a list rather than because something hurts.

The scale of that problem is measurable. A systematic review in the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging pooled 12 studies and 5,373 asymptomatic subjects. It found critical or indeterminate incidental findings in 32.1% of them.

Who should buy it: someone with a symptom, a prior finding, or a physician's question about a specific body part. Who should skip it: someone picking a region because it seemed like the interesting one.

What do the guidelines say about breast imaging and bone density?

Both are age-and-sex questions with clear answers.

Our Beitou Mammogram is $108 and can only be added to the Advanced package. Our DEXA scan is $109, bookable on its own or added to Light; Complete and Plus include it.

Our Comprehensive Breast Imaging is $619. It combines a contrast-enhanced breast MRI, a digital mammogram and a breast ultrasound in one visit, and it can be booked on its own or added to Light, Complete or Plus. Because it contains a breast MRI, the ACS rows above apply to it.

Who should skip: men buying a DEXA scan as a routine screen are buying a grade I test. Women under 40 buying breast MRI without a high-risk assessment are buying against an explicit ACS recommendation.

Are the blood panels worth it?

The advanced lipid panel is the one with the cleanest guideline anchor. Each panel attaches to a different provider's packages.

• Our Advanced Cardiovascular Lipids Blood Panel is $260 and includes Lp(a). It is an add-on with the Convenient package or another iHope Clinic booking.
• Our Comprehensive Blood Work Panel is $249. It is an add-on with the Light, Complete or Plus package or another Central Clinic & Hospital scan.
• Our Lp(a) blood test is $30 and can only be added to the Advanced package at Beitou Health Management Hospital.

The 2019 ACC/AHA primary prevention guideline treats several of the lipid panel's markers as risk-enhancing factors that move a borderline or intermediate risk estimate. It names both the thresholds and, for two of them, when to measure at all.

For Lp(a), the 2026 ACC/AHA dyslipidemia guideline has since widened the indication: the ACC's summary says Lp(a) should be measured at least once in adulthood. Our Lp(a) article covers what a high result does and does not mean. For apoB, the relative indication still separates a panel that informs a decision from one that produces numbers nobody asked for.

Broad panels also sweep in tests the USPSTF has declined to endorse. Screening asymptomatic adults for vitamin D deficiency carries a grade I: the evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms.

For hormone panels, the Endocrine Society's 2018 guideline on testosterone therapy in men with hypogonadism recommends against routine screening of men in the general population. It says diagnosis should be confirmed by repeating morning fasting total testosterone measurement.

Our hormone tests sit with three different providers.

• The Female Hormone Panel is $128, booked on its own at iHope Clinic, and covers AMH, FSH, LH, estradiol and progesterone.
• Female Hormone Blood Work is $46 and is an add-on to Light, Complete or Plus.
• The Male Hormone Panel and the Beitou Female Hormone Panel are $299 each and can only be added to the Advanced package.

We could not verify a guideline body recommending a reproductive hormone panel as screening for asymptomatic women, so we are not claiming one exists.

What about allergen panels and gut microbiome tests?

This is the section where we argue against our own catalog. All three of our allergen products measure IgG antibodies alongside or instead of IgE.

The IgG half has no support from allergy societies. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology states that "due to the lack of evidence to support its use, many organizations, including the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, have recommended against using IgG testing to diagnose food allergies or food intolerances / sensitivities."

It also endorses the Choosing Wisely recommendation not to perform unproven diagnostic tests such as IgG testing. IgE testing for immediate allergic reactions is a different test with a different evidence base.

Direct-to-consumer gut microbiome sequencing has an analytical problem before it has a clinical one. A 2026 study in Communications Biology evaluated seven direct-to-consumer gut microbiome testing services, using a standardized human fecal reference material developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The authors reported major discrepancies both within and across providers. They found that variability between providers was on the same scale as biological variability between different donors. Their conclusion is that analytical performance is a prerequisite for sound clinical recommendations.

Our FloraUp Microbiome Gut Health Analysis is $399. It and all three allergen tests are iHope Clinic products, bookable on their own or added to the Convenient package.

Who should skip: anyone buying the IgG component to build an elimination diet, and anyone treating a microbiome report as a diagnosis.

Which add-on should you decline first?

The broad tumor marker panel. Our iHope Clinic Tumor Markers Panel is $245, bookable on its own or added to the Convenient package, and it measures markers including CA-125, CA 19-9, CEA and AFP.

Our own catalog entry says the same thing in its own words. It notes that most markers on the panel rise with transient inflammation, benign growths, organ impairment or smoking.

It also notes that a value above the reference range is not a diagnosis, and that these markers are most useful for monitoring people who already have a cancer diagnosis.

What do these add-ons cost in Taipei, and where can you buy them?

"Own" means the item can be booked by itself. Light, Complete and Plus are at Central Clinic & Hospital, Convenient at iHope Clinic, Premium at Eonway Health Management and Advanced at Beitou Health Management Hospital.

The full package list is on the health screening page, and each package's own booking page lists the add-ons it takes.

Digital reports are delivered 2 to 3 weeks after screening, and an English physician debrief is available on request.

The bottom line

Buy colorectal screening if you are in the age band and have not had it. Buy a calcium score only if it would settle a statin decision that is genuinely open. Buy a brain MRA only if you have the family history or the kidney disease that the literature names.

Decline the IgG allergen component and the broad tumor marker panel unless a physician has a specific reason to order them. Everything here describes what guideline bodies say about populations, and none of it tells you what your own body needs.

Sources

• US Preventive Services Task Force — Colorectal Cancer: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Gastroenterology, 2025 — AGA Clinical Practice Update on Screening and Surveillance in Individuals at Increased Risk for Gastric Cancer in the United States: Expert Review (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Journal of the American College of Cardiology — 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease (accessed 2026-09-09)
• American College of Cardiology — ACC, AHA Release New Clinical Guideline for Managing Dyslipidemia, 13 March 2026 (accessed 2026-10-14)
• Circulation, 2026 — 2026 ACC/AHA/AACVPR/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia (accessed 2026-10-14)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Cardiovascular Disease Risk: Screening With Nontraditional Risk Factors (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Stroke, 2015 — Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms: A Guideline From the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Lancet Neurology, 2005 — Intracranial aneurysm screening: indications and advice for practice (accessed 2026-09-09)
• American College of Radiology — ACR Statement on Screening Total Body MRI, 17 April 2023 (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 2019 — Whole-body MRI for preventive health screening: A systematic review of the literature (accessed 2026-09-09)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Breast Cancer: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)
• American Cancer Society — Recommendations for the Early Detection of Breast Cancer (accessed 2026-09-09)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Osteoporosis to Prevent Fractures: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Vitamin D Deficiency in Adults: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Endocrine Society — Testosterone Therapy in Men With Hypogonadism: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline (accessed 2026-09-09)
• American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology — IgG Food Test (accessed 2026-09-09)
• Communications Biology, 2026 — Evaluating the analytical performance of direct-to-consumer gut microbiome testing services (accessed 2026-09-09)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Ovarian Cancer: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Pancreatic Cancer: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)
• US Preventive Services Task Force — Thyroid Cancer: Screening (accessed 2026-09-09)

Frequently asked