Students to choose their own health checkup facilities starting next year

Starting next year, elementary, middle and high school students will be able to get health checkups at facilities of their own choosing.

The government plans to bring student health screenings under the national health screening system, building a life-cycle checkup framework covering everyone from infants to the elderly.

The government finalized and announced the 4th National Health Screening Comprehensive Plan (2026–2030) on Tuesday, following deliberation and approval by the National Health Screening Committee.

Under the new plan, student health screenings will be brought under centralized national management.

The Ministry of Education plans to delegate student screenings to the National Health Insurance Service starting next year. Once the insurance service takes over in March, students — who previously had to visit facilities designated by their school principals — will be free to get screened at any medical institution at any time of year.

During student screenings, education and counseling on health risk factors — including drug misuse and abuse, smoking and alcohol — will be expanded. Blood tests for childhood obesity will also be extended to cover overweight children, not just those already classified as obese, to enable earlier detection.

The current screening targets — first and fourth graders in elementary school, first-year middle school students and first-year high school students — will remain unchanged. For chest X-rays, only high-risk individuals identified through a preliminary questionnaire will be referred for further testing.

The government is also reviewing a plan to extend the newborn screening window — currently 14 to 35 days after birth — to 14 days to 2 months, given the low first-round screening rate among newborns, which stood at 63.2 percent as of the end of last year.

To close the screening gap between age 6 and elementary school enrollment, the government also plans to extend the eighth and final round of infant screenings from the current window of 66 to 71 months to 66 to 75 months.

The government will also analyze the effectiveness of mental health screenings for young people and refine the program accordingly, while providing support for first psychiatric consultation fees and mental health counseling services.

Colonoscopy screening for colorectal cancer will be introduced in 2028. A colorectal cancer screening recommendation issued in November last year called for colonoscopies every 10 years for adults aged 45 to 74 as a standard screening method.

The government is also reviewing whether to make specialized health checkups mandatory for gig workers on night shifts, such as delivery drivers.

For elderly health screenings, the government is considering aligning the physical function assessment cycle with that of cognitive impairment screenings — shifting to a two-year cycle for those aged 66 and older — to enable more precise monitoring of age-related physical changes.

Existing screening items will be periodically evaluated for medical and scientific validity under a reassessment plan established by the National Health Screening Committee, and items lacking sufficient evidence will be adjusted.

As part of this effort, the government plans to raise the share of screening items subject to validity review and adjustment from 10 percent last year to 40 percent by 2030. One change already decided is narrowing the target age for adult chest X-rays from 20 and older to 50 and older, effective next year.

The government is also reviewing ways to apply AI technology across all stages of the national health screening process.

To strengthen the expertise and credibility of national health screenings, the government will designate a dedicated research body to evaluate the validity of screening items and assess overall system performance, and will build an integrated national health screening evaluation platform.