It’s time to invest in our future: include early promotion of optimal child growth as part of general practice funding schemes

Promoting optimal growth and establishing health behaviours in early childhood is critical for preventing chronic disease risk. General practice is a key setting for early childhood health promotion; however, in Australia, there are systemic barriers to embedding prevention in practice, including a lack of Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items to publicly fund preventive health checks. We propose the implementation of MBS items for staged child health promotion checks aligned with childhood immunisation visits to enhance access to affordable, accessible preventive care in general practice. We believe there is a strong case to include universal checks for the promotion of optimal growth for children aged 0-5 years in the MBS.