Across Australia, a quiet revolution is underway in how we think about health. More people are booking scans before symptoms appear, asking deeper questions at their GP, and rethinking the daily habits that underpin long-term wellbeing. It is, for many, a fundamental shift in mindset — from reactive patient to active participant in their own health story.
The System We Have vs. The System We Need
Let us start with an inconvenient truth that three of Australia’s most forward-thinking medical professionals are happy to name out loud: what we call our “health care system” is, in reality, a “sick care system.” It was built — brilliantly, for its time — to treat illness, manage crises, and catch us when we fall. What it was never designed to do is keep us well in the first place.
Medicare, introduced over 40 years ago as a universal safety net, has since become both the backbone of Australian healthcare and, in many ways, its ceiling. The 2025–26 Federal Budget committed a record $7.9 billion investment to expand bulk billing — the largest single injection into Medicare since its creation — with the ambition to see nine in ten GP visits bulk billed by 2030. It is a significant achievement in access and affordability. But the question prevention advocates are asking is louder than ever: where is the equivalent investment in keeping people out of the GP’s office in the first place?
“Medicare was introduced as a safety net. But its coverage is often incorrectly perceived as the standard of maximum care — and that perception is part of the problem.”
— Dr Vu Tran, General Practitioner & Co-Founder, OneMRI
The numbers tell a sobering story. In 2023–24, Australian Government health spending reached $106.2 billion, with hospital spending alone hitting $113.8 billion. The Commonwealth contribution to state-run public hospitals will reach a record $33.9 billion in 2025–26, a 12 per cent increase year on year. These are not figures that suggest a system pivoting towards prevention. They are figures that reflect a system straining under the weight of chronic disease and acute demand.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that 47 per cent of Australians — approximately 11.6 million people — were living with one or more of ten selected chronic conditions as of 2020–21. Mental and behavioural conditions, back problems and arthritis top the list. And for Australians aged 15 to 44, mental and behavioural conditions are the most prevalent of all. These are, in large part, lifestyle-influenced conditions. Many are preventable. Yet the funding logic of our public health system continues to flow toward managing outcomes rather than preventing them.
As the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association put it pointedly after the 2024–25 Federal Budget: “This is the eyewatering cost of tinkering around the edges of our current system. Expenditure will continue to escalate when there is an absence of spending for the long-term reform the health system needs.”
The Wellness Economy Filling the Gap
While the policy debate plays out in Canberra, Australians are not waiting. In August 2025, the Global Wellness Institute released its first-ever dedicated report on Australia’s wellness economy — and the results were striking.
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US$126.7B
Australia’s wellness economy (2023),
10th largest globally
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10.9%
Growth rate 2022–23,
among fastest in the world
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US$4,824
Per capita wellness spend,
7th highest globally
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Australia’s wellness economy grew at an annual rate of 7.5 per cent between 2019 and 2023 — outpacing economic growth more broadly. Wellness tourism surged 32.9 per cent in 2022–23 alone, and separately, Big Red Group reported a remarkable 228.4 per cent increase in wellness bookings in 2024 compared to the previous year. The health and wellness market overall reached USD $106.6 billion in 2024 and is forecast to more than double to USD $204.8 billion by 2033.
These are not the numbers of a fringe movement. This is a mainstream consumer shift with serious economic weight behind it. And at its core is a simple, human realisation: we cannot outsource our health to a strained public system and expect good outcomes.
“The healthcare system has no choice but to have consumers lead the change toward preventative health. Shifting resources from acute to preventive care is politically and structurally difficult — so people are doing it themselves.”
— Dr Vu Tran, General Practitioner & Co-Founder, OneMRI
A Market on the Move: The Global Picture
The preventative healthcare market globally is forecast to reach USD $773 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual rate of 10.6 per cent. Early detection and screening technologies are the fastest-growing segment within this. Artificial intelligence, wearable diagnostics, microbiome testing and genomics are transforming what it means to “know your numbers” — moving us well beyond blood pressure and cholesterol.
Australia’s digital health market reflects this trajectory, growing from USD $8.9 billion in 2026 to a projected USD $31.1 billion by 2034 — a compound annual growth rate of nearly 15 per cent. Wearables, telehealth, AI-powered diagnostics and health tracking apps are no longer novelties. For a growing cohort of Australians, they are standard tools of self-management.
The research supports the investment case for prevention with compelling clarity. Studies consistently estimate a return of $14 for every dollar invested in preventive health — through reduced hospitalisations, fewer emergency presentations, lower pharmaceutical costs and a healthier, more productive workforce. Yet despite this evidence, prevention remains chronically underfunded in public health budgets around the world, including Australia’s.
“There’s estimated to be a 14-to-1 return on investment in prevention. But shifting money there means taking it from immediate care needs — and that’s a difficult conversation for any government to have.”
— Dr Vu Tran, General Practitioner & Co-Founder, OneMRI
Expert Voices: The Doctors Driving the Shift
We sat down with three clinicians at the forefront of Australia’s preventative health movement to understand what they’re seeing on the ground, and what it will take to accelerate the change.
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Dr Chris Chappel
Specialist GP & Functional Medicine Doctor, Evergreen Doctors
“Patients come to me because the traditional system has failed them for chronic diseases. They’re empowered now — through podcasts, AI, advanced testing. They know there’s a better way.”
Dr Chappel practices what he describes as “thorough, holistic GP care,” rooted in functional and lifestyle medicine. He uses advanced diagnostics including pharmacogenomics (PGX) and microbiome testing to understand root causes rather than manage symptoms. His patients are, he says, increasingly sophisticated consumers who arrive asking better questions than ever before. He sees the rise of preventative demand as almost entirely consumer-led, driven by disillusionment with an acute-focused system. He points to one systemic absurdity as emblematic of the problem: Medicare currently requires two separate appointments to scan two different body parts via ultrasound — a billing rule that prioritises administrative tidiness over patient wellbeing. Fixing ‘silly things’ like this, he argues, would free up significant clinical capacity. Dr Chappel envisions change coming not from government first, but from an innovative health minister, an enlightened insurance company, or corporations prioritising employee wellness. He also points to exercise as a powerful underutilised tool, noting that research supports it as more effective than medication for mild-to-moderate anxiety and depression — yet it remains a distant second-line treatment in most clinical pathways.
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Dr Vu Tran
General Practitioner & Co-Founder, OneMRI
“Medical training is rooted in ‘sick care.’ The first thing we elicit in a patient history is the ‘presenting complaint.’ The very language we use is built around disease, not health.”
Dr Tran brings a perspective that is equal parts clinical and economic. As a GP working across private and lower socioeconomic settings, and as co-founder of OneMRI, he has a rare vantage point on the full spectrum of preventative healthcare access. He is clear-eyed about the structural constraints: Medicare was built as a safety net, not a wellness platform, and its rebatable services have historically been limited to a handful of preventative scans — mammograms, bone mineral density screening — with the majority of radiology framed as ‘diagnostic imaging,’ implying something is already wrong. He believes meaningful change requires innovation outside government — and that the forces driving that innovation are already at work. His vision for scaling prevention is market-driven: he wants to see the cost of a full-body MRI drop from $3,000 to $200 through advances in AI-assisted reporting and machine efficiency. He also notes the power of reframing motivators: in lower socioeconomic communities, health warnings about lung cancer or amputation often fail to change behaviour. What works instead? The immediate economic cost of a cigarette habit, or appealing to vanity. Meeting people where they are, with messages that resonate in their lives, is the underappreciated art of preventative health communication.
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Dr Sebastian Pedersen
Rehabilitation Medicine Specialist & Founder, Longev
“We can’t just keep educating people about risk and expect behaviour to change. We tried that with teenagers. Clinicians need to be curious about new tools — not dismissive because they weren’t taught about them in medical school.”
Dr Pedersen brings a rehabilitation and longevity lens to the prevention conversation, grounding it in the mechanics of physical function and the clinical evidence for early intervention. He challenges the assumption that awareness alone drives change, drawing a direct parallel to adolescent health education: knowing something is bad for you and choosing differently are very different cognitive acts. His call is for clinicians to be genuinely curious — to stay open to emerging testing modalities, lifestyle interventions and technology, rather than dismissing what falls outside conventional training. He is optimistic about the trajectory of change, noting that once an initial cohort of clinicians caters to preventative services and supporting data is published, uptake will accelerate. He likens it to the logic of a clinical trial: prove the model works, and adoption follows. He sees the intersection of rehabilitation medicine and preventative care as particularly powerful — helping people recover better, move better and age better before breakdown demands expensive intervention.
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What Needs to Change: The Systemic Picture
Our three experts are aligned on the scale of the structural challenge — and cautiously optimistic about the pace of change. They point to several key levers:
Incentivise Prevention at a Policy Level
Dr Chappel points to Japan’s model as instructive: government rebates and services are tied to participation in annual health checks, creating population-level habits. Australia has nothing comparable at national scale. Some employer wellness programs are moving in this direction, but the ecosystem incentive is largely absent from public policy. The 2025–26 Budget made no significant new investments in preventive primary care, focusing instead on access and acute capacity — a choice that public health advocates described as a missed opportunity.
Defragment the System
The Australian healthcare system is fractured between federal and state funding streams, between Medicare and the PBS, between primary and specialist care. Dr Chappel describes COVID-19 as the clearest illustration of this: rather than unified national health action, Australia had competing state responses. That fragmentation costs money, delays care, and makes prevention — which requires coordination across the system — exponentially harder to implement at scale.
Reframe the Language
Language shapes perception. When pathology labs are branded as “Pathology” — a word derived from “disease” — and radiology is called “diagnostic imaging,” the implicit message is that you should only be here if something is wrong. Dr Tran advocates for a deliberate renaming of the system’s relationship with patients: from sick care to proactive care. This is not semantics. It is about creating cultural permission for people to seek health rather than wait for illness.
Make Prevention Affordable at Scale
Dr Tran is explicit: the market mechanism is the fastest path to affordability. High demand drives innovation, innovation drives competition, and competition drives cost down. He cites the trajectory of generic pharmaceuticals as the model — once a patent expires and competition enters, prices fall. He wants to see the same happen with advanced preventative diagnostics. And he argues that government rebates, while useful, are not the only or even primary mechanism: the real prize is volume and efficiency.
The New Preventative Consumer: Who They Are
The Australians driving this shift are not a narrow demographic. They span ages, income levels and geographies — united by a growing curiosity about their health and a willingness to act on it. Podcasts, social media, AI tools, direct-to-consumer testing kits and increased media coverage of longevity science have all contributed to a more health-literate population.
The wellness tourism boom illustrates this clearly: booking data from Big Red Group shows wellness tourism surged 228.4 per cent in 2024. Spa experiences rose 19 per cent year-on-year. Destinations like Peninsula Hot Springs saw bookings jump 132 per cent. These are not people booking a day of relaxation. Increasingly, they are booking with intention — seeking rest, recovery, metabolic reset, or simply a structured pause in which to listen to their body.
At the same time, private healthcare demand is evolving. Corporate wellness programs are expanding: Australia’s workplace wellness market is valued at USD $1.31 billion and growing at 5.34 per cent annually, with one in six Australian workers now experiencing mental illness — a statistic that is driving organisations to invest in prevention as a business imperative, not a benefit.
“This movement is like a viral trend. A few clinicians start the change, others follow. We’re at an inflection point — not a passing fad.”
— Dr Vu Tran, General Practitioner & Co-Founder, OneMRI
The Ethics Question: Wellness for Whom?
No honest conversation about preventative health can avoid the equity question. As prevention becomes a booming trend, the risk is that it becomes a premium product — accessible to those who can afford full-body MRIs, functional medicine consultations and cutting-edge diagnostics, while those in lower socioeconomic brackets remain dependent on a public system that sees them only when they’re unwell.
Our experts are clear-eyed about this tension. Dr Tran works across private and public-facing settings and is acutely aware of the ‘money story’ bias that can unconsciously shape clinical decisions — where a clinician makes assumptions about what a patient can afford and adjusts their recommendations accordingly, often without realising it. This bias, he notes, is partly a product of medical training in public hospital settings where care is free to the consumer at point of service.
The answer, all three doctors agree, is not to restrain innovation or limit access to new preventative tools. It is to pursue affordability through scale, to advocate for transparency in pricing, and to ensure that as the market matures, it develops pathways to inclusion rather than exclusion. Ethics and transparency are not optional extras in a booming prevention economy — they are the foundation of its legitimacy.
The Opportunity Ahead
The numbers, the clinical insight and the consumer behaviour all point in the same direction: preventative health is no longer a niche concern. It is becoming a mainstream expectation — and a significant economic force.
Globally, the preventative healthcare market will approach USD $773 billion by 2034. Australia’s health and wellness market will likely more than double to USD $205 billion over the same period. The question is no longer whether this shift is real. The question is whether our public systems, our clinical culture and our policy settings will catch up quickly enough to harness it — or whether the gains will remain the domain of those who can already afford to be proactive.
For the wellness industry, the spa and retreat sector, and allied health practitioners across Australia, this moment is also an invitation. You are not peripheral to the healthcare system. You are, increasingly, where the system begins — the first conversation, the first intervention, the first place someone feels empowered to ask: “How am I actually doing?”
“Caring for your health is no different from maintaining your car. You don’t wait until the engine fails to check the oil. Why would your body be any different?”
— Dr Chris Chappel, Specialist GP & Functional Medicine Doctor, Evergreen Doctors
The shift toward prevention is underway. The experts are ready to talk. The evidence is compelling. Now it is time for the conversation to go mainstream.
ABOUT OUR EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS
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Dr Vu Tran
General Practitioner & Co-Founder, OneMRI
Dr Tran is a GP with experience across private and community-facing practice, and co-founder of OneMRI, a clinic focused on expanding access to advanced preventative diagnostics.
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Dr Chris Chappel
Specialist GP & Functional Medicine Doctor, Evergreen Doctors
Dr Chappel practises holistic, root-cause-focused medicine in Sydney, integrating functional medicine, lifestyle interventions and advanced diagnostics for patients with chronic conditions and those seeking proactive wellness.
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Dr Sebastian Pedersen
Rehabilitation Medicine Specialist & Founder, Longev
Dr Pedersen is a specialist in rehabilitation medicine and founder of Longev, focused on optimising physical function and long-term health outcomes through early intervention and evidence-based preventative practice.
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Words by Kris Abbey | Expert Contributors: Dr Vu Tran, Dr Chris Chappel, Dr Sebastian Pedersen
Sources & Data References
Global Wellness Institute, Australia Wellness Economy Report (August 2025) • Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Health Expenditure Australia 2023–24 • IMARC Group, Australia Health and Wellness Market 2024–2033 • Transparency Market Research, Global Preventive Healthcare Technologies & Services Market 2034 • IBISWorld, Federal Funding for Medicare 2025–26 • Australian Government, Budget 2025–26 Health • Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, Budget Response 2024–25 • Big Red Group, Wellness Bookings Data 2024
