Everyone’s Getting a Full-Body MRI. Should You?

Longevity has taken over the healthcare conversation, and the goal isn’t just living longer, it’s living better, sharper, stronger for as long as possible. That shift has fueled a wave of wellness trends promising a head start on aging well. Full-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become one of the buzziest, offering scans that screen for hundreds of conditions in a single setting. It’s a compelling pitch: total-body insight before anything else goes wrong. It’s peak preventative care.

The technology itself isn’t new. A full-body MRI uses the same imaging as a traditional scan, but instead of focusing on one area, it sweeps across multiple organ systems in a single session.

Influencers and celebrities have credited full-body preventative MRIs for helping them address health issues. Maria Menounos says it caught her pancreatic cancer, while Kim Kardashian shared that she discovered unruptured brain aneurysms. And just last month, Busy Phillips shared that her Prenuvo scan uncovered a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a type of rare, slow-growing brain tumor. She had surgery to remove the tumor in March.

But do you need one? That depends.

Dr. Elizabeth Dulaney-Cripe, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and integrative medicine physician who is founder of Valivara Health, tells Flow Space that right now full-body MRI scans are best viewed as a “useful addition” instead of a replacement for routine, targeted prevention tools. Think: breast MRIs, mammograms, DEXA scans, dedicated heart disease risk screening, colonoscopies and pap smears.

She says that full-body MRIs have the most potential when used to identify large, unrecognized masses but that they “aren’t well-suited for catching early-stage disease, which is often too small or too subtle for this kind of broad scan to detect.”

The upside is they can be comprehensive preventative tools for people with higher risk of certain health conditions like cancers. But it’s important to note that no major medical groups have specifically recommended these scans as a preventative measure for the general population.

The downside is that too much information could cause more anxiety, especially when results aren’t contextualized and properly explained. They’re also expensive — costing thousands of dollars — and aren’t yet covered by health insurance.

Still, stories like Busy Phillips’, whose tumor wouldn’t have been known about without the scan, are a reminder of what’s at stake. For some people with the right risk factors or family history, the potential payoff makes the cost and anxiety worth it. Below, we break down the major scans on the market and what you need to know about each before booking your appointment.

Prenuvo

Offerings:

• Whole Body MRI Scan: A head-to-toe scan that checks for detectable conditions in the pelvis, torso, spine, brain and neck.

Why Get It? This is a great option if your goal is to get an overall idea of what’s going on in your body generally.

How Long It Takes: 45-60 minutes.

Follow-Up Care: Post-scan, you’ll receive results in the Prenuvo app. A nurse practitioner then walks you through the results and highlights points worth speaking with your doctor about.

Cost: $2,499 for comprehensive whole body scan; $999 for torso scan.

Covered by Insurance? No, but FSA eligible.

Locations: Available in the U.S., Canada, U.K and Australia

TrueScan

Offerings:

• Focused MRI: Scans organs and soft tissues in the brain, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis for tumors, aneurysms, deterioration and conditions like neurological, autoimmune and metabolic disorders.
• Full Body MRI: Everything above plus the whole spine and legs except for the feet.

Why Get It? This might be your pick if you’re especially curious about what’s going on in your spine.

How Long It Takes: 45-60 minutes.

Follow-Up Care: After the scan, you’ll schedule a 60-minute follow-up appointment with a TrueScan doctor to go over findings. Referrals to local specialists are available if necessary. TrueScan can also send your results directly to your doctors.

Cost: $1,195 for Focused MRI and $1,995 for Full-Body MRI.

Covered by Insurance? No, but HSA/FSA eligible.

Locations: Available in the U.S., Canada, U.K and Australia

Function/Ezra MRI

Offerings:

• MRI: Images of the head, neck, abdomen and pelvis. Checks for conditions that affect spleen, kidneys and pelvis.
• MRI with Spine: Everything above is included plus the spine.
• MRI with Skeletal and Neurological Assessment: Includes everything from the above two options, plus musculoskeletal assessment of knees and hips, brain age analysis and body composition profiling.

Why Get It? You want a membership-based service for continous monitoring.

How Long It Takes: 22, 47 minutes or two 55-minute sessions.

Follow-Up Care: A board-certified radiologist reviews every scan. Then, findings are scored from 1 to 5 — 1 means a result is benign or normal, while 5 means something is emergent or critical. The report includes both the specific radiology findings plus a simplified report outlining all the results.

Cost: $1,899 Annual MRI, $1,499 for MRI with Spine and $3,999 for MRI with Skeletal and Neurological Assessment. These costs are in addition to a mandatory $365 yearly Function membership fee.

Covered by Insurance? No.

Locations: Available in the U.S. and U.K., with locations coming to Canada, South Korea, Germany, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Australia.

SimonMed

Offerings:

• Core MRI: Scans abdomen, chest and pelvis.
• Core MRI Plus Head and Neck: Everything above plus neck and brain.
• Core MRI Plus Head, Neck and Spine: Everything above plus additional images of the cervical, lumbar and thoracic spine.

Why Get It? You want multiple opinions in one place.

How Long It Takes: Up to 60 minutes.

Follow-Up Care: Board-certified radiologists review every scan. Then, you’ll schedule a personal consultation to look over the report that contains your digital findings. The company also has a partnership with Cascaid Health to facilitate booking further care.

Cost: $999 (or $899 if it’s your first time) for Core MRI, $1,799 (or $1,599) for Core MRI Plus Head and Neck and $2,499 (or $2,199) for Core MRI Plus Head, Neck and Spine.

Covered by Insurance? No, but likely FSA/HSA eligible.

Locations: U.S. states including Arizona, California, New York, Kentucky, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Neko

This isn’t a full-body MRI, but it is a new body scan that just launched in the U.S. It focuses on three areas: the skin, the heart and blood markers. The noteworthy aspect of this scan is that it includes taking thousands of images of all the moles and blemishes on the body. This can act as a baseline to watch if anything changes.

Offerings:

• Neko Health Scan: Includes full-body skin scan, extensive heart assessment and full blood workup.

Why Get It? You want a focused, detailed look at your skin.

How Long It Takes: Up to 60 minutes.

Follow-Up Care: Blood samples are immediately sent to the in-house lab so results are ready before the debrief. Immediately after your scan, a doctor sits down with you to go over results. They point out areas for improvement. If follow-up care is needed, referrals to partners are made. You can view your results in Neko’s mobile app.

Cost: $499 for Neko Health Scan.

Covered by Insurance? No, but FSA/HSA eligible.

Locations: New York City, with expansions to Washington, D.C, San Francisco and Miami planned. Also available in the U.K. and Sweden.