Method
How the score is built
The five weights
30
Area coverage
A package claiming to be a full-body check should reach all seven essential areas: heart, kidney, liver, thyroid, sugar, blood and vitamins. We score the fraction it actually reaches.
30
Core test ratio
The share of distinct tests that sit in the core tier: the ones defensible in routine adult screening. A large package built from conditional markers scores below a small one built from core ones.
20
Low-yield penalty
Markers that rarely change what a doctor does for an asymptomatic adult. A high proportion of these is the clearest signal a package was assembled for its test count.
10
Redundancy
One test listed more than once: under two names, as its findings one by one, or restated as a category. “Cholesterol, Total” and “CHOLESTEROL TOTAL” in the same package are one measurement, not two. Calculated values are a separate matter, set out below.
10
Count honesty
The advertised figure against the count that survives resolution. Undercounting is not rewarded; only inflation is penalised.
What we set aside, and why
The share on the homepage adds up three things: tests listed more than once, calculated values and low-yield markers. Here is each kind, with a real example in the lab's own words. Every package page lists its own, one by one.
Same test, listed twiceCounted in Redundancy. Often the test sits in two sections of the lab's report, such as the lipid profile and a heart risk panel, and each section is counted.
Two names for one test, or the same name printed twice. It is one reading from one sample, so it counts once.
Lal PathLabs
Findings of one test, listed one by oneCounted in Redundancy. A microscope look at a urine sample is one test; which crystals, casts or cells it happens to see are its findings.
One examination that can report several things, with each possible finding printed as if it were a test of its own.
Ten crystal types in some packages
Same result, written another wayA category or a unit change is counted in Redundancy. Two ratios that are each other upside down are different numbers, so we show them but do not count them as a repeat.
One result restated: sorted into a band, converted to other units, or turned upside down.
Also: LDL/HDL and HDL/LDL ratio
CalculatedCounted as calculated, not as a repeat. Some calculations are useful to a doctor; none of them is a new measurement, so none is a test you pay for.
Arithmetic on results the report already has. Nothing new is measured.
Every package page lists its own under Free maths
Low-yieldOur tier assignments are a starting position from common screening practice, and are waiting on review by a clinician. See the tiers below.
Real measurements that rarely change what a doctor does for someone without symptoms.
What is never counted as a repeat: a urine reading that shares a name with a blood test. “Red blood cells”, “Proteins” and “Bilirubin” in a urine routine are measurements on urine, different from the blood tests of the same name, even though the lab's list does not say which section a line came from.
Scoring and ranking are two different questions
The score measures how honestly a package is composed. Four of its five checks are proportions, so a small, clean, honestly-counted package can score very well while covering only part of the body. That is the right answer to the question the score asks, and the wrong answer to the question a ranking asks, because a package at number one reads as a recommended checkup rather than as a well-built short panel.
So our rankings add a minimum-coverage bar: a package appears in one only if it reaches at least 6 of the 7 essential health areas. This changes no score. Every package keeps the number it earned, says so on its own page, and stays in the full catalogue and in the search filters. The bar decides what gets presented as a complete check-up, not what anything is worth. It applies where the order is set by the score itself, which is the homepage ranking and the price-band pages; it does not apply to a ranking built around one concern, such as thyroid or liver, where a focused panel is exactly what the reader is looking for.
Test tiers
Tier assignment is the most contestable thing in the product, and the place where we are most likely to be wrong. It is derived from common preventive-screening practice and is reviewed rather than fixed.
Core
Defensible in routine adult preventive screening.
Conditional
Justified by a specific risk factor, symptom or demographic, not by default.
Low yield
Rarely changes management in an asymptomatic adult.
What this does not measure
- Laboratory quality. A high score says a package is well composed, not that the lab running it is accurate.
- Your particular situation. A package scoring 8.5 may still be the wrong one for you, and a 5.0 may be exactly right given a specific concern.
- Value for money. Price sits beside the score, never inside it.
Scores are informational and are not medical advice. Speak to a doctor about which tests are appropriate for you.
The body in the homepage scan is real anatomy: the Visible Human Male from the Human Reference Atlas (NIH HuBMAP), used under CC BY 4.0 and simplified for the web. The thyroid is drawn, not from the atlas.