Kidney Disease Tests and Checks That Are Easy to Miss

With chronic kidney disease, eGFR is the number most people know. The other routine checks are spread across several guidelines from KDIGO, the international kidney guideline group, and some only start at a certain stage, so they are easy to miss. Below is each check, with what the KDIGO guideline says and which edition says it. It is a list of what to ask about, not advice about what you need.

The routine checks and what KDIGO says

• Urine albumin with eGFR. KDIGO 2024 says to test using both urine albumin measurement and assessment of GFR, and to assess both at least annually in people with chronic kidney disease. Its monitoring chart gives a guide from once to four or more times a year, depending on your GFR and albuminuria category.
• Potassium and creatinine after a blood-pressure medicine change. KDIGO 2024 says changes in blood pressure, serum creatinine and serum potassium should be checked within 2 to 4 weeks of starting or increasing the dose of an ACE inhibitor or ARB (a RAS inhibitor), depending on the current GFR.
• Blood count for anemia. The KDIGO 2026 anemia guideline says to test for anemia at referral and regularly during follow-up, and its chart gives a minimum hemoglobin check of once a year at stage G3, twice a year at G4, and every 3 months at G5.
• Calcium, phosphate, PTH and alkaline phosphatase. The KDIGO 2017 bone and mineral update recommends monitoring these beginning at stage G3a, and suggests calcium and phosphate every 6 to 12 months at stages G3a and G3b.
• Blood pressure. KDIGO 2024 suggests a target systolic blood pressure of less than 120 mm Hg, when tolerated, using standardized office measurement. Your clinician decides what target fits you.
• Cholesterol. KDIGO 2024 says a lipid profile is recommended when chronic kidney disease is first found, but that follow-up lipid measurements are not required for the majority of people (it calls this a fire-and-forget policy). It recommends a statin, or a statin with ezetimibe, for adults aged 50 and over with an eGFR below 60.
• Vaccines. The older KDIGO 2012 guideline says all adults with chronic kidney disease should be offered a flu vaccine every year, with pneumococcal and hepatitis B vaccination for some people at later stages or higher risk. The 2024 guideline mentions a vaccination program without the detail, so ask your clinician or pharmacist what is current for you.

Questions to ask your kidney clinician

• What are my GFR and albuminuria categories, and how often should each test be repeated at my stage?
• When was my last urine albumin test (UACR)?
• After my last blood-pressure medicine change, were my potassium and creatinine checked within a few weeks?
• Has anemia been checked with a blood count, and when is the next one?
• At my stage, should my calcium, phosphate and PTH be monitored?
• Does the KDIGO statin recommendation apply to me?
• Which vaccines am I due for?

If you also have type 2 diabetes, our page on kidney tests to track with type 2 diabetes covers the ADA schedule as well.

A free check you can run with your AI assistant

If you use Claude or ChatGPT and have connected it to philongevity.com/mcp (the steps are on our page for AI assistants), ask it to run the Phi Longevity care-gaps check. It needs no lab values, dates, names or records: only your condition, a few types of medicine, and for each routine test whether it was done recently, overdue, never done, or you are not sure. It returns the same list as this page, in order, with the guideline behind each item, the questions to ask each clinician, and a one-page checklist to print. It is decision support for visit preparation, not a diagnosis.

What to do with the files

1. Download your lab reports from each place you have been seen (how to download lab results from MyChart).
2. Connect MyChart at participating Epic health systems, or upload the reports, in your own account at philongevity.com.
3. Phi Longevity PRISM builds a one-page Care Team Brief with each kidney result, its date, its trend and the guideline behind each flag, so the dates of your last UACR, eGFR and blood count are on one page. See the CKD lab guide.

Phi Longevity is not a healthcare provider or a "covered entity" under HIPAA for your personal account. We store your records in HIPAA-eligible systems under a signed business associate agreement with Google Cloud, and we protect them to that standard. You can ask us to delete your data at any time.

Your first Care Team Brief is free. Phi Longevity Complete is $19/month and keeps the brief current as new results arrive.

Start free: put my kidney results on one page →

What Phi Longevity PRISM does not do

It does not diagnose, and it does not tell you which tests you need, how often, or what a result means for you. The schedules on this page are the general ones the guidelines state; your clinician may set a different one. It reads lab results today; medicines, diagnoses and allergies are not imported yet. It uses the range printed on your own lab report and never swaps in its own. Your kidney clinician decides what you need.