Requesting lab work is one of the parts of an appointment that makes newly qualified nutrition professionals most nervous — and one that changes the quality of your decisions the most when done well. This guide covers what to request, how to build the form properly, and how to turn a result into a practical decision.
What lab work changes in your practice
Without tests, much of your plan is inference: you observe signs, listen to reports, and build from what you have. With tests, some hypotheses become facts — and others fall apart.
The gain isn’t requesting more, it’s requesting with purpose. A huge panel with no hypothesis behind it costs the client money, produces irrelevant findings and creates anxiety. A short panel tied to what you saw at intake answers specific questions.
Know your scope before you build a routine
This is the part that does not translate across borders. Whether a nutrition professional can request complementary lab work — and which tests — varies by country and often by state or province.
Two things hold everywhere:
- Where it is allowed, it is complementary, not diagnostic. Diagnosing and treating disease belongs to a physician.
- Rules change. Check the current guidance from your regulating body before you standardise anything in your practice.
Treat this article as practical guidance on organising the workflow, not as legal advice.
A starting panel that works in most cases
A starting point, not a prescription — the intake interview defines the actual scope.
Carbohydrate metabolism
- Fasting glucose and HbA1c — a snapshot plus the ~3-month average.
- Fasting insulin, when insulin resistance is suspected.
Lipid profile
- Total cholesterol and fractions, triglycerides. The baseline for cardiovascular decisions and for tracking changes in body composition.
Haematology
- Complete blood count — anaemia, inflammatory signs, long-term response to the plan.
- Ferritin and serum iron — especially for menstruating women, endurance athletes and restrictive diets.
Thyroid
- TSH, and free T4 where relevant. Fatigue, difficulty losing weight or unexplained gain deserve this check.
Vitamins and minerals
- Vitamin D — deficiency is common even in sunny climates.
- B12 — mandatory follow-up for vegetarians, vegans and post-bariatric clients.
Kidney and liver function
- Creatinine, urea, AST/ALT — relevant before recommending a high-protein diet or supplementation.
How to build the request form
A poorly built form bounces at the lab and the client wastes a trip. The minimum it needs:
- Client identification — full name and date of birth.
- Your professional identification — name and registration number. Labs refuse forms without it.
- The list of tests, using recognised nomenclature. Standardised codes reduce the chance of the lab misreading you — which matters when insurance is involved.
- Request date.
- Notes, where relevant — fasting required, menstrual cycle phase for hormone panels, supplements to pause before collection.
Writing this by hand every appointment invites errors and produces a form that doesn’t look professional. Keep a ready-made test catalogue in your system, pick from it and generate a PDF with your details already filled in.
Turning results into decisions
Receiving the lab PDF is half the work. The other half:
- Compare against history, not just the reference range. A marker inside range but sharply worse than last time says more than an isolated value.
- Store it in the client’s record, next to the anthropometric assessment. A result sitting in a folder never becomes follow-up.
- Explain it in plain language. A client who understands why the plan changed sticks to it — and adherence is what separates a good plan from a good result.
- Refer when it’s warranted. Anything suggesting disease belongs to a physician. Referring doesn’t lose you the client; it earns credibility.
A test isn’t a trophy. It exists to answer a question you already had. If you can’t say what you’d do differently depending on the result, you probably don’t need that test right now.
Keep it where the client already is
The real gain shows up when the request, the result, the anthropometric assessment and the diet plan live in the same record. You open the client’s history and see the whole timeline — instead of hunting for PDFs in a chat thread and comparing from memory.
In Fitney, you build the request from a test catalogue, generate the PDF with your name and registration already filled in, and keep everything in the same place where you track the diet and the client’s progress.
Conclusion
Requesting tests with judgement is what separates guesswork from evidence. Request what answers a clinical question, build the form with complete professional identification, store results alongside the history, and refer when it leaves your scope.
Fitney brings records, assessments, test request forms, diets and follow-up into one app — with 14 days free, no card required. See what Fitney does for nutritionists and check the plans. If your next step is making the plan easier to stick to, read how to build food substitutions.