Maximize patient and practice benefits by setting Annual Wellness Visits (AWV). AWV can help you decrease overall costs, increase practice revenue, and enhance good patient care.
What are Annual Wellness Visits (AWV)?
The Annual Wellness Visits (AWV) program is a Medicare-reimbursable service that provides preventative care to patients. AWV aims to establish and incentivize a minimal yearly touch point for all beneficiaries and providers.
Every Medicare beneficiary can go once a year without any medical symptoms for a routine check-up. Insurance companies must pay for these annual visits for all their subscribers without applying deductibles or copayments.
According to a recent article, 81% of all eligible Medicare patients did not receive the annual service. AWV is an underutilized service for practices, despite its multiple benefits for the business. Establishing AWV for your patients can help you increase revenue, decrease overall costs, and enhance good patient care.
How can I maximize Annual Wellness Visits (AWV) efforts in my practice?
On our latest webinar, Robin Wisniewski, Health Prime Care Manager, shared practical methods to implement AWV while streamlining productivity and increasing profitability. Some strategies you can follow to maximize your Annual Wellness Visits are:
- Educate your staff and patients on AWV benefits and covered services: Educate patients about the difference between an AWV and an Annual Physical Exam. Let them know that the yearly “wellness” visit is not a physical exam. Also, educate your staff on the importance of AWVs. Establish discussion sessions about preventative care’s benefits and provide orders to obtain the testing.
- Leverage benefits of AWV and added services: Your practice can include follow-up visits at the same visit as the Annual Wellness Visit. Remember to provide the appropriate code covering the added examination for chronic conditions. Any other additional test or service (like a routine physical exam) is not covered by Medicare’s AWV. Also, notify providers of eligible health screening codes so they can be performed and billed.
- Develop and update personal preventative plans: Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Developing personal preventative plans for your patients can improve patient care while maximizing your practice’s reimbursement. Introduce eligibility for Chronic Care Management (CCM) or Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) during the AWV. Don’t forget to educate your patients on chronic conditions if they have any.
Let us help!
Health Prime AWV will take care of eligibility and appointments, virtual pre-visits, and reimbursements. Health Prime’s licensed nurses make increasing visits without provider burden possible. We handle the most time-intensive components of Medicare’s preventative care while you can take care of what matters most: your patients.
Our AWV program allows us to be your partner, allowing you to increase revenue by scheduling AWV and enriching patient care. Health Prime’s 5-star service counts with licensed, certified clinicians, reduces strain on clinicians and staff, and proves reimbursement success without upfront costs.
If you want to learn more about outsourcing your AWV services, contact us at [email protected] to set up a meeting with us. Annual Wellness Visits are part of our Health Prime’s Value-Based Care services. Visit us at Health Prime’s Value-Based Care.
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