Why are Annual Wellness Visits Important?

Annual Wellness Visits (AWV) are available at no cost to everyone on Medicare every year. These visits are a chance for older adults to talk to their primary care provider about their overall health, review any chronic health concerns they have, what preventive care they should consider and what they can do to stay as healthy as possible.

The AWV is a relatively new Medicare benefit. Because of this many members may not be aware of the benefit and don’t request it. Also, many clinics did not routinely offer an AWV to their Medicare patients until recently.

What did we do to increase Annual Wellness Visits among our members?

HealthPartners implemented a campaign to increase AWV across our organization. We shared information with both our members and the clinics in our care system about the importance of Annual Wellness Visits.

How did we reach out to members?

Our MSHO Care Coordinators talked to members about how these visits are important and helped them schedule the visits if needed. We asked our myVoice panel, an on-line survey group, about what they knew about AWV and what they would like to know about them. Using that information, we created and sent information to our MSHO members about AWV and encouraged them to talk to their doctor about them. Members who prefer e-mail are sent the information via e-mail. Others received mailed information. We offer our MSHO members an incentive for receiving an AWV.

How do we collaborate with providers?

We also worked with our provider network to encourage them to increase their use of AWVs to enhance their healthcare management strategies with their patients. Our provider newsletter promoted the AWV and included important topics that clinicians should discuss during the visit with their patient. In an effort to increase AWV rates, some clinics successfully utilized a strategy to bundle AWVs with other types of visits. Network clinics shared best practices at our Quality Connections forums. We work with select providers to negotiate special payment arrangements for increasing AWV rates.

What challenges did we face?

Member awareness of Annual Wellness Visits has been an issue. Many older adults are not familiar with the AWV or don’t understand how an AWV is different than an annual physical.

Many clinics had to restructure their scheduling processes to add this type of visits to their clinician schedules.

Results

Annual Wellness Visit completion has increased over 1000% since this initiative began.

Ongoing work

HealthPartners is committed to encouraging our MSHO members to receive an AWV. We will continue to offer MSHO members an incentive for completing this type of visit. We will continue to support our provider network to encourage older adults to receive Annual Wellness Visits through sharing information and contracting strategies.