This series has been focusing on levers to be pulled that can increase revenue in value-based care (VBC) practices. The second installment started looking at ways to decrease medical expenses, thereby increasing the potential revenue through shared savings or premium risk (Link to Part 2). Part 3 will now dig into the Swiss Army Knife of VBC, the Annual Wellness Visit (AWV).

Medicare Annual Wellness Visits (AWV) are frequently viewed by primary care providers as a tedious visit in which patients see little value. With consistent access to care issues and a shortage of primary care providers, these visits are easy to push to the side and focus on other visits. The problem is, these visits can impact attribution and they are also a key metric in value-based care plans as well as Accountable Care Organization (ACO) requirements to receive incentive payments. So how can a practice balance the need to maintain attribution and satisfy insurance requirements while still providing crucial hands-on care to patients? The answer may be more simple than hiring more providers or limiting new patients. Nurse-led Annual Wellness Visit programs have been proven to effectively meet the AWV requirements while increasing access to the provider for other visits.

From the FFS perspective all these yearly patient evaluations add revenue at a relatively higher rate than a typical office visit. A Medicare AWV generates the same work RVU rate as..

ACP is a face-to-face service (including telemedicine) where a patient and their physician discuss the patient’s health care wishes should they become unable to make decisions about their care. Things like advance directives and Health Care Proxies are discussed. [You can generally find ADs on your State attorney generals’ office website.]