The Annual Wellness Visit
The AWV is an initiative from the Affordable Care Act. The visit allows the physician to identify evidence-based preventive services that the patient may have not yet had. The impact is early detection of health risks, minimising the impact of costs of long-term care.
Ancillary Medical Solutions has partnered with Total Recall to provide a comprehensive turn-key solution for delivering the Annual Wellness Visit. The comprehensive model encompasses further preventive testing and can see profits of up to $500 or more per patient.
Problem
Many physicians are currently not utilizing the Annual Wellness Visit due to the time required to perform one and the ability to produce a compliant report. If an office is providing the Annual Wellness Visit service, they are unlikely to be able to offer 20 or more visits per week due to time constraints.
Solution
The AWV provides a technician to perform the Annual Wellness Visit and a range of preventive tests in accordance with the patient risk profile. This solution is ideally suited for high volume Medicare practices enabling 20 or more visits to be completed each week. DNA technology is offered to patients that qualify for pharmacogenetics and cancer screening as well as Neuro Cognitive testing.
The benefits of the AWV serve both the patient and the physician. The result of the Annual Wellness Visit is that the patient can receive counseling and advice to help them improve unhealthy lifestyle behaviours and improve their quality of life.
This service provides not only a significant reimbursement but also satisfies 25 Health Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) quality measures as well as Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and Meaningful Use Credits. If your practice is not performing the Annual Wellness Visit then reimbursements will suffer.
Revenue
The reimbursement for a single Annual Wellness Visit on average is $165 for the initial visit and $105 for the subsequent. The Annual Wellness Visit will establish medical necessity for further testing services, typically providing $100 to $150 in additional pull through revenue. Our program integrates further testing allowing for even higher reimbursements.
The Annual Wellness Visit is also a key identifier for those with a risk for falls. With one in three seniors falling every 12 months, detection of those at risk is vital in reducing the impact of a fall on both the patient and healthcare costs. Many of those at a risk for falls can be given simple corrective treatment.
Incorporation of preventive testing can see pull through revenues increase to $500 or more per patient, particularly when incorporating falls testing. Utilizing the Annual Wellness Visit will safeguard the shrinking reimbursements that physicians are facing.
The Annual Wellness Visit can see an increase of $7 000 to $10 000 per week in revenues, accumulating to an excess of $500 000 per year for a practice that has a Medicare base of 1000 or more patients. At these incomes your practice can’t afford to not do the Annual Wellness Visit.
The Medicare Annual Wellness Visit has the potential to meaningfully impact patient health and quality of life. 70% of Medicare patients have at least one chronic condition that can be delayed or modified as a result of this program. Up to 76% of dementia and pre-dementia is currently going undiagnosed. 125 000 people die each year from adverse drug reactions and even more from cancers.
The turnkey solution that Ancillary Medical Solutions offers, not only will return many financial rewards for your practice but keep your patients at home and healthier, affording quality of life.
For more information on this and other Ancillary Medical Solutions, contact us and we will have one of our Certified Ancillary Consultants contact you.