Preventative health care is important because it helps people stay healthy and can help reduce the overall medical expenses of patients. Screening for disease such as high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic pulmonary disease is important to maintain good health.
Medicare
Having a wellness visit check list will help to keep you focused and on track for the visit. There are many available forms for the Medicare Annual Wellness visit (AWV) that can help to organize the flow of the visit.
The Medicare Annual Wellness visit does not include a hands-on exam or any testing that the Doctor may recommend. It also does not include any discussion on new/current medical problems, conditions, or medications. It does include a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) that asks various questions regarding your ability to do activities of daily living (ADLs), pain assessment, medication reconciliation, as well as psycho-social aspects.
Commercial/Medicaid
Ensuring wellness check ups for newborns through adolescence is important to track growth and development, preventing illness through immunizations, monitoring nutrition and physical activity, and, creating strong relationships among the parent/child/physician.
For adults, the annual physical is important to screen blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, osteoporosis, and body mass index (BMI). Keeping vaccines up to date to prevent diseases is also important to overall health.
Tips
• Communicate by postcards/email/telephone reminders that it is time for your annual check-up
• During the preventative visit, obtain a signed release form from the patient will aid the practice if there is any need for additional information from another physician
• If, during the Medicare Wellness visit, a problem is discussed, the doctor can bill with a 25 modifier code. It is important to let the patient know that they may be billed for the visit if this occurs.
Sources:
www.cms.gov; www.aafp.org
www.aap.org; www. Medicaid.gov
Approved Quality Committee – 1/8/2020
Notes From the Network – November 2022
Annual MeetingThe PACN Annual Meeting was held on September 20th. Thank you to all who were able to attend. For those that could not, you can access the recording via the PACN website. Simply log in to the member side of the site, you will find the Annual Meeting...
May 2022 Notes from the Network
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