Annual Wellness Visits are performed once every 12 months to help Medicare patients develop and renew personalized prevention plans to help prevent disease and disability. To aid providers in the process, this month VHAN debuted a new Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) toolkit. The resource includes checklists and helpful tips for performing and documenting AWVs. In addition to patient education, the toolkit gives vital coding and documentation guidelines, a sample risk assessment, and two dozen preventive services summary sheets—from Advance Care Planning to Tobacco Cessation Counseling.
A miniVHAN episode also features Ed Odom, MD, sharing best practices for performing, documenting and billing for AWVs. Dr. Odom is an internal medicine physician and assistant professor of clinical medicine at Vanderbilt Health, as well as a champion of change for coding and documentation improvement efforts that enhance patient care delivery. He shares the importance of a team-based approach to AWVs along with tips for engaging patients in AWV each year.