Skip to main content

Medicare Annual Wellness Visit

In an effort to identify early signs of decline and implement strategies to help older adults age successfully, the Saint Louis University Gateway Geriatric Education Center has developed resources for supporting primary care providers.

One strategy to increase the number of aging assessments in general practice is to leverage the Welcome to Medicare and Medicare Annual Wellness Visits (MAWV).

The MAWVs are intended to provide aggressive, safe and effective primary and secondary prevention strategies for older adults. There are three components to the MAWV:

  • Health care risk assessment, or as we know it in the geriatrics world, the geriatric assessment
  • Provider consultation
  • Personalized prevention plan

MAVA Algorithm (PDF)

SLU Annual Medicare Wellness Visit Form (PDF)

Medicare Annual Wellness Resource List

Task How To Do Completed By
 
Schedule Patient Follow scripts. Call-center schedulers with assistance from office manager. 
Determine Eligibility
  • Ask when last completed.
  • Check with Medicare contractor.
 Call-center schedulers with assistance from office manager.
Information Package Mail Call center schedulers with assistance from office manager.
Computer Information
  • Medication list
  • Patient history
  • Family history
  • Social history
  • Immunizations
  • List of physicians

Medical assistant or nurse.

 
New Content
  • Vital signs sitting/standing
  • Height/weight/BMI
  • Rapid Geriatric Assessment
  • Patient Health Questionnaire
  • Do you smoke?
  • Do you drink alcohol?
  • Do you have sex?
  • Home safety.
  • Last mammogram/colonoscopy
 C.P.N., R.N., M.A.
Summary of Visit
  • Lifestyle interventions
  • Personalized prevention plan
 M.D., D.O, N.P. or P.A.
Billing
  • Diagnosis code V70.0; Initial Annual
  • Wellness Visit G0438; Subsequent
  • Wellness Visit G0439
 Office Manager
 
  1. Cuenca AE. Making Medical Wellness Visits Work in Practice. Fam Pract Manag. 2012 Sep-Oct;19(5):11-16.
  2. How to Bill Medicare’s Annual Wellness Visit (AWV). 
  3. The ABCs of the Annual Wellness Visit (AWV).
  4. Medicare Learning Network. Annual Wellness Visit (AWV), Including Personalized Prevention Plan Services (PPPS). 2011.
  5. Frequently Asked Questions from the March 28, 2012 Medicare Preventive Services National Provider Call: The Initial Preventive Physical Exam and the Annual Wellness Visit.
  6. Medicare Learning Network. Advance Care Planning (ACP) as an Optional Element of an Annual Wellness Visit (AWV). 2015.
  7. Kaehr E, et al. FRAIL-NH Predicts Outcomes in Long-Term Care. J Am Med Direc Assoc 2015; 17(3):826
  8. Kaehr E, et al. Frailty in Nursing Homes: The FRAIL-NH Scale. J Am Med Direc Assoc 2014; 16(2):87-89
  9. Luo H, et al. Predicting Adverse Health Outcomes in Nursing Homes: A 9-Year Longitudinal Study and Development of the FRAIL-Minimum Data Set (MDS)
  10. Quick Screening Tool. J Am Med Direc Assoc 2015; 16(12): 1042-47