Overview

• A nine-month quality-improvement program raised completed annual wellness visits from 8.4% to 50.8%.
• No-show rates were lower for combined visits than for wellness-only visits, 11.9% versus 19.6%.
• Patients kept wellness appointments more reliably when scheduled with their regularly seen physician.
• Orders rose across multiple preventive measures, including mental health, fall risk, several cancer screenings, DEXA, A1c, microalbumin, Hep C, HIV, and pneumococcal vaccination.
• The five-clinic family medicine project from Marshall University is published in the Annals of Family Medicine and the authors note the approach was implemented within current Medicare rules.