35% More Medicare Annual Wellness Visits for Seniors

During Medicare Annual Wellness Visits, clinicians provide preventive care, assess current health, and address risk factors for seniors. Lee Health determined that only a quarter of their patients with Medicare had completed one of these visits, so they piloted a program that increased the visits by 35% over two years.

By empowering nurses to complete Annual Wellness Visits with physician oversight, Lee Health was able to get more eligible patients in for an appointment. Reports in Epic helped nurses proactively reach out to patients with Medicare who were due for a check-up. During each visit, nurses used standard order sets and other tools in Epic to quickly complete the visit and address the patient’s preventive care gaps.

Increased completion of visits led to a 41.5% increase in identifying patients with diabetes, an 82.5% increase in depression screening, and a 55% increase in flu vaccinations among patients with Medicare.

Lee Health received HIMSS Stage 7 recognition in 2018 for successes including their Medicare Annual Wellness Visit project. Read more from HIMSS.