(Press-News.org) Original Research
Combining Medicare Wellness Visits With Problem-Based Visits Reduces No-Show Rates and Closes Screening Gaps
Background and Goal: A recurrent barrier to Medicare annual wellness visits, which provide preventative medicine guidance for older and disabled patients, occurs when patients introduce medical concerns to physicians during these preventative visits. In this study, researchers scheduled combined visits in a single, longer slot with patients’ regularly seen clinicians and used allowed billing rules so both visits could count to see if they could increase the percentage of annual wellness visits completed and the quality measures captured.
Study Approach: A family medicine department with five clinics ran a nine-month quality improvement effort for patients aged 65 and older on Medicare. The department team started booking longer 40-minute “combined” appointments so patients could complete the Medicare annual wellness visit and, if needed, have regular medical issues handled in the same visit with their regularly seen physician. The team then tracked, month by month, how many eligible patients got a wellness visit, how often people missed appointments, and how many screenings, tests, and vaccines were ordered, comparing results with the nine months before the change to see what improved.
Main Results:
Medicare wellness visits increased from 8.4% to 50.8% over nine months.
No-show rates were lower for combined visits than annual wellness-only visits (11.9% vs 19.6%).
Patients had lower no-show rates for annual wellness visits with their regular physician than a different clinician.
Orders and screenings increased across many measures, including depression, falls, pain, breast/cervical/colorectal/lung cancer, DEXA, A1c, urine microalbumin, Hep C, HIV and pneumococcal.
Why It Matters: The findings suggest scheduling longer, combined visits with patients’ usual physicians may help increase the completion of annual wellness visits, reduce no shows, and close screening gaps, while still fitting within existing Medicare billing rules.
Optimizing Medicare Annual Wellness Visits Through Quality Improvement: Leveraging Process, Continuity, and Combined Visits
Courtney D. Wellman, MD, et al
Department of Family and Community Health, Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
END
Combining Medicare wellness visits with problem-based visits reduces no-show rates and closes screening gaps
Optimizing Medicare annual wellness visits through quality improvement: Leveraging process, continuity, and combined visits
2025-09-22
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Current sexual orientation, gender identity, and differences of sex development measures in federal health surveys
2025-09-22
Methodology
Current Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Differences of Sex Development Measures in Federal Health Surveys
Background and Goal: Federal health surveys are a key source for understanding health needs in the U.S., including the needs of people in LGBTQ+ community. This methodology paper characterized the current landscape of measures capturing sexual orientation, gender identity, and differences of sex development in federal health surveys, detailing when and how the information was collected.
Approach: ...
Penn State Health’s patient-centered quality metric reframing project may serve as a model for presenting future quality metrics
2025-09-22
Innovations in Primary Care
Penn State Health’s Patient-Centered Quality Metric Reframing Project May Serve as a Model for Presenting Future Quality Metrics
Quality metrics aim to improve patient outcomes by setting evidence-based targets, but many are neither patient centered nor physician centered. A team at Penn State Health’s Department of Family and Community Medicine ran a project across 13 ambulatory clinics to make quality data more meaningful by presenting patient-oriented outcomes in plain, natural language. Using 24 months of electronic health record data, they ...
Adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams helps manage medication access
2025-09-22
Original Research
Adding Pharmacy Technicians to Primary Care Teams Helps Manage Medication Access
Background and Goal: This study examined whether adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams relieved clinicians and nurses of medication-access tasks and improved perceptions of burden, quality of care and patient access.
Study Approach: Researchers conducted a retrospective, mixed-methods study one year after deploying five primary care pharmacy technicians across 11 clinics in a large urban safety-net network. They analyzed electronic ...
High educational debt and long work hours are associated with burnout symptoms in early-career family physicians
2025-09-22
Original Research
High Educational Debt and Long Work Hours Are Associated With Burnout Symptoms in Early-Career Family Physicians
Background and Goal: This study examined whether higher educational debt among physicians is associated with more hours worked per week and whether both are independently associated with burnout symptoms among early-career family physicians.
Study Approach: Researchers linked the American Board of Family Medicine Initial Certification Questionnaire (2017 to 2020) to its National Graduate Survey ...
CHART guideline provides 12 key reporting items for AI chatbot health advice studies
2025-09-22
Special Report
CHART Guideline Provides 12 Key Reporting Items for AI Chatbot Health Advice Studies
Background and Goal: In response to the growing need for reporting standards for evaluating artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot health advice studies for clinical purposes, researchers created the Chatbot Assessment Reporting Tool (CHART) so stakeholders can interpret results with confidence.
Key Insights: CHART was developed through a systematic review; a Delphi consensus process (a series of anonymous expert surveys to build agreement) with 531 international stakeholders; and three consensus meetings with a 48-member expert panel. The CHART statement ...
George Mason public health researchers enter new phase of NIH funded research on child health
2025-09-22
Scientists, nurses, and researchers in George Mason University’s College of Public Health (CPH) have successfully progressed to the third phase of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program studying a broad range of early life exposures on child health.
The NIH grant provides more than $157 million in awards for Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), and George Mason will receive $1.35 million annually until 2030 to conduct the study.
George Mason is one of 45 research sites across the country gathering longitudinal data on more than 30,000 children; 1,059 of those children are enrolled in George Mason’s ...
Heatwaves in US rivers increasing up to four times faster than air heatwaves
2025-09-22
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the frequency and intensity of heatwaves increase across the U.S., a similar but more striking phenomenon is occurring in American rivers. Analysis of data from nearly 1,500 sites in the contiguous United States between 1980 and 2022 revealed that heatwaves in rivers are accelerating faster than and lasting nearly twice as long air heatwaves, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State.
“Rivers are often thought of as safe and cool havens protected from extreme temperatures,” said Li ...
Dried fish – the hidden superfood vital for millions of women and children in Africa
2025-09-22
STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 8PM UK TIME (3PM EASTERN TIME) ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
Hidden in plain sight, dried fish are an overlooked yet vital nutrient-packed superfood helping to feed millions of people across Africa, a new study reveals.
And new evidence quantifies for the first time the essential nutrients in sun-dried and smoked fish in Africa, suggesting they could play an important role in tackling malnutrition across the tropics – provided the right policies are in place, researchers argue.
Dried fish are an affordable and readily available food across the tropics. Yet despite this prevalence, because they are often ...
Research shows there are no easy fixes to political hatred
2025-09-22
Tune into American politics today, and you'll hear something far more sinister than simple disagreement. The language has escalated: political parties trash talk each other—blaming rival parties for policy failures or even for causing incidents with national implications.
And reducing polarization and "partisan animosity"—the distrust and hatred of the other party—is remarkably difficult, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluating past attempts.
The research was led by the Polarization ...
A recipe from two eras: How conifers ward off their enemies
2025-09-22
To the point:
Conifers use resin to protect themselves against pests. This resin contains diterpenes, which are defensive substances.
Some of these diterpenes originated over 300 million years ago, before conifers evolved. Other diterpenes developed independently in different conifer species much later, presumably to protect against bark beetles.
This repeated evolution was only possible because enzymes that produce diterpenes had previously undergone changes that unlocked evolutionary pathways towards certain substances. This is based on a mechanism called “epistasis”, which allows new traits to evolve once preparatory ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Smartwatch use enhances the detection of heart arrythmias, increasing the quality of care.
MAN PPK2: A “universal” enzyme for the production of RNA building blocks
Sniffing out the cause of keratoderma-associated foot odor
Tuning color through molecular stacking: A new strategy for smarter pressure sensors
Humans use local dialects to communicate with honeyguides
Theory-breaking extremely fast-growing black hole
ŌURA and National University of Singapore open Joint Lab to advance research in personalized preventive health
Hope for smarter lung cancer care
Singapore scientists discover lung cancer's "bodyguard system" - and how to disarm it
Bacteria use wrapping flagella to tunnel through microscopic passages
New critique prompts correction of high-profile Yellowstone aspen study, highlighting challenges in measuring ecosystem response to wolf reintroduction
Stroke survivors miss critical treatment, face greater disability due to systemic transfer delays
Delayed stroke care linked to increased disability risk
Long term use of anti-acid drugs may not increase stomach cancer risk
Non-monetary 'honor-based' incentives linked to increased blood donations
Natural ovulation as effective as hormones before IVF embryo transfer
Major clinical trial provides definitive evidence of impacts of steroid treatment on severe brain infection
Low vitamin D levels shown to raise risk of hospitalization with potentially fatal respiratory tract infections by 33%
Diagnoses of major conditions failing to recover since the pandemic
Scientists solve 66 million-year-old mystery of how Earth’s greenhouse age ended
Red light therapy shows promise for protecting football players’ brains
Trees — not grass and other greenery — associated with lower heart disease risk in cities
Chemical Insights scientist receives Achievement Award from the Society of Toxicology
Breakthrough organic crystalline material repairs itself in extreme cold temperatures, unlocking new possibilities for space and deep-sea technologies
Scientists discover novel immune ‘traffic controller’ hijacked by virus
When tropical oceans were oxygen oases
Positive interactions dominate among marine microbes, six-year study reveals
Safeguarding the Winter Olympics-Paralympics against climate change
Most would recommend RSV immunizations for older and pregnant people
Donated blood has a shelf life. A new test tracks how it's aging
[Press-News.org] Combining Medicare wellness visits with problem-based visits reduces no-show rates and closes screening gapsOptimizing Medicare annual wellness visits through quality improvement: Leveraging process, continuity, and combined visits