HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – A new study from the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine demonstrates that combining Medicare annual wellness visits (AWVs) with problem-based visits can significantly increase patient engagement, reduce missed appointments and improve preventive health outcomes.  

The study, published this month in the Annals of Family Medicine, found that Medicare annual wellness visit (AWV) completion rates increased from 8.4% to 50.8% within nine months, while no-show rates dropped significantly when visits were scheduled with a patient’s regular clinician. Preventive screenings and tests also improved across multiple measures including cancer, depression, diabetes, osteoporosis and infectious diseases. The research team implemented a nine-month quality improvement effort across five family medicine clinics in West Virginia, introducing longer, 40-minute appointments that allowed patients to complete both the Medicare wellness visit and address ongoing medical concerns during the same visit with their continuity clinician. 

“Annual wellness visits provide important opportunities for prevention and early detection, but they are often underutilized because patients also want to address their immediate health concerns,” said Courtney D. Wellman, M.D., assistant professor of family and community health and lead author on the study. “By restructuring these visits to accommodate both wellness and problem-based care, we found a practical way to improve continuity, patient satisfaction and quality measures without creating additional barriers.” 

In addition to Wellman, authors on the study include family medicine faculty Richard Conway, D.O., Adam M. Franks, M.D., along with Ashley Beaty, Kueitsung Shih and Christopher Schafer. They concluded that the combined visit model offers a scalable and sustainable way to improve the reach and effectiveness of Medicare wellness visits while reducing no-show rates and closing critical gaps in preventive care. We continue to focus on quality measure improvements by shifting to direct intervention on measures and analyzing individual outcomes.  

To read the full article, “Combining Medicare Wellness Visits With Problem-Based Visits Reduces No-Show Rates and Closes Screening Gaps,” in its entirety, visit https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.250054.  

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Date Posted: Monday, September 29, 2025