Utilizing Pre-Appointment Questionnaires to Decrease AWV Appointment Time

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Anthem) is committed to partnering with you to ensure all eligible Medicare patients receive an annual wellness visit (AWV) this year. By discussing the patient’s health risk assessment (HRA) and creating a personalized prevention plan during this appointment, you are showing your commitment to your patients living long, healthy lives.

Using your electronic medical record (EMR) to have patients complete pre-appointment work prior to their appointment can allow greater insight into their specific needs and decrease appointment time. Check with your EMR provider about how to make enhancements to your pre-appointment workflow to maximize its capabilities.

Promote pre-appointment work completion prior to appointment

Make it clear to your patients that you have questions for them to answer prior to their appointment:

• Open the questionnaire to them at least one week prior to their appointment to allow time for completion.
• Make sure you have named the tasks to ensure that the patient knows they have pre-appointment work to complete:
  • Naming conventions such as check in may not be clear enough to the patient that they need to complete a health needs assessment prior to their appointment.

Make the questions work for your team

When creating the pre-appointment questionnaire in your EMR, think about what is important to your staff. In addition to collecting basic patient information, such as current medications and recent health history, it would be advantageous to consider the following:

• If the patient has current health issues to discuss with their provider outside the standard wellness visit components, would this allow the staff to prioritize the provider’s time for evaluation and management visits and use nursing staff for the wellness visit components?
• By completing the questionnaire prior to the appointment, will that allow the provider’s scheduled time with the patient to decrease?

To learn more about our commitment to health equity, visit MyDiversePatients.com. If you have additional questions on your annual planned visit rates, contact your Anthem representative.