What is a Medicare wellness visit?

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The Medicare Annual Wellness Visit is a free, once-every-12-months appointment covered by Part B, and the most important thing to know is what it is not: Medicare.gov says plainly it is not a routine physical exam. What it is: a conversation-based visit to develop or update your personalized plan to help prevent disease or disability, built from your current health and risk factors. In practice the visit covers a health risk assessment questionnaire, your medical and family history, a review of your medications and your other doctors, routine measurements like height, weight, and blood pressure, a cognitive check, a falls-risk look, and a written screening schedule for the coming five to ten years, telling you which tests you are due for and when. You pay nothing if your doctor accepts assignment, though be careful: if the visit drifts into diagnosing or treating a specific problem, that part can be billed separately as a regular visit. Use it well by bringing your medication list, your family history, and your actual questions, and by scheduling a separate appointment for specific health concerns, as Medicare.gov itself suggests, so the wellness visit stays focused on prevention. It is the highest-value free hour in Medicare, and most people skip it.

What is a Medicare wellness visit?

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