Original Article: Using RN Co-Visits to Improve Access and Completion Rates for Medicare Annual Wellness Visits

“Using RN Co-Visits to Improve Access and Completion Rates for Medicare Annual Wellness Visits.”

FPM

January 2026

University of Colorado Anschutz Department of Family Medicine faculty, Jennifer Corliss, MD, FAAFP; Rebecca Johnson, MD; and Rachel Rodriguez, MD, FAAFP, are coauthors of the article, “Using RN Co-Visits to Improve Access and Completion Rates for Medicare Annual Wellness Visits,” published in the January/February 2026 edition of the Family Practice Management (FPM) Journal.

Set at the Lone Tree Primary Care Clinic, this study implemented registered nurse (RN)–led annual wellness co-visits to reduce scheduling challenges, documentation burden, and patient knowledge around Medicare Annual Wellness Visits (AWVs), resulting in improved same-day access and overwhelmingly positive patient feedback.

From the article:

“Patients have reported appreciating the one-on-one preventive health education from the nurses, the thorough approach to their health care, and the efficiency of being able to combine two appointments into a single trip to the office. Still, it’s best to set the expectation for a lengthy appointment at the time of scheduling and then reiterate it when the patient arrives….In the first year of implementing RN annual wellness co-visits, our practice performed 100 of them, leading to a 12% increase in our overall AWV completion rate. This increase may have also been influenced by our practice using physician and staff education sessions to emphasize prioritizing AWVs. We also observed a notable improvement in key illness screening rates since starting the RN annual wellness co-visits. Our clinic’s breast cancer screening completion rate for eligible patients increased from 78% to 83%, and our colorectal cancer screening completion rate increased from 75% to 80%. We also saw a 5% improvement in hierarchical condition category (HCC) coding, when compared to the same month the previous year. This is particularly helpful for practices that participate in capitated payment programs based on patient risk. We expect this model will also help with RN retention in the long run, because our RN staff reported significant job satisfaction with performing annual wellness co-visits. They allow RNs to perform at the top of their license and provide dedicated face-to-face time with patients for health education — something our RNs enjoy, but are often unable to do because of time constraints.”

Other coauthors include Taryn Arbayo, RN, AMB-BC, nursing supervisor at Lone Tree Primary Care.

Read more of this article from the FPM.