by Steve Rothschild

   (Plain Press April 2026) If you are on Medicare, your primary care clinic may reach out to you once a year to schedule one of these often-misunderstood visits. The Annual Wellness Visit was created under the Affordable Care Act to ensure that everyone was offered evidence-based preventive services such as Flu shots, Mammograms, and Diabetes screenings.  Some patients are often interested in them because it’s the one type of medical visit that doesn’t require payment of a deductible or copay.  What many people don’t realize though is that the Wellness Visit does NOT include a physical exam or the diagnosis or treatment of any illness. The visit is simply an opportunity to review your health risk factors and discuss steps you can take to prevent disease. Although the Wellness visit is, by law, highly structured and can feel perfunctory at times, you can get a tremendous amount of value by identifying a couple of goals ahead of time.

   Here are a few examples of Wellness goals you might consider for these appointments:

   •  Identify problems that you have not had a chance to discuss previously with your provider, especially problems that limit your everyday activities. These could include incontinence, mobility challenges, or concerns about your memory.  Again, your doctor may not be able to diagnose and treat these problems during the Wellness Visit, but you can use this discussion to identify your priorities for future visits.

   • Bring a list of the names and contact details for other doctors you see regularly. Don’t assume your primary physician knows who else you are receiving care from and why.

   • Improve medication safety by bringing all your medicines, including vitamins and over the counter medicines, to the visit. I prefer to see actual pill bottles, not just a list. This is a great opportunity to prevent dangerous medication interactions.

   • Discuss your Advance Care Plans such as a Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare or a Living Will. These are legal documents by which you can indicate your preferences for life sustaining treatments in the future, if accident or illness makes it impossible for you to communicate those preferences. If you are not familiar with these documents, you can find more information about them here:  Advance Care Planning: Advance Directives for Health Care | National Institute on Aging

   Don’t try to do all of these at one visit – one or two of these topics is more than enough. With planning, though, you can add real value to this free Medicare benefit.

   Thanks for reading!  I welcome your feedback, as well as your questions and ideas for future columns.

Editor’s Note: Doctor Steve Rothschild wrote a column for the Plain Press in the early 1980s titled DOCTORIN’. After completing his residency at MetroHealth Medical Center, he moved to Chicago where he is now working in Family Practice at Rush Medical Center.