Medicare-- Preventative Visits

I work for a family practice and the doctor insists on doing physicals for Medicare patients. I was wondering how everyone handles this?

Do you go ahead and perform them, charging the patient a fee? or do most doctors not do them at all?

Does anyone have anything (articles, etc) stating these medicare patients not benefiting from physicals?

We currently do the AWV's, but as you all know, its not a complete head to toe.

Any information would be helpful.

re: Medicare-- Preventative Visits

Our providers also insist on doing full physicals when they do the AWV. We just bill the AWV - all of the components are met for the AWV and the providers keep the patients happy by actually doing an exam for the AWV instead of just talking to them.

re: Medicare-- Preventative Visits

The FP/IMs I worked for also did a full physical. We did not charge them any additional wellness services when the full physical was performed unless it as a female patient that had a GYN exam. Then we would use the appropriate "G" and "Q" codes in addition to the Medicare wellness "G" code. The docs felt better about their services and so did the patient. We also took into consideration the EXAM criteria of the Medicare wellness where it states "Other routine measurements as deemed appropriate, based on the beneficiary's medical and family history." The doctors agreed that a complete physical on a patient 65 or over was necessary.