The Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) is one of the most powerful, and most underused, tools in American medicine. It costs the beneficiary nothing out of pocket. It produces a personalized prevention plan built around that patient’s actual risks. And yet, by widely reported CMS figures, only about 45% of eligible beneficiaries receive one in a given year. More than half of the prevention Medicare already pays for simply never happens.
Why the gap persists
It is rarely a motivation problem. Primary care teams believe in prevention; their days are simply not built for it. Three friction points show up again and again:
- Identification. Eligibility depends on enrollment timing and visit history. In a panel of thousands, knowing exactly who is due, and who has never had a first AWV, is a data problem disguised as a scheduling problem.
- Preparation. A good AWV runs on the Health Risk Assessment, and when that work starts in the exam room instead of before the visit, the appointment is behind before it begins.
- Follow-through. Screenings ordered, vaccines due, referrals made, if nobody owns the loop after the visit, the prevention plan becomes a document instead of an outcome.
What high-performing practices do differently
Practices that close the gap treat the AWV as a lifecycle, not an appointment. They identify eligible patients continuously, not when someone happens to call. They complete the Health Risk Assessment ahead of the visit so clinician time goes to judgment, not data entry. During the visit, the right screenings and vaccines surface at the right moment. Afterward, a named team member owns every open item until it closes, and leadership can see, at a glance, which patients and which populations are being reached, and which are being missed.
Why we are building AWV-AI™
Axiom Preventive Health Systems is a Fort Worth health-technology company founded in 2026. We are building AWV-AI™, a workflow-intelligence platform designed around exactly this lifecycle, find, assess, prioritize, act, and close the loop, because we believe the wellness visit gap is, at its core, a workflow problem, and workflow problems are solvable. AWV-AI™ is currently in development, and we are speaking with primary care practices interested in shaping its first pilot.
If your practice wants to close its wellness visit gap, we would welcome the conversation: axiompreventivehealthsystems.com/contact.
Preventive care, intelligently orchestrated.