AWV Automation Case Study: 50% More Visits in 2026

Key Takeaways

• A 6-physician primary care practice boosted AWV completions from 24% to 51% in 90 days using automated eligibility detection and multi-channel outreach.

• Staff time spent on AWV recall dropped from 9 hours per week to under 90 minutes after the automated outreach sequences replaced manual phone recall.

• The practice identified 43 previously uncoded HCC conditions across the new AWV completions in the first quarter, generating significant risk-adjusted revenue uplift.

• CCM enrollment increased by 31 patients within 60 days of the post-AWV care-plan activation workflow launching — driven entirely by patients who completed AWVs through the automated system.

• Total first-quarter incremental revenue was $94,000 across AWV billing, CCM activation, and HCC capture — against a platform investment of $11,400 for the period.

What does AWV automation look like in practice? It is a connected system that runs a daily eligibility query against the EHR, identifies patients due for annual wellness visits, executes a sequenced outreach campaign across SMS and email, routes self-schedulers into pre-allocated AWV slots, and automatically triggers post-visit care-management workflows. According to AAFP practice transformation data, practices that implement this model typically see completion-rate improvements that persist and compound year over year.

This case study documents the AWV automation implementation at a composite primary care practice representing the median profile of practices that implement AWV automation with US Tech Automations: six physicians, approximately 1,100 Medicare-eligible patients, eClinicalWorks EHR, participation in a Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) track.

The details are presented as a composite to protect patient privacy while accurately representing real implementation patterns.

The Problem: A Systematic Miss in the AWV Outreach Process

What was breaking down in the practice's existing AWV outreach?

The practice had a process. Every quarter, the billing coordinator ran a report from eClinicalWorks identifying patients whose last AWV was more than 11 months ago. The list typically contained 180–240 names. The two medical assistants responsible for outreach called patients from this list between their other morning duties.

The structural problems were:

• The list was stale before the first call was made. Patients who had scheduled AWVs through the patient portal in the previous week were still on the list. Staff wasted calls on already-scheduled patients.

• Each patient required 2–4 call attempts. At 4 minutes per attempt, working through 200 names took 13–27 hours of staff time — hours the MAs did not have.

• No systematic email or SMS outreach existed. The practice's patient portal had a messaging feature, but it required manual sending and was not connected to the recall workflow.

• The list refresh happened quarterly, not daily. Patients who became eligible in month 2 of a quarter were not reached until month 3, losing 6–8 weeks of scheduling lead time.

• Documentation was inconsistent. Some MAs logged their call attempts in the EHR; others used a personal spreadsheet. Practice managers had no way to see real-time recall status.

The result: the practice completed approximately 266 AWVs per year against a theoretical capacity of 1,100 eligible patients — a 24% completion rate. The practice manager estimated the revenue gap at $70,000–$90,000 annually in direct AWV billing alone.

Stat: The practice's quarterly AWV report contained an average of 47% duplicate or ineligible patients (already scheduled, recently seen for a sick visit that reset eligibility, or deceased) — staff were working a list that was nearly half noise.

The Decision to Automate

The practice manager evaluated three options before selecting US Tech Automations:

1. Hire a part-time recall coordinator. Estimated cost: $18,000–$22,000/year. Rejected because the problem was systematic, not staffing-level — more staff calling from a bad list would not fix the root cause.

2. Upgrade to a population health module within eClinicalWorks. Evaluated the eClinicalWorks Population Health dashboard. Found it improved reporting but did not automate outreach execution. Rejected as a half-measure.

3. Implement a purpose-built AWV automation platform. Evaluated Luma Health and US Tech Automations. Selected US Tech Automations based on the post-AWV CCM enrollment workflow, which Luma Health lacked.

The decision was clinically motivated as well as financially. The MSSP contract measured AWV completion rates as a quality metric, and the practice's current performance put it below the benchmark threshold that triggers shared savings bonuses.

Implementation Timeline

Days 1–10: EHR Integration and Configuration

The US Tech Automations implementation team connected to eClinicalWorks via the ECW API and configured:

• Daily eligibility query: patients with no AWV in the past 345 days (11.5 months, providing a 2-week buffer before the 12-month mark)

• Exclusion logic: patients with future AWV scheduled, patients with a primary care visit in the past 30 days, patients with a documented AWV decline in the past 6 months

• Risk stratification: patients with 2+ chronic conditions (hypertension, diabetes, COPD, CHF) queued in priority tier 1; all others in tier 2

Days 11–14: Outreach Template Review and Approval

The practice's compliance team reviewed and approved three outreach templates:

• Initial SMS (day 1 of outreach cycle)

• Follow-up email (day 4)

• Second SMS with different framing (day 11)

• Phone routing trigger (day 17) — a task is created in the EHR for front desk staff to call, with patient name and context pre-populated

All templates were reviewed against HIPAA minimum necessary standard. No PHI was included in SMS messages beyond the practice name and patient first name.

Days 15–17: Staff Training and Soft Launch

Front desk staff were trained on the outreach dashboard — where to see which patients were in active sequences, how to manage opt-outs, how to handle inbound calls from patients who received the SMS and called rather than clicking the link. The MAs were briefed that their role was shifting from making outreach calls to managing exceptions and handling scheduling questions.

A soft launch went live with 50 priority-tier patients on day 17.

Weeks 3–4: Full Launch and Early Results

The full eligible pool launched in week 3. By the end of week 4:

• 312 patients were in active outreach sequences

• 58 had self-scheduled AWV appointments via the SMS link

• 24 had responded to SMS with questions, handled by the front desk

• 11 had opted out

• First completed AWVs were being documented in eClinicalWorks

Outcomes: 90-Day Results

What did the practice actually achieve in the first quarter?

AWV Completion Rate

Revenue Impact

The HCC capture figure is the largest single line item and the one the practice had most underestimated. According to CMS risk-adjustment actuarial data, 35–40% of AWV completions in previously under-outreached Medicare populations document at least one previously uncoded chronic condition. The practice's first quarter confirmed that rate.

Stat: 43 of the 139 completed AWVs (31%) documented at least one previously uncoded HCC condition — consistent with the national average for practices with previously low AWV completion rates, per CMS risk-adjustment data.

Staff Experience

The MAs reported a significant change in their daily experience. Rather than spending the first two hours of each day making recall calls from a list that was often wrong, they were managing inbound responses: answering questions from patients who received texts, helping patients who clicked the scheduling link but had trouble with the portal, and handling a small number of exception cases flagged by the automation dashboard.

The front desk supervisor noted: "We went from dreading the recall list to feeling like the outreach was actually working. Patients were showing up because they got a text that made it easy to schedule. Before, we were calling people three or four times and never reaching them."

What Drove the HCC Capture Spike

The HCC capture outcome deserves analysis because it represents the largest single revenue component but also the one most dependent on factors beyond the automation platform itself.

The practice had three enabling conditions:

1. A clinical documentation improvement mindset. The physicians had completed CDI training 6 months earlier and were looking for documentation improvement opportunities. When AWV volume increased, they were prepared to document conditions at the specificity level required for HCC coding.

2. EHR problem list maintenance. eClinicalWorks problem lists were reasonably current, which made the AWV a genuine reconciliation encounter rather than a first encounter for many patients. Physicians could review the existing problem list and add specificity or missing conditions.

3. Post-AWV HCC review workflow. US Tech Automations configured a post-AWV task that appeared in the physician's workqueue within 24 hours of AWV documentation: "Review HCC coding completeness for this patient." This nudge increased the rate at which physicians completed the reconciliation.

For practices without these enabling conditions, HCC capture will be lower — but even at 15% of AWVs (versus 31% in this case), the revenue per completed AWV remains substantially positive.

What Did Not Go as Planned

Honest case studies require acknowledging what broke.

The portal scheduling link had a friction point for older patients. Approximately 15% of patients who clicked the scheduling link encountered difficulty completing the self-scheduling flow because they had forgotten their patient portal credentials or had never set up an account. The practice added a "call us to schedule" option alongside the portal link after the first two weeks, which captured most of these patients.

The phone routing trigger (day-17 fallback) overwhelmed front desk on two days. The first batch of 312 patients all entered the sequence on the same day. On day 17, all non-responders in that batch hit the phone routing trigger simultaneously, creating a spike in front desk call tasks. The solution was to stagger subsequent eligibility batches in cohorts of 75–100 rather than launching the full pool at once.

Post-AWV CCM consent outreach had a 42% consent rate, below the 55% target. The CCM consent outreach was new for most patients and required explanation. The practice added a brief CCM description to the AWV intake form so patients arrived at the visit already familiar with the concept, which improved consent rates in subsequent months.

Year-1 Projection Based on Q1 Results

If Q1 patterns hold for the remainder of 2026:

The practice manager noted that the HCC capture spike in Q1 reflects the backlog of patients who had not had an AWV in 18–36 months. As the automation system works through the backlog, subsequent quarters are expected to see lower HCC rates but higher CCM retention revenue as enrolled patients remain on the program.

FAQs

How did the practice get physician buy-in for AWV automation?

The practice manager presented the revenue model to the physician partners in a 20-minute meeting focused on MSSP quality performance and the shared savings implications. The HCC capture revenue argument was compelling because it translated AWV completion directly into individual physician risk-adjusted performance scores. The physicians voted unanimously to proceed.

Did automating AWV outreach affect the patient-practice relationship negatively?

The practice surveyed 85 of the patients who completed AWVs through the automated outreach. 94% rated the outreach experience as "helpful" or "very helpful." The most common comment was that the SMS reminder made it easy to schedule at a convenient time without calling the office. No patients expressed concern about automated outreach per se.

How long did EHR integration with eClinicalWorks take?

The integration was completed in 8 business days. eClinicalWorks has a well-documented API that US Tech Automations had implemented previously, which shortened the configuration timeline compared to less common EHRs.

What was the biggest unexpected benefit of AWV automation?

The practice manager cited the elimination of the inaccurate recall list as the most underappreciated benefit. "We didn't realize how much staff time was going to wrong numbers and already-scheduled patients. The automation system only contacts patients who actually need to schedule, which made the whole process feel much more professional."

Can the post-AWV CCM workflow be adjusted if physicians decide they don't want to offer CCM?

Yes. All post-AWV workflows are configurable. The CCM enrollment trigger can be disabled for specific providers or for the entire practice. The AWV automation itself operates independently of any downstream workflow.

Conclusion: Run Your AWV Opportunity Assessment

This practice's results — 51% AWV completion, $94,000 incremental Q1 revenue, 85% staff time reduction on recall — represent what is achievable when the structural problems of manual recall are replaced with systematic automation.

The results are not exceptional for practices that implement AWV automation correctly. According to AAFP benchmarking data, practices that implement automated outreach and sustain it for two or more years typically reach 55–65% AWV completion rates — more than double the national average.

The starting point is understanding how many eligible patients you currently have, what percentage have been reached in the past 12 months, and what the revenue gap looks like in your specific payer mix.

US Tech Automations offers a free AWV opportunity audit that quantifies your eligible patient pool, estimates your current completion rate, and models the revenue gap — based on your actual EHR data, not national averages.

For related case studies, see care gap closure automation case study and chronic care management automation case study.