How do practices market annual wellness visits and preventive care?
Practices market annual wellness visits mainly through recall, not advertising. They pull a list of patients who are due, send plain reminders by text, email, portal and phone, explain what the visit covers and what it does not, and make booking take one step. New-patient marketing for preventive care comes second, once the existing panel is being recalled on time.
- Recall beats advertising for preventive visits: the patients most likely to book are already in your practice-management system.
- Explain the visit honestly. Medicare's yearly Wellness visit is not a head-to-toe physical, and confusion about that causes complaints and surprise bills.
- Match the channel to the patient: text and email for most adults, phone calls and mailed letters for many older patients.
- Measure completed visits per eligible patient, not messages sent.
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Why do annual wellness visits need their own marketing plan?
Preventive visits are booked by patients who feel fine, so nothing pushes them to call. They also come in several types with different rules, and patients mix them up. A separate plan gives the practice a steady, predictable flow of visits and keeps patients connected to their doctor between sick visits.
The table below shows the visit types most practices remind patients about, and the misunderstanding each one tends to create. The Medicare details come from Medicare's own coverage page; check plan rules for commercial patients.
| Visit type | Who it is for | What patients often get wrong | What the reminder should say |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medicare "Welcome to Medicare" preventive visit | People in their first 12 months of Part B | They do not know it exists or that the window closes | When the window ends and what the visit reviews |
| Medicare yearly Wellness visit | People who have had Part B for more than 12 months, once every 12 months | They expect a full physical exam | That it is a planning visit, and that extra tests or services the same day may carry costs |
| Preventive exam under a commercial plan | Adults with private insurance | They assume every test ordered is free | To check their plan's preventive benefits before the visit |
| Screenings and vaccines that are due | Patients flagged by age, history or prior results | They forget the interval since the last one | What is due, and that the doctor will confirm it is right for them |
Medicare covers the yearly Wellness visit at no cost to the patient when the clinician accepts assignment. It does not cover routine physical exams. A reminder that says "free annual physical" sets up a billing complaint later.
Who should get preventive-care reminders, and when?
Every active patient who is due, or will be due soon, should get a reminder. Build the list from your practice-management or EHR data using last preventive visit date, insurance type, Part B start date where you have it, and any screenings flagged as due. Send the first reminder a few weeks before the due date.
A simple monthly recall routine
- Pull the list on the first business day of each month: patients due next month, patients overdue, and patients new to Medicare.
- Clean it. Remove patients who have left the practice, died, or opted out of messages. Fix wrong phone numbers before sending anything.
- Split it into groups: Medicare yearly Wellness, Welcome to Medicare, commercial preventive, and screening-only reminders. Each group gets its own wording.
- Send the first reminder by the patient's preferred channel, with a direct booking link or a callback number.
- Follow up once or twice with patients who have not booked, then hand the remainder to front-desk staff for a phone call.
- Close the loop. Mark each patient as booked, declined, or unreachable so next month's list is accurate.
Plan capacity before you send. A recall campaign that fills the schedule for three weeks and then leaves gaps is harder on staff than a steady weekly batch.
What should an annual wellness visit reminder say?
A good reminder names the visit, says why the patient is getting it, explains in one line what the visit covers, and gives one way to book. It avoids health details in subject lines and text previews. It sounds like the practice, not a mass mailer, and it is signed by the doctor or the care team.
Text messages
Keep them short: the practice name, "your yearly Wellness visit is due", a booking link, and how to opt out. Do not mention diagnoses, test results or medications.
Email has room for a short explanation of what happens at the visit, what to bring (medication list, recent results from other doctors), and a note that extra tests ordered that day may be billed separately. Use a subject line that only names the practice and the visit.
Phone calls and mailed letters
Many older patients prefer a call or a letter. Give front-desk staff a short script so every call explains the visit the same way and books the appointment during the call.
Patient portal
Portal messages suit patients who already use it. Treat the portal as one channel among several, because many patients never log in.
Practices that want reminders and callbacks handled in one place often use a CRM with calling built in for the front desk; ours is AtomCRM. A shared list and a script matter more than the tool.
Do HIPAA and texting rules apply to recall messages?
Yes, both apply, in different ways. HIPAA generally treats a practice's reminders to its own patients about care it provides as treatment communications rather than marketing, as long as no outside company pays for the message. Texting rules still call for consent and a working opt-out, and the standard depends on the message type. Confirm the details with your counsel.
HHS explains where the line falls in its guidance on marketing under the Privacy Rule. The picture changes when a third party, such as a drug or device maker, pays for or sponsors a message. Then the message can count as marketing and may need the patient's written authorization.
- Keep consent records for texts and emails, with the date and how consent was given.
- Honor opt-outs quickly across every channel, not only the one the patient replied on.
- Use vendors that sign a BAA for any texting, email or calling tool that handles patient data.
- Keep tracking pixels off booking and portal pages unless the setup has been reviewed for HIPAA risk.
How can preventive care bring in new patients?
Preventive care is a common reason adults look for a new primary care doctor, especially when they move, change insurance, or turn 65. To be found, the practice needs a clear page for each visit type, a Google Business Profile that lists those services, and accurate information about which insurance plans it accepts.
- One page per visit type: a Medicare yearly Wellness visit page, a Welcome to Medicare page, and an adult preventive exam page. Each says who it is for, what happens, what to bring, and how to book.
- Insurance clarity: patients check this before they call. Our guide to insurance pages that convert covers the layout.
- Medicare newcomers: people aging into Medicare often re-check whether their doctor takes their new plan. If outreach names specific Medicare Advantage plans, CMS marketing rules can apply, so confirm with counsel; see attracting Medicare patients compliantly.
- "Accepting new patients" status on the website and the Google profile, kept current.
This acquisition work sits inside a wider plan for the practice. Our doctor and primary care marketing page shows how the pieces fit together.
How do you know the preventive-care program is working?
Track completed visits as a share of eligible patients, month by month. That one ratio shows whether recall is working. Add booking rate per reminder group, no-show rate for preventive visits, and the number of overdue patients left at month end. Messages sent and open rates show activity, not results.
- Completion rate: completed preventive visits divided by patients due that month.
- Booking rate by channel: which reminder method produced the booking.
- Overdue backlog: patients more than a few months past due. It should shrink over time.
- New-patient preventive visits: first visits that came from search, the Google profile or referrals.
Review these monthly with the front desk, because most fixes are operational: a wrong phone list, a confusing script, or too few open slots. If you want a second opinion on your recall setup, book a call with the US team.
Related pages from the US team
Doctor & Primary Care Marketing USA
How Ichelon Consulting US plans marketing for physician practices.
Attracting Medicare patients
Compliant ways to reach people aging into Medicare.
Physician practice marketing KPIs
The numbers a practice owner should review each month.
Insurance pages that convert
Show accepted plans clearly so patients call.
Every practice welcome — Goals-Driven engagements from $499/mo
We benchmark your last 90 days, agree monthly goals with you, and track them live on Ichelon Agency OS with a report every Monday. Performance-Linked Payout Models are available. Our US leadership is based in Dallas, and strategy calls run in US business hours.
Common questions
Is the Medicare annual wellness visit the same as a physical?
No. Medicare's yearly Wellness visit is a planning visit to review health risks and create or update a prevention plan. Medicare does not cover routine physical exams. If the clinician performs extra tests or services during the same visit, the patient may owe coinsurance or a deductible for them.
How often can a Medicare patient have a yearly Wellness visit?
Medicare Part B covers a yearly Wellness visit once every 12 months for people who have had Part B for longer than 12 months. People in their first 12 months of Part B can get the separate Welcome to Medicare preventive visit instead.
Do practices need patient consent to send recall texts?
Practices should get and record consent before sending texts and give patients an easy way to opt out. Federal texting law (the TCPA) and HIPAA treat healthcare messages in specific ways, and the consent standard differs for reminders and promotions, so practices should confirm their consent wording and process with counsel.
Which channel works best for preventive-care reminders?
It depends on the patient. Text and email suit most working-age adults. Many older patients respond better to a phone call or a mailed letter. A sequence that starts with the patient's preferred channel and ends with a staff call usually reaches the most people.
Should a practice advertise annual wellness visits to new patients?
It can, but recall of existing patients should come first. For new patients, clear service pages, an accurate insurance list and a complete Google Business Profile usually matter more than ads, because people looking for a preventive visit are often choosing a long-term doctor.
A note on this guide: it explains marketing practice, not legal advice. Rules on privacy, advertising and insurance change and vary by state, so confirm anything compliance-related with your own counsel.
Want a recall program that runs every month?
A 30-minute call with the US team. We'll look at how you remind patients today and map a recall routine your front desk can run.
Email, SMS and recalls in the nine-stage patient journey
- 0Foundations
- 1Demand gen
- 2Capture
- 3Lead quality
- 4Lead mgmt
- 5Scheduling
- 6Show-up
- 7Conversion
- 8Retention
It works after the first visit: reminders so booked patients arrive, and recalls that bring past patients back. Our own software runs the work, and every stage is reported against a monthly target on Ichelon Agency OS.
See all nine stages and the tool behind each one →