Pharmacists and Medicare’s Annual Wellness Visit: implications for pharmacy education and interprofessional primary care

Older adults largely receive medical services in ambulatory primary care venues. Unfortunately, there is often a mismatch between the structure of primary care and senior patients’ needs, including multimorbidity, frailty, cognitive impairment, and polypharmacy. These attributes do not lend themselves to the typical, short primary care visit wherein multiple concerns are addressed in a “tyranny of the urgent”. Instead, interventions emphasizing patientcentered care, wellness, prevention, and care coordination are necessary. Medicare’s Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) provides a means to deliver such care.