Why Patients Don’t Follow Through — and What It’s Costing You

Are your patients completing their preventative screenings?

According to Becker’s Healthcare, one in three patients doesn’t follow up with the specialist they’re referred to. That statistic should concern any practice operating in a value-based care model.

Let’s dig into the root cause — and what your practice can do about it.

The Real Reason Patients Don’t Act on Referrals

Let’s be honest: no one’s thrilled to schedule a mammogram or a colonoscopy.

So it’s no surprise that many patients drop the ball after their visit. But the reasons go deeper than just discomfort or dread. Common barriers include:

• Communication gaps
  
  
• Inconvenience and scheduling friction
  
  
• Out-of-pocket cost concerns
  
  
• Forgetting or lacking motivation
  
  

Regardless of why, the outcome is the same: missed screenings hurt your clinical performance and reimbursement under value-based care contracts.

Prevention = Performance in Value-Based Care

In programs like Medicare Advantage, MSSP, and ACO REACH, your performance is directly tied to your ability to lower the total cost of care.

That’s where preventative screenings come in. Catching issues early means:

• Less invasive treatment
  
  
• Better health outcomes
  
  
• Lower hospitalization risk
  
  
• Higher quality of life for patients
  
  

But if patients never make that specialist appointment, your practice loses those benefits — and your cost of care goes up.

Making the Most of the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV)

The Annual Wellness Visit is a cornerstone of value-based care. It’s the one time each year when you sit down with patients to create a proactive, preventative care plan — including referrals for screenings.

But that referral list is just the beginning.

To actually close care gaps and drive performance, you need to make sure patients follow through.

How Snap eHealth Helps You Close the Loop

SnapAWV, Snap eHealth’s Annual Wellness Visit solution, makes referral management part of the visit — not an afterthought.

Here’s how it works:

• Actionable referrals: Patients receive a personalized preventative care plan with referrals built in.
  
  
• Automated reminders: SnapAWV sends follow-up nudges to patients, prompting them to schedule.
  
  
• Streamlined scheduling: Patients submit scheduling preferences, and SnapAWV shares them with specialists.
  
  

It’s proactive, patient-friendly, and performance-aligned.

Visibility for You — Action for Them

Your staff can track referral progress inside Snap’s Patient Relationship Management (PRM) clinic app. It provides:

• Live visibility into who has followed through
  
  
• Automated or manual outreach tools to close the loop
  
  

And when the specialist completes the screening, they can send results back — either via EHR integration or by uploading directly into the PRM app.

Ready to Boost Screening Rates and Reimbursement?

If you want to improve patient follow-through, reduce total cost of care, and hit your value-based care goals — SnapAWV can help.

👉 Contact our team to learn more

‍