Check-ups

In addition to seeing your children whenever they are sick, it is also important to schedule well-child-care pediatric examinations (or check-ups) regularly, beginning in infancy. These routine examinations provide the best opportunity for the doctor to observe the progress of your child's physical and mental growth and development.

We ask that you click on our Forms page to access the parent questionnaires for your child's upcoming checkup (these are the same forms previously available on Medfusion through our Patient Portal).  We encourage parents to print these forms at home and bring the completed form with you to your checkup.

It is also a time for us to:

• - Update family medical history
• - Review your child's medical history
• - Provide age-appropriate safety information & health education
• - Perform screening of your child's growth, emotional & social development
• - Check blood pressure, vision & hearing
• - Provide immunizations

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends this schedule for check-ups:

• 3 to 5 days
• 1 month
• 2 months
• 4 months
• 6 months
• 9 months
• 12 months
• 15 months
• 18 months
• 24 months (2 years)
• 30 months (2 and 1/2 years)
• 3 years. And once every year thereafter for an annual health supervision visit that includes a physical exam as well as a developmental, behavioral, and learning assessment.

Occasionally, we perform laboratory screening for cholesterol and anemia, along with other tests depending on your child's individual risk factors for a given health problem.

For older children and teen physical exams, these visits are a chance for us to check on educational successes and goals, and to perform necessary sports physicals required for participation.

When you bring your child for a yearly check-up, please let us know if you have had your child's hearing or vision screened by a specialist so that we will not duplicate these important services.

As you can tell from the above list, these visits are comprehensive, and we take this part of our job very seriously! When performing annual exams, our practice follows the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics' "Bright Futures" program.

Care for Long Term or Special Health Needs

Because of the time involved, yearly annual exam visits may not be the best time to address chronic health issues such as asthma, diabetes or ADHD in great depth. However, we will always make every effort to identify all significant health issues during check-ups, renew all prescriptions and give you follow-up recommendations.

If your child has special needs, please let the scheduler know prior to making your next appointment.

Financing & Health Insurance for Well Check Ups

Fortunately, most managed-care organizations understand the importance of a well check-up (also called an annual exam), and most of them will cover the cost of these visits on a yearly basis.

It is very important that you check with your insurance company prior to these visits so that you understand the rules of coverage for your policy.

Most policies allow one physical exam per calendar year, but others may require 365 days or more in between yearly physicals.