Well-Child Visits

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends regular well-child checkup visits as children grow in order to track development, behavior, nutrition, safety, and their overall well-being. Well-child visits also ensure children are getting vaccinated against preventable diseases. Although your insurance should cover routine visits for your child, Pediatrics East suggests you check with your employer or insurance to verify your coverage.

What goes into a routine checkup?

It’s not hard for parents to understand the importance of seeing a pediatrician when their children are sick, but it’s equally important to make sure you are taking them to routine wellness visits. By following the recommended schedule for well-child visits, you can ensure that your child is healthy, developmentally thriving, and protected from preventable diseases.

Benefits of Well-Child Visits

  • Immunization: Well-child visits are the only way to stay current on your child’s scheduled and suggested immunizations. This is also a good time to ask your pediatrician about other diseases that you cannot be vaccinated against, such as the common cold or stomach flu, and what you can be doing at home and at school to protect your child from them. 

  • Growth Tracking: It’s important to keep track of your child’s development, both mentally and physically. A well-child visit allows you to discuss your child’s behaviors and learning progress with your pediatrician to determine and measure their progress. 

  • Early Detection: Regular visits allow you, as a parent, to discuss daily observations such as sleep patterns, dietary concerns, social interactions, and more with your pediatrician. This helps to ensure the detection of early warning signs that your child’s development may be hindered. 

What's the difference between a Well Visit and a Sick Visit?

Here at Pediatrics East, we are so happy to be able to care for your family. We have reserved a special amount of time to be able to visit your child to ensure they are the healthiest that they can be. 

Well-child Visit

Well-child visit covers preventative care, such as growth, development, routine physical exam, immunizations, other age appropriate screenings. We can also take care of sports physicals and answer any questions you or your child may have about their development.

Sick-child Visits

If your child is having issues outside of what is routinely covered by a well visit that you would like to discuss with your doctor during the visit, it becomes a sick-child visit, and your regular co-pay or additional charges may now apply to the visit. Other health concern examples: illness, anxiety, depression, ADHD management, and other chronic illnesses. 

Well-Child Checkup Schedule

The following periodicity schedule was developed by Bright Futures and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to screen and assess children from infancy to adolescence. In the early stages of your child’s life, well visits will be more frequent. As your child gets older, visits will decrease to just one check up per year, to catch up with them, update their vaccinations, and ensure their physical and mental development. 

Infancy Visits

Newborns and growing babies have lots of pediatric visits to attend to ensure they are growing and developing at a normal rate. As soon as you bring your newborn home, we will want to see them just to ensure that they are functioning properly in their first days. Typically, this is between 3-5 days old, but personal circumstances can change the timeline for this. We will also want to see your baby at one, two, four, six, nine, and twelve months old for a wellness check and to update their vaccinations. In this time frame, your baby will be administered 3 rounds of DTap, IPV, Hib, Prevnar and Rotavirus, as well as the first round of Hepatitis A, Varivax, and MMR. While this may seem like a lot of vaccinations for someone so young, the first year is crucial in protecting your child against preventable diseases. 

Download the Infancy Well Visit PDF

Early Childhood Visits

During the toddler stage, or the timeframe prior to starting kindergarten, we will want to see your child once a year for a wellness visit. During this stage of life we check on speech development, match your child to growth charts, and administer the vaccines necessary to begin school. We may also discuss how to create a schedule for television and electronics that works for your family. Children should receive another round of all the basic vaccines, as well as a Hepatitis B vaccination. 

Download the Early Childhood Well Visit PDF

Middle Childhood Visits

Lucky for them, school-age children don’t need a ton of vaccine boosters. We try to take care of most of them by the time they are 5. Despite not needing vaccinations, it is still important to bring your child to well-visits once per calendar year so that we can check up on their physical and mental growth, as well as get to know them in all stages of life. At this age, children may begin to participate in athletic activities, and therefore need a sports physical. These physicals can be worked into your child’s annual well visits. 

Download the Middle Childhood Well Visit PDF

Adolescence Visits

Adolescence is a crucial time for development, and although the vaccination schedule calms down, it’s still suggested to continue yearly well-child visits to ensure they are progressing through puberty properly. Early adolescents, starting at 11-2 years old, will receive a Tdap, Menactra, and possibly the Gardasil series of vaccinations if desired. This is also a great time to discuss any challenges, and potentially refer them to a specialist if needed. Many people think that as soon as their children are out of high school and onto college, they don’t need to be seen by a pediatrician. However, Pediatrics East takes patients up to 21 years old and our pediatricians thoroughly enjoy learning about the next stage of your child’s life. Even after they age out of pediatrics, you should continue to encourage your child to attend yearly well visits throughout their life. There may be vaccines to administer after high school, but this will be dependent on the university, study abroad, or other job-specific requirements. 

Download the Adolescent Well Visit PDF

Any additional questions regarding childhood vaccinations can be found on our vaccination schedule page. 

Appointment Scheduling

REGULAR CLINIC HOURS

All Locations
Monday - Friday
Well Visits: 9:00am - 10:30am
Sick Visits: 11:00am - 5:00pm  

EARLY BIRD WALK-IN CLINIC

Beginning March 17, 2020, walk-in appointments have been suspended until further notice. 

NIGHT CLINIC BY APPOINTMENT*

Night Clinic appointments have been suspended until further notice. 

WEEKEND CLINIC***

8110 Walnut Run, Cordova Location ONLY
Same Day Sick-Child Appointments
Saturday 8:40am - Noon (Call after 8:00am)
Sunday 8:40am - Noon (Call after 8:00am)
901-754-9600 
***There is an additional fee for weekend clinic appointments.

APPOINTMENT LINE

Monday - Friday
7:30am - 4:30pm
901-757-3535