A child’s health story usually begins the same way, with a parent carrying a newborn into a pediatric office for the very first time. Over the years that follow, that office becomes one of the most familiar places in a family’s life. It is where growth gets measured against the last visit, where shots are given and quickly forgiven, and where a parent finally asks the question that has been on their mind for weeks.
We think of the pediatric primary care provider as the quarterback of that story, and National Primary Care Week feels like the right moment to say so.
Why the schedule matters
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 15 well-child visits before a child turns 6, and nine of them come before 15 months [1]. It can sound like a lot, especially since most of those visits happen when a child seems perfectly healthy. That is really the heart of it, though. These are the visits where a provider can follow how a child is growing and developing, keep immunizations on schedule, and notice small things early, while they are still small [2].
It is also a schedule that is easy to fall behind on, and the reasons are usually very human ones. A ride that fell through, a shift that could not be missed, or no one to watch a brother or sister can each turn a checkup into something that waits until next month [2]. In the median state, 61% of children in Medicaid and CHIP had six or more well-child visits in their first 15 months, and 70% had two or more visits between 15 and 30 months [3], which says a great deal about how many families are doing their best against real obstacles.
That is why we think of the well-child visit as a partnership. A parent brings the child, along with everything they have noticed and wondered about since the last visit, and the provider brings the plan for what comes next. Our part at Equality Health (EH) is to make things a little easier for both of them.
What we are doing
This past summer gave us a chance to see that partnership at work in Arizona. Together with a health plan partner, we filled 3,000 backpacks with school supplies and delivered them to 14 pediatric practice locations, going from an idea to backpacks in hand in under a month [4]. The thinking was simple. A backpack gives a practice a warm reason to call a family and invite them in for their child’s checkup, with something to take home afterward.
Five weeks later, 752 well-child visits had been scheduled [4], and what we found most meaningful was who scheduled them. Our Care Specialists, who spend their days reaching out to families, scheduled 334. The practices scheduled 418 themselves. We were delighted to come in second, because it confirmed something pediatric teams have long known: when a family hears from the office that has cared for their child since birth, they are far more likely to pick up the phone.
That lesson shapes the rest of our work. For families, our Care Specialists and community health workers stay in touch with those who have lost contact with primary care, and they help with the practical things, such as finding an appointment time, sending a reminder, or arranging a ride. Every backpack also carried a link to a back-to-school page, in English and Spanish, with plain answers to the questions parents ask about checkups, sick days, and school [6].
For practices, CareEmpower®, our care coordination platform, keeps each young child’s visit schedule in view, so the team can see who is coming due and reach out in good time. From the same screen, a practice can ask our Care Team to help a particular family [5]. A month-by-month visit guide, covering the newborn period through 24 months, makes it easier for the front desk to book the next visit before a family heads home. And because this work deserves to be recognized, our activity-based payment program pays practices each quarter for completed well-child visits, with no chart upload needed for Medicaid in 2026 [7].
What the results look like
We have seen what happens when families reconnect with primary care. In one Arizona payer partnership, members we were able to re-engage were about twice as likely to complete the visits recommended in the first 15 months as members we could not reach, a 104% improvement, and a Texas partnership saw annual well-child visits improve by 72% [8].
Tennessee tells a similar story. In 2025, 48.2% of re-engaged members had their annual well-child visit, compared with 29.8% of those who remained out of touch, and across our Tennessee network, well-child rates rose between 4 and 6 percentage points from 2024 to 2026 [9].
It takes all of us
None of this belongs to any one of us. Pediatric providers and their teams hold the relationship that families trust most, and our role is to give them good reasons to reach out and a little more time to do it. Parents and caregivers are doing the hardest part, and no family should have to miss a checkup for want of a ride or an open appointment. Health plans make much of this possible, and this summer showed how far a practical, generous idea can go when a plan puts it in a practice’s hands.
To the pediatric providers, nurses, medical assistants, and front-desk teams who make those calls and keep those schedules, thank you. We are grateful to work alongside you, and we saw this summer what your call means to a family.
References
1. American Academy of Pediatrics, Bright Futures. “Recommendations for Preventive Pediatric Health Care” (periodicity schedule). February 2025.
2. Equality Health. “Well-Child Visits” Quality Guide. July 2024, p. 1; Equality Health. “Pediatric Well Care Visit” Quality Guide. February 2025.
3. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “Performance Rates on Publicly Reported 2025 Child Core Set Measures” (W30-CH state medians). 2026. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/quality-of-care/downloads/summary-performance-table-child-2025.pdf
4. Equality Health. Arizona back-to-school well-child visit drive with a health plan partner, results summary. September 2026.
5. Equality Health. “CareEmpower User Guide.” February 2026, pp. 7, 26, 38.
6. Equality Health. "Back to School" member resources. https://equalityhealth.com/member-resources/back-to-school
7. Equality Health. “2026 ECIP Overview Presentation” (provider-facing), slides 2 and 5.
8. Equality Health Arizona and Texas payer partnership performance data.
9. Equality Health Tennessee network performance data, 2024–2026.
