Help Your Pediatric Patients Get Ready for Back-to-School!

Summertime offers a great opportunity to help your school-aged patients get ready for back-to-school. Bring them in for well-visits, age-appropriate vaccines and completing any forms they may need for school!   

Use these tips to bring pediatric patients in this summer  

  • Monitor HPSM e-reports or your existing patient registries to identify and reach outBack to school to pediatric patients who are due for well-visits.  

  • Let families know what kind of well-visits you offer (phone, video and/or in-person). Emphasize that well-visits are no cost to HPSM members. 

  • To accommodate families’ busy schedules, offer extended hours on weekday evenings and/or weekends. 

  • Open vaccine clinics to catch your patients up on overdue vaccines. 

  • Create a template or use age-specific standardized templates in your electronic health record (EHR)  to capture Bright Futures documentation requirements and to trigger reminders for future well-visits.  

  • Encourage teen-centered care with adolescent-friendly materials, and support confidentiality through private consultation time with adolescent patients.  

  • If patients come in because they are sick and they are due for a well-visit, integrate both into the visit—complete the well-visit and evaluate their symptoms. At every visit, offer to administer any vaccines they are due for. 

  • Refer patients to specialists as needed, including dental providers, eye doctors and mental health therapists. 

  • At the end of each well-visit, schedule an appointment for the next well-visit. At the end of each sick visit, check whether the next well-visit has been scheduled. If it hasn’t, schedule an appointment. 

  • When patients miss appointments, follow up with letters and phone calls to reschedule.