Chapel Hill Pediatrics and Adolescents recommends that our patients visit us each year for an annual physical exam or “check-up.” Our annual exam visits are a wonderful opportunity for our physicians and pediatrics nurses to perform a complete physical examination. Our caring pediatricians will conduct each part of the exam with warmth and understanding, making each visit as comfortable as possible.
During your annual exam, your primary care physician will check and discuss your child’s health, growth, and development. It is also a time for us to:
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.
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 there is a need and time is available during the health care visit to address a significant medical issue (ADHD, asthma, chronic headache, obesity, etc) in detail, or if the visit includes any special screening or laboratory testing that is medically necessary, there will be extra charges incurred.
If your child has special needs, please let the scheduler know prior to making your next appointment.
Fortunately, most managed-care organizations understand the importance of an annual exam visit, 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 the calendar year, but others may require 365 days or more in between yearly physicals. Similarly, some insurance policies cover the routine hearing and vision screening, and some do not. Our appointment schedulers will try to remind you of these possibilities when you call to schedule a visit, but they often don’t know the particular nuances of individual health insurance policies.