Data from The Commonwealth Fund offers a glimmer of hope as it suggests outpatient care has finally rebounded during the pandemic. As a matter of fact, weekly visits to certain specialists, such as rheumatologists and oncologists, exceeded the pre-pandemic baseline.

Pediatrics seem to be the exception to this—by far. In December 2020, there were 24% fewer pediatric visits (whether telehealth or in-person) compared to December 2019, making it the worst-hit outpatient specialty right now.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is specifically trying to push for more wellness visits.

Why are parents foregoing wellness visits?

I’m interested to know the top 3 reasons why kids aren’t coming in for visits. I’m eagerly waiting to hear back from the researchers of Commonwealth Fund study with the answer.

In the meantime, here are possible reasons:

• The Institute for Child Success suggests that this declining trend may be due to the overall trend of slow increase in Medicaid patients returning for doctor visits. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, 37.5% of pediatric population was covered by Medicaid in 2019. I imagine that this number is much larger right now. 
• The Institute for Child Success also points out that there has been a rise in child abuse/trauma during the pandemic.
• Record number of mothers are leaving the workforce due to burnout.
• The Primary Care Collaborative suggests that practices that weren’t able to weather the pandemic were shut down.

At the professional level, it’s hard for market access strategists to act on this problem without knowing its largest contributors.

At a human level, however, there is something each of us can do. There’s no question that this pandemic has been hard on all of us. We all could benefit from seeing others and being seen. It’s called Sawubona.

Try to catch someone doing something right–then call them out on it. Do this 3 times everyday for the next 1 month. Notice what happens to your conversations. Notice what happens to you.

Whereas blaming undoes us, the posture of good-finding nourishes us. Try it.