This study describes the payment category of 397 low-income Hispanic women and the relationship to compliance with family planning visits the first year postbirth. Only one-fourth of the women returned for the one-year family planning visit, when they would have received well-woman care. Pay category was not a factor in identifying those who returned. Health system barriers, patient cultural beliefs, and life circumstance may explain why women enter and then leave apparently seamless systems of care. To increase preventive care, more study is needed of interventions that build on women's existing cultural prescriptions for health behavior by health professionals who portray postbirth checks as wellness checks.

[No Keywords available]

cultural anthropology immigrant Family Planning Services lowest income group Hospitals, Public poverty Preventive Health Services human ethnic group controlled study Financing, Personal Fee-for-Service Plans Insurance, Health prospective payment Hospitals, Teaching Humans Adolescent female pregnancy Article health care patient compliance adult preventive medicine Emigration and Immigration Cultural Characteristics Public Assistance Maternal Health Services Mexican Americans family planning Health Services Accessibility Texas