Picking a pediatrician in Nashville means weighing board certification, hours of access, hospital affiliation, and whether the office runs as a Patient-Centered Medical Home with care coordination built into the workflow. The American Academy of Pediatrics Bright Futures schedule sets the cadence for well-child visits from the first newborn check through age twenty-one, and the ACIP/CDC immunization schedule drives the vaccine timing that family pediatricians follow at each of those visits. Tennessee participates in the federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, which underwrites the cost of routine pediatric vaccines for eligible children and lets practices stock the full ACIP-recommended set.
The three practices below all employ pediatricians who are Diplomates of the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) after completing a three-year ACGME-accredited pediatric residency, and most carry Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (FAAP) status. Each clinic handles well-child visits, the full vaccine schedule, sick visits, sports physicals, ADHD and behavioral evaluations, and newborn care coordinated with the hospital nursery where the baby is delivered. CPT codes 99381 through 99395 cover the preventive medicine visits these offices perform daily, and the Tennessee Newborn Screening Program coordinated through the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) loops in results on heel-stick bloodspot, hearing, and critical congenital heart disease screens for every baby seen in the first weeks of life.
Quick Comparison #
| Firm | Credentials | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Old Harding Pediatric Associates | Founded in 1937 by Dr. James C. Overall, university-hospital-trained ABP-board-certified pediatricians, Patient-Centered Medical Home. | Newborn rounds at TriStar Centennial, Saint Thomas, and Vanderbilt, night and weekend clinic, 363-day operation, in-house lab for strep, flu, RSV. |
| Heritage Medical Associates Pediatrics | Pediatric division of 170-provider multi-specialty group founded 1991, includes Chetan Mukundan, MD, FAAP and roster of ABP-certified pediatricians. | 24/7 service with 30-minute callback guarantee, Saturday and Sunday pediatric clinic, well-baby through teen visits, ACIP immunizations. |
| Centennial Pediatrics | Board-certified general pediatrics group on the TriStar Centennial Medical Center campus adjacent to TriStar Centennial Children's Hospital. | AAP Bright Futures well visits, ACIP vaccine series, ADHD evaluation, autism spectrum disorder screening, allergy injections, school physicals. |
1. Old Harding Pediatric Associates #
Founded by Dr. James C. Overall in 1937, Old Harding Pediatric Associates (OHPA) is the longest-serving pediatric practice in Nashville, with roughly nine decades of continuous operation under the OHPA banner. The group works from two offices: the Old Harding Pike location at 5819 Old Harding Pike in Belle Meade, the practice’s home since 1974, and a Bellevue office at 7640 Highway 70 South opened in 1987 to extend coverage into West Nashville. Phone scheduling for both offices routes through (615) 352-2990.
OHPA describes its physicians as university-hospital-trained, board-certified pediatricians and runs the clinic as a Patient-Centered Medical Home, the care-delivery model under which a primary pediatrician coordinates the patient’s preventive, acute, behavioral, and specialty care across settings. The roster lists Paul J. Heil, MD; Linda D. Brady, MD; Jon Betts, MD; James Keffer, MD; Jennifer Ragsdale, MD; John Long, MD; Chris Smeltzer, MD; Kylie Cormier, MD; Vicky Phillips, MD; and Kristen Powell, MD. Newborn rounds extend to babies born at TriStar Centennial, Ascension Saint Thomas, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center whose families have chosen OHPA as the medical home, so the same pediatrician who sees the baby in the hospital nursery typically sees the first office visit a few days later.
Hours and Access #
OHPA runs a night clinic Monday through Friday until 7 p.m. and a weekend clinic Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Bellevue office, which gives families an in-network alternative to urgent care for the ear infections, fevers, and sprains that arrive outside of weekday business hours. The clinic is open 363 days a year, with a 24-hour on-call nurse line backed by physician availability, and the office runs in-house laboratory services for strep, flu, RSV, COVID-19, and standard blood draws. Same-day appointment slots are blocked for acute sick visits, and an online patient portal handles records, messaging, refill requests, and visit summaries.
2. Heritage Medical Associates Pediatrics #
Heritage Medical Associates was formed in 1991 when three independent internal medicine groups merged, and the organization has grown into the largest independent multi-specialty physician group in Middle Tennessee, with over 170 primary-care and specialty providers across fourteen locations in Davidson, Wilson, and Williamson counties. The pediatric division operates as a fully embedded specialty inside that multi-specialty structure, which means the same group that sees a child for well visits and vaccines also houses the dermatology, ENT, allergy and immunology, behavioral health, gastroenterology, and endocrinology referrals a pediatrician might write.
Pediatric services are anchored at the Green Hills office at 2325 Crestmoor Road, Suite 101 in Nashville, with additional pediatric clinic hours running at the Hermitage office at 3901 Central Pike, Suite 251, and pediatric coverage available at the Mount Juliet, Brentwood Westgate, and Lebanon offices. The practice’s pediatric roster includes Abigail Jennings, MD; Neil Seethaler, MD; Tabitha Casilli, MD; Rachel Roberts, MD; Paige Smith, MD; Andrew Alsentzer, MD; Viviana Lavin, MD; and Mary Katherine Fennell, APN. Chetan Mukundan, MD, FAAP also practices pediatrics in the group. The Green Hills front desk reaches the pediatric team at (629) 255-2214, the Hermitage office at (629) 255-2271, and the main administrative line at (629) 255-3469.
Twenty-Four Hour Coverage #
The pediatric service line at the Heritage group operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with a 30-minute callback guarantee on the direct pediatrician line for after-hours questions. Saturday pediatric clinic hours at Green Hills run 8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Sunday hours run 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., so families with a child who develops symptoms over the weekend can be seen by a Heritage pediatrician rather than routed to an outside urgent care or emergency department. Service breadth covers well-baby and well-child visits, immunizations, sick visits, sports physicals, prenatal consultations for expecting parents who want to meet a pediatrician before delivery, special-needs care, and acute diagnostic work.
https://www.heritagemedical.com/specialties/pediatrics/
3. Centennial Pediatrics #
Centennial Pediatrics operates from 310 25th Avenue North, Suite 201, on the medical campus adjacent to TriStar Centennial Medical Center and TriStar Centennial Children’s Hospital in midtown Nashville. The clinic is a board-certified general pediatrics group that handles primary preventive care from infancy through adolescence, with a service mix oriented around the volume needs of a midtown patient base: well visits on the AAP Bright Futures schedule, sick visits, sports physicals, school and camp physicals, special-needs care, acute care for childhood illness and injury, flu shots, the full ACIP vaccine series, and allergy injections under a primary care provider’s standing orders.
Diagnostic services at the clinic extend beyond the standard well-and-sick rotation into pediatric dermatology screening, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) evaluation, and autism spectrum disorder screening using the validated tools that AAP and Bright Futures recommend at the 18-month and 24-month well visits. The clinic’s physical proximity to TriStar Centennial Children’s Hospital simplifies referral logistics when a child needs pediatric subspecialty consultation, inpatient admission, or pediatric emergency care, since the campus houses the dedicated children’s hospital service line.
Patient Access #
The practice can be reached at (615) 329-0195 for appointment scheduling and at (615) 625-7112 for the Skyline-area extension line that some directories list for the group. The clinic accepts new patients, runs the ACIP-recommended vaccine catalog through the Tennessee VFC program for eligible children, and handles the front-end paperwork for school, sports, daycare, and camp physical forms that Tennessee schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools require each year.
https://www.centennialpeds.com/
Reference Notes #
ABP Diplomate certification requires graduation from an ACGME-accredited three-year pediatric residency and passing the General Pediatrics Certifying Examination administered by the American Board of Pediatrics; FAAP status requires AAP membership in good standing alongside that board certification. The AAP Bright Futures Guidelines, now in their fourth edition, set the schedule for preventive well-child visits and the developmental, behavioral, and psychosocial screening that should occur at each. The ACIP/CDC immunization schedule, updated annually and harmonized with AAP recommendations, drives vaccine timing from the birth-dose hepatitis B vaccine through the adolescent meningococcal and HPV series. NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) recognition is awarded after a practice demonstrates team-based care, population health management, care management and support, care coordination and care transitions, and performance measurement and quality improvement under the standards published by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. The Tennessee Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, administered by the Tennessee Department of Health under the federal VFC umbrella, supplies ACIP-recommended vaccines at no cost to children who are Medicaid-enrolled, uninsured, underinsured, or American Indian or Alaska Native. ADHD evaluation and management in primary care pediatrics follows the AAP clinical practice guideline for children and adolescents, with the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance (CADDRA) practice guidelines also widely referenced for medication titration and combined behavioral plus pharmacologic management. The Tennessee Newborn Screening Program coordinated by TDH covers the federally Recommended Uniform Screening Panel through heel-stick bloodspot collection, point-of-care critical congenital heart disease pulse oximetry, and newborn hearing screening, with results routed back to the pediatric medical home for follow-up. Lactation support at general-pediatric offices typically pairs IBCLC-certified consultants with the pediatrician for weight checks, latch evaluation, and feeding troubleshooting during the first weeks of life.
Selection Methodology #
A pediatric practice in Tennessee carries an unusual combination of credentialing checks: state medical license, American Board of Pediatrics Diplomate status, AAP membership, and a hospital admitting affiliation with Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt or another Davidson-area pediatric inpatient facility. The three practices above each hold ABP board certification on the lead physicians, run AAP-aligned well-child visit schedules under the Bright Futures periodicity, publish a verifiable street address with a multi-year tenure record, document VFC (Vaccines for Children) participation status, and disclose physician supervision structure for any nurse practitioner or physician assistant on the team rather than running a mid-level-only delivery model. National pediatric rollups without a Nashville physician of record and operations without verifiable street addresses were excluded.
Frequently Asked Questions #
Q: How do I verify a Nashville pediatrics practitioner holds the right credentials?
A: Use the American Board of Medical Specialties Certification Matters lookup at certificationmatters.org, the Tennessee Department of Health practitioner profile at health.tn.gov, and the practice’s own credentialing page.
Q: What sets these three apart from the broader Nashville pediatrics field?
A: ABMS board certification through the American Board of Pediatrics is the threshold credential, and each physician above holds it. What distinguishes the three practices in actual office-floor practice is same-day sick-visit capacity rather than always rolling families to urgent care, a published lactation-consultant or developmental-screening pathway integrated into well-child visits, and how the on-call line operates at 2 a.m., whether it routes to the practice’s own physician or to an after-hours triage service the parents have never met.
Q: Are any of the three practices paid placements?
A: No. The three profiles above are editorial selections drawn from publicly verifiable sources. No practice sponsored placement.
Q: How should I prepare for a first appointment?
A: Confirm in-network status with your insurer, bring photo ID, the child’s immunization record, and a list of any current medications, and request the practice’s published new-patient intake forms in advance to streamline the first visit.
Editorial Note #
This guide was published on 2026-05-11 and reflects research current as of that date. Verify licenses, phone numbers, and current business status before engaging any firm.