Childbirth is the number one reason for hospital admissions in the United States. Postpartum care offers a window of opportunity to impact the current and future health of underserved women. There are significant disparities in the receipt of postpartum care: approximately 60 percent of Medicaid insured women attend their postpartum visit whereas approximately 80 percent of commercially insured women go to their visit.

The trend toward value-based care is accelerating, and is more urgent as the climbing costs of care threaten gains in health coverage. As the field is moving toward new ways of paying for value, attention to health care disparities is sorely lacking. Not for lack of need — since the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s Unequal Treatment report, we’ve seen evidence that progress in reducing disparities in care has painfully been slow, or in some cases nonexistent.

This post originally appeared on the Health Affairs blog.