Frequently Asked Questions

So one of the questions I wanted to try to answer today for you was one that comes up quite frequently, but a lot of people when they talk to me, I can tell that they really want to ask this question. But a lot of times they’re kind of afraid to ask for you know, offending me or something like that.

And the question basically is, “Is the chiropractic treatment that you’re going to render, it is a chiropractic adjustment that you’re going to perform on me today, Is it safe? Is it going to hurt? Is it okay if things are going to be popping in my neck?”

And the quick answer just to keep this straightforward is all the studies that have been done on chiropractic adjustments here recently that are quality literature demonstrate that chiropractic adjustments are exceedingly safe especially when compared to traditional pharmaceutical drugs like aspirin or Tylenol but things that people use to deal with neck pain just like what they would use for or back pain just like they would use a chiropractic adjustment for.

So that’s the good news. It’s extremely safe. As far as for our office, we actually are about traditional chiropractors we do more of a unique procedure called NUCCA. It actually does not involve any snapping twisting or popping of the spine. And a lot of my patients are really encouraged to hear about that because they never knew that that actually existed.

As for our treatment, it is very gentle. It’s pretty much painless there’s no it’s not invasive. There’s no needles, there’s no cuttings, there it’s not going to feel like your neck or your back are going to be stretched apart or anything like that. It’s all very gentle and it’s done just by very gently applying a certain amount of pressure on certain points of the spine. And if you know exactly where to press and how to press then you can use a very slight amount of pressure to get things to move exactly where they need to go.

So is it safe? Absolutely. Is it effective? Definitely. And Is it gentle? It is extremely gentle.

Today I wanted to discuss with you one of the most asked questions that I get all the time, and it’s really one of the more core and foundational discussions and topics that has to be covered. And that question is, “Doc I’ve got neck pain, I’ve got back pain, who should I go see first? Should I go to my medical doctor, a medical primary care physician? Should I go see a physical therapist for my neck pain or for my back pain or the sciatic pain that I have? Should I go through to an orthopedic Doc? Should I go through a surgeon? Should I go to the chiropractor? Who do I go to first?

Well this is actually a pretty straightforward question to answer, and we got to start off though with what do we really want to see happen. As far as for your neck or your back, pain can come from a lot of different things and can basically manifest itself as pain and your neck, your back, your hips, your shoulders, your arms. So really the first thing that has to be done is you have to get a proper diagnosis. If you just start treating things and that happens very frequently, people will come to certain practitioners as all sorts of ailments, and they just start treating it with like you know some kind of stretch or exercise or something like a pill or an injection, but we don’t really know what the source of the pain is or what the root cause of the pain is then frequently we’re treating for something that is not actually the problem and a lot of times those treatments are ineffective. And then everybody ends up more frustrated. We spent time and spent money, and we just don’t really feel like we’re much better off. We’ve kind of been spinning our wheels so to speak.

So the best thing to do is find someone who can diagnose exactly what the issue is and find out who you need to go see. So that’s the best way to approach that.

Now to start off with physical therapists are amazing and dealing with certain musculoskeletal injuries, but the reality is they’re not really trained to diagnose what the root issue is. So right off of the bat, I would just say, hey let’s avoid the physical therapist at the beginning until we have a proper diagnosis, and then if they, if we find out after diagnosing what your issue is that they are going to be the best suited then you need to go straight to the physical therapist after that. So just remember we got to kind of have it in the right order here. So we need to go to someone who can diagnose it. Now the three people that have the ability to diagnose a problem, your chiropractor, your primary care medical physician, and orthopedic doc.

Now as far as training is concerned especially around the spine, the unfortunate reality is your medical doctor does not really have a whole lot of training in that area as far as diagnosis. They’re really good of course checking your blood work and doing some of these other tasks, but as far as musculoskeletal problems, especially around the spine, it’s just not their bread and butter. That’s not what they like to deal with. Chiropractors, they are the ones that have actually spent most of the time studying as far as the spine and the anatomy and the different problems that interact with the spine. And so typically, the chiropractor is the first person that you will go see to do that. Now as far as the orthopedic doc is concerned, again, they are actually very well trained. As far as musculoskeletal injuries, they can be a great resource, but for the most part you need to be referred to the orthopedic doc from either a chiropractor or from your medical primary care so you can save yourself a lot of time and energy. It’s basically the chiropractors. Have them do some orthopedic tests out of them, do of course a detailed history and some examination. And from there, they should be able to best direct you on who you need to see to deal with this problem. So that’s what my recommendation would be, it is basically to visit a chiropractor who’s trained and who knows well enough about the spine and that can best direct you and hopefully get you down to the root issue and get you out of pain as quickly as possible.

Dr. Wainwright here from Tallahassee chiropractor and injury clinic, and today I wanted to share with you guys the most commonly asked question I see in my office, and that is the question of “how much is it going to cost to receive chiropractic treatment, and what is it gonna cost to basically get my neck fixed or my back fixed or get my problem fixed?” Well, like any kind of question like this, the answer often, and especially in our office, is going to be, it depends. The reality is, is I see so many different patients that have so many different types of injuries that have very vastly different levels of complexity as far as further injury.

So when someone who comes in with a muscle strain is probably going to be a very quick fix compared to someone who comes in with a massive disc herniation with a pinched nerve or severe damage to their cartilage that is going to take significantly longer it’ll probably take somewhere between you know four to ten weeks of consistent rehab to realistically see a significant long-term improvement. So with that being said it’s really hard to know and to answer a cookie-cutter question of how much is it going to cost and really how long is this going to take.

So as far as for many offices what they like to do and you’ll see this online frequently is offices will basically post an ad that says, “hey you can come into our office will do an initial exam, we’ll do x-rays, we’ll do a massage, we’ll give you a treatment, and all be basically 50 bucks.” And the reality is, is you just don’t know what is going on and you don’t even know if you need treatment at that stage and you don’t even know if they can help you at that point. without any kind of exam without any kind of images without really anything to go off of this to be honest with you, it’s just kind of gimmicky.

So what we like to do in our office is I invite you to come in. We do complimentary consultations. I’ll meet with you, I’ll sit down with you, and we’ll basically hear about what’s going on. You can describe what happened, how this all started, what’s what it feels like. I’ll do a couple preliminary just examinations, and after having done that, I can get you a better idea of what I think is going on, and of course, whether or not I think I can even help you, I can and again just kind of unpack well what is causing the pain that I am having. At that stage, I should be able to at least give you a ballpark figure as far as how much is this going to cost what is going on how long is it going to take to fix you know all of kind of the main questions that you need to know. And at that point, if I can help you great we can talk about moving forward, what it’s going to cost, and what we’ve got to do to get the job done, what kind of referrals we need to do, what kind of images we need to get what, kind of tests needs to be done, and really to try to pinpoint exactly what is the root cause to your injury.

Now, naturally if someone is, is basically inviting you in for treatment, and they don’t even know anything about you, then, to be honest with you, I don’t know if I would trust someone with my spine if they’re basically saying we’ll go ahead and treat you without even you know having known anything, and basically you can just give us 50 bucks.

So, there’s a little bit different in styles, difference in styles as far as how certain offices operate, but this is how we operate. I operate trying to find out exactly what is the root cause in order to give you a long-term solution. One of the things you may have heard as far as about chiropractors in the past is a lot of times you know you go in there for treatment and they help for a little bit. But a lot of times the pain comes back, and you have to continue to keep going and going and going and in my office. What I like to do is obviously I like to try to solve the problem, we have a beginning we have an end of treatment, and we try to get you in and out, and that way, you’re not having to come back and see me all the time.

So the plan is, is basically after having done all the exams and tests and everything that needs to be done, I’ll sit down with you, we will unpack exactly what is going on, what I think it’s going to take to get you fixed, how long it’s going to take, and how much it’s going to cost. At that point, I’ll lay out for you pretty much the estimate, and everything it’ll be written in front of you so you can see it. And if it all makes sense at that point, we can go ahead and dive into care if indeed you are a candidate for the type of care that we have.

So you know if this, if this resonates with you and it makes sense, I invite you to come into my office let me let me hear about what’s going on, you can call my office, our numbers down below, or our staff will basically set you up with a compliment, a consultation, I’ll meet with you, like I said, we’ll get to the bottom of things, and we’ll try to get you out of pain as quick as possible.

Dr. Wainwright here from Tallahassee Chiropractors and Injury Clinic. And today, I wanted to try to answer the second most asked question that I received in my office. And that is, “do you take my insurance, or is chiropractic covered by my insurance?” So, the unfortunate reality is this is not an easy question to answer and that is because of the amount of confusion that a lot of insurance plans have created. The reality is time has changed. The days of having one to two insurance companies of one to two different plans is, is far gone. There are hundreds of different types of insurance and there’s hundreds of different plans within each of those insurance companies, and so every patient that walks in the door is pretty unique.

And so with the different co-payors that are involved and different deductibles and out-of-pocket maxes and minimums, and all these all these different things that go into it most I patients come in the door, and they don’t have a clue what is covered and it’s for good reason I mean it’s very confusing, even myself as a health care provider is confusing to kind of wade through all the different information. I mean, people come in and they say, “oh yeah my insurance company told me that it covers all those different stuff as far as chiropractic,” but the reality is, is it may cover a certain portion of chiropractic but it doesn’t cover any of the additional services such as X-rays that might be needed or exams that are obviously going to be needed to find out what’s going on or nerve testing, or MRIs, or all these different things.

And so it can be just, just be very, very confusing. So, even the additional challenge that many other patients run into is they also have to find out if they can be approved for any of the testing they need. And to be approved, to get an MRI approved, to get an x-ray, or approved to get different testing, and when you’re in a lot of pain, if you if you wake up one morning and you with a herniated disc or a bulging disc in your back, you don’t want to have to wait two or three weeks for some guy in a cubicle to basically decide whether or not you’re approved or to give you the runaround, you need to get this problem solved and you need to get us all fast so you can go back to work and you can live you’re your life normally.

So the stance that we have taken in our office and what we do in our office is we basically have decided to work directly with the patient. So what I mean by that is, is we invite the patient, we invite you basically to come into our office for a complimentary consultation.

I do not charge any of my patients a dime when they walk through the door just to find out what is going wrong. I need to find out whether or not I can help you. We need to see what is actually going on because you may, this may not even be the right place we might need to get you to someone completely different. And so I invite patients to come in, I’ll sit down with you. We’ll find out what is going on, or at least you know have a better idea of what we what we are dealing with, and what we need to do, and so I will I’ll go through a few preliminary tests, I’ll hear you out find out what’s going on, and I’ll say, “hey, you know this is this is kind of the situation and this is what we’re up against,” and then, I’ll say, “this is what we need to do and whether that’s being sent to someone else or if we need to do x-rays or we need to do a few more in-depth tests,” and I’ll basically say, “you know this is exactly what we got to do this is how long it’s gonna take and this is pretty much how much gonna how it’s gonna cost.” I like to be straightforward when it comes to bills, I don’t like surprises, you don’t like surprises, no one likes to get a surprise bill in the mail, and so I’d say this is exactly how much it’s gonna cost for us to do, what we’ve got to do, and this is how long it’s gonna take, and then at that point, there’s no there’s no anxiety, there’s no fear, there’s no worry about what is what is gonna be coming down the pipe you know exactly what to expect.

And so that’s, that’s kind of the stance that we take in our office. Now with that all being said, I totally and completely understand that if you pay for an insurance premium, you expect your insurance to basically pay for the services that they cover. So what we do in our office, is we basically supply you with what is called a super bill, is basically a receipt that has all of the diagnostic and CPT codes that your insurance company needs that way they can know what to basically pay for. So you basically mail in or email in the super bill and that is taken and they basically reimburse the patient for whatever services they already cover.

So if in your particular plan, they cover x-rays, and they cover nerve testing, or they cover this or they cover that, and we’ve performed that service, you’ll basically be reimbursed with that, in that way it basically puts all the hard work and all of the all the trying to sort out the puzzle as far as what’s gonna be covered, what’s not going to be covered in their hands they go through they, that means their job to basically do that and they will basically send you a check in the mail for whatever you already have covered. Now if in your plan you didn’t have it covered in the first place, well then it you know it wasn’t covered anyway.
And so that’s what I’m, that’s the way that we approach it in our office. And a lot of our patients really like this style because they don’t have to worry, and they don’t have to be confused, and they don’t have to get on the phone and fight with the insurance company. They just basically mail in the super bill, the super bills, and they basically get reimbursed, and they know exactly what they’re paying, and they know exactly what to expect. So that’s, that’s what I would basically, that’s kind of the style that we have in our office we like to be straightforward. We don’t to do any kind of bait-and-switch like a lot of insurance companies do, where they share with you that one thing is covered but then they don’t tell you about all these other things that are not covered here in the background. We pretty much tell you exactly what to expect upfront. so if you are dealing with you know very significant neck pain back pain or or had a problem you’ve been getting the runaround with your insurance company on what’s covered and what’s not covered, come into my office, let’s sit down together, let’s do a few tests, let’s do few exams, let’s find out what’s going on and then that way I can best direct you and get you where you need to go.