What to Expect First Visit

Every Journey Begins With the First Step…

Your journey to superior healing and total wellness can begin today. We look forward to discussing the issues that you’re facing, working on solutions and helping to implement ppositive changes in your life.

To facilitate the process, we need your help. Please review the information contained in this section. It will provide the basis for a productive first visit. Please call today to arrange an appointment at a convenient time. We look forward to seeing you soon.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON YOUR FIRST VISIT

1. Intake Paperwork
   
   The first thing that new patients handle is the paperwork. This is no different than in any other doctor’s office. With the intake paperwork, you describe the problems you’ve been having. Additionally, you review your past medical history (including any traumas, surgeries, infections and other medical problems).
   
   The new patient forms can be filled out when you show up for your first visit. Or if you prefer, you can get the forms before you come in for your first visit via downloading them from this website. One of the benefits of getting the forms ahead of time is that it will reduce the time of your first visit. When you come in, we can go straight to the consultation (no waiting!).

2. Insurance Verification

If you have health insurance, please bring your insurance card and a photo drivers license with you. We will make a photocopy of them, and then our billing department will be happy to verify benefits and eligibility. The reason why we photocopy your drivers license is to protect you against identity theft.

3. Consultation & Case History

Once your intake paperwork has been completed, you will then have a five to twenty minute consultation with the Doctor. The consultation is where you get to tell the us what has been going on, where you’ve been hurting, how long you’ve had the problem, describe the severity and quality of the pain, what makes it better or worse, and other therapies that you’ve already tried. The Doctor will review your past medical history with you, and also review your work, social and family health history. We believe in doing a thorough case history because it can give us clues about the nature and cause of the problem. It is a very important component in forming an accurate diagnosis.

4. Examination

Our primary goal is to objectively evaluate all the involved tissues (bones, muscles, joints, the neurology, etc...) in order to discover what exactly is wrong. This will then enable us to render the most accurate diagnosis possible. And from there, we can prescribe a treatment plan that is specific for your unique needs. The following is what you can expect from my examination:

·        Vitals: (height, weight, blood pressure, respirations, temperature) – to establish a medical baseline.

·        Range of Motion: We check the range of motion and flexibility of your spine and neck in all planes. It gives valuable information about the health of your joints, and muscles.

·        Leg Length Check: This test involves having the patient lay face down on the examination table. We check the bottom of the feet to see if they’re aligned. If one foot is shorter than the other, it may indicate a functional short leg (which could be due to lumbo-pelvic misalignment).

·        Palpation: We palpate your muscles to check for spasms, trigger points and abnormal contractions. We also motion palpate each of the joints of your spine, in order to test the joint motion, feel for joint fixations and joints that are stuck out of place.

·        Neurological and Orthopedic Evaluation: We do these tests to check to see if you have nerve damage, or damage to your skeletal system. Special orthopedic tests also help us to tell whether the problem is coming from the muscle, from the joints, or from a disc.

·        Posture Analysis: There are over 128,000,000 different combinations of abnormal posture. We use a very specific and advanced technique to check your posture, using sixteen reference points to check for abnormal rotations (twisting & tilting) and translations (shifting) of the skull, thorax and pelvis. Postural distortions can lead to many health problems.

·        X-Ray: Our x-ray study checks for pathology, infections, degenerative changes, bone density, spinal misalignments, and postural distortions. Precise measurements are taken which show misalignments down to the millimeter and to a single degree of rotation. Based on what we see on the x-rays, we will then be able to determine how far out of alignment you are – and how many visits it will then take to get your spine corrected.

5. Discharge from first day

After you have completed your consultation, examination and x-ray study, you are discharged from the first day services. You then make an appointment for a follow up consultation called a “Report of Findings”. This special consultation is where the doctor and you will discuss what is going on, what we can do to help, how many visits it’s going to take and what it will cost. It is strongly recommended that you to bring your spouse or significant other to the report of findings. Additionally, we recommend that you schedule the report of findings the next day that the clinic is open.

NO ADJUSTING ON FIRST VISIT?