It is important to select the best chiropractor for you, one who is not only wellness-oriented but will help you attain your personal goals for your health and wellness and improve your quality of life.
Choosing the Right Chiropractor
Here are some pointers on choosing a chiropractor, coming from professional chiropractors themselves:
- Ask recommendations from friends and relatives. If your friends or relatives have the same viewpoint about health and wellness as you, get their recommendation for a good doctor of chiropractic. You can ask them candid questions pertaining to the doctor, the clinic staff, availability, services offered and the fees. The important thing about asking a friend or a relative is that they know both you and the chiropractor well enough to tell whether your philosophies on health and your personalities are compatible.
- Meet the chiropractor. Most chiropractors may not charge you for a preliminary consultation meeting. Make this meeting productive. Try to determine whether you are comfortable and will have a good match with the doctor. Some of the things you need to look for and ask are:
- Does the chiropractor seem to live a healthy lifestyle? If the chiropractor does not look healthy, is obese, or smells of cigarette smoke, they indicate the chiropractor’s lack of commitment to wellness and should be considered an important concern.
- Do you get along well? Remember that you will be entering into a special relationship, therefore, it is a must that you communicate well and like each other. Do not go for a chiropractor who seems rushed or talks autocratically to you like a parent.
- Is wellness given special attention in the practice? Spinal subluxations due to physical as well as biochemical and psychological stresses must be a special focus of the chiropractor and the practice should not just be confined to the mechanical treatment aspect of back and neck pain relief.
- How will you be evaluated? The chiropractor should be able to evaluate your nerve system function objectively. A baseline data when the care begins should be established to help chart your progress. Care should not be based on pain or symptoms alone as spinal subluxations may occur even without symptoms.
Additional checks like x-rays should be performed only if necessary and after an examination has been made.
- What types of chiropractic care techniques are used? There are numerous different techniques used in chiropractic. Adjustments by hand or using instruments, and techniques using different levels of force, velocity and amplitude can be utilized. What is important is for the appropriate technique for you to be available. Ask the chiropractor what the techniques to be used for you are.
- Know the chiropractor’s special trainings and experience. Although chiropractic practice is regulated and chiropractors’ education and licensing requirements are now standardized, it will be better knowing whether the doctor has had specialty training and enough experience on wellness.
- Fees. Most health insurance policies cover only services that treat specific conditions. Wellness care and chiropractic care if you do not have symptoms are often not covered by insurance. After the examination, the chiropractor should be able to explain the recommended course of care to you, together with the fees and payment options.
Choosing a Chiropractic Clinic
In addition to the knowing the right information about the chiropractor, it will greatly help to also know important details about the chiropractic clinic for you you to make a wise decision on your choice of a wellness partner. They include:
- The policy on payment for services that are not included in the insurance
- Is there a fee for the initial consultation?
- The types of discounts the clinic offers
- Any guarantee the clinic offers
- Will you be provided the recommended plan of treatment in writing for you to think about?
- Does the chiropractor provide a professional reference list that you can check on?
The importance of chiropractic care to your health and wellness cannot be overemphasized. Choosing the chiropractor whose philosophies and values are aligned with yours and who will be your partner to your personal health goals which in turn affect your self-development is just as important.