One of the biggest barriers to trying out a new doctor’s office is not knowing what to expect on the first visit. Read on to get a peek into the process at Reinhold Chiropractic Group.
1. Paperwork
Every doctor’s office has some paperwork to fill out when you first arrive. The good news is that ours is ONLY TWO PAGES! We have all had the experience of arriving at a doctor’s office and being handed a clipboard with multiple pages of paperwork. The same question asked four different ways that will be asked again anyway as soon as we get back into a room. More signatures than a real estate purchase. You are left wondering if anyone actually looked at what you spent 15 minutes filling out.
At Reinhold Chiropractic Group, we collect only the information we need to get started with you and get your consent to take care of you. We will ask you anything else we need when we are sitting face to face.
To save you some time in our office, you can even bring your paperwork with you on your first visit! Print our paperwork out ahead of time.
reinholdchiro.com/forms
2. Questions
Chiropractic care is different. We believe in caring for the whole person instead of their condition. We firmly believe that we need to get to know you a bit before we can adequately care for you. We take the time to ask the questions we need to get a proper understanding of your problem, where it may have come from, and how it is affecting your daily activities and overall health.
Your questions for us matter as much or more than our questions for you! You will get a chance to tell us your story and ask us any questions you have. Too many people leave their doctor’s office feeling like they weren’t listened to.
Your time is important to us. We make every effort to honor your appointment time and not leave you waiting for more than a couple of minutes. Your new patient exam will usually take 45 minutes to an hour to complete.
3. Examination and X-rays
Dr. Reinhold’s training in engineering shapes our approach to care. We search for the root cause of your health issues through a thorough exam that usually includes x-rays of your spine.
The examination process takes a detailed look at your posture, how you move, the integrity of the joints in your spine and extremities, and the status of the muscles that move your spine and extremities.
X-rays give us a way to take a look at the detailed biomechanics of the spine and rule out any issues that would affect care that we can’t see from the outside. Often, x-rays are the only way to find certain problems in your spine that affect how we take care of you.
We occasionally have people ask us if x-rays are really necessary for care. When they are indicated, the answer is always yes. Our general x-ray philosophy can be summed up as follows:
To see is to know. Not to see is to guess. We won’t take chances with your health by guessing.
While we don’t take x-rays on everyone, the majority of our patients either bring recent x-rays with them or have them taken during their exam.
4. Education
“Doctor” means teacher. Education is the core of our office. All healthcare relationships done correctly are a team effort. Please ask questions. Learn all you can about your health. Education is the key to better health habits.
Your examination is no exception. All procedures we do are explained in advance. We will make sure you understand why we are doing all the things we do on your first day.
We often say that our job is to help you build a toolkit for better health habits, not make you dependent on us for your health. Learning about how your health works helps you to make better health decisions.
5. Scheduling the review
At the end of your first visit, we will schedule a time to report our findings back to you. We correlate all of the findings from your first visit with us and report those findings to you in an understandable way, making sure all of your questions are answered. We only accept cases we truly feel we can help. If we feel that another type of healthcare provider is a better fit, we will tell you and give you a referral if needed.
Since it takes time to thoroughly analyze the results of your exam and x-rays, patients are not typically treated on a first visit. Of course we make exceptions to that on a case by case basis, but for the majority of our patients, treatment begins on their second visit after we have had a chance to report our findings and agree on a game plan for care.
So if you’ve been putting off chiropractic care because you didn’t know what to expect, you can go ahead and schedule your new patient exam right now!