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Monthly Archives: August 2016

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Why Elite US Athletes, Including Our Olympians, Use Chiropractic!

SUC - Why Elite US Athletes Including Olympains Use Chiropractic

 

 

Athletes do a lot of things to ensure that they are at the top of their game while competing. They have traditions, pregame rituals, motivational movies, inspirational quotes, and many other techniques prior to a competition that they believe improves their performance. One of these techniques is getting some extra publicity with the recent Rio Olympics, chiropractic care. There are a lot of reasons that elite athletes visit their chiropractor, including Olympic athletes. The real question is, why do athletes that don’t already have a chiropractor or have never been to one choose to visit one? While there are a lot of different reasons, we believe that these are the three most important reasons that any competitive athlete would want to visit a reputable, science-based chiropractor.

 

 

#1 – Chiropractic Helps The Spine To Stay Mobile


Every athlete experiences some form of pain, soreness, or discomfort during intense periods of competition. Chiropractic manipulation of the spine releases joints that aren’t moving optimally. This treatment improves the movement of the joint and will ultimately enhance the athlete’s performance. According to the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, chiropractic care can improve mobility in the joints of patients, which maximizes their potential during competition.

 

All of your joints are connected and work as a team. If one joint isn’t moving correctly, that means that the surrounding joints have to move a little more. If you compound this problem to 3 or more joints, you have an issue that could lead to a major muscle spasm or the feeling of your back (or neck) “going out”. For high-performance athletes, this is not an option! In fact, the restriction of even one or two joints can ultimately be the difference between a win or loss of a game.

 

 

#2 – Chiropractic Helps Recover And Prevent Injuries

During competitions, athletes are typically pushing their bodies to the limits and leaving everything out on the field. Working your body that hard naturally, puts you at a higher risk for injury. If you are already injured, keeping the spine and other joints mobile allows for more overall movement. This extra movement allows for more nutrients and blood to enter the area which helps the injury heal at a much faster rate. If you are not injured, the improved joint mobility will help prevent injuries by allowing for more fluid muscle movement. This makes you less likely to experience sprains or strains of the back, neck, as well as your extremities.

 

 

#3 – Chiropractic Manipulation Offers Pain Relief

Chiropractic care doesn’t just adjust joints; it is a natural way of relieving pain. In fact, when a joint is adjusted, and you hear the pop or crack, your body releases endorphins. These endorphins are your body’s natural painkillers. They give your body a temporary but profound sense of relief. They are also a mild muscle relaxer, which along with the new mobility of the joint, will reduce the pain. This is sometimes all a patient needs for the pain to be relieved for good. This factor has helped many professional athletes avoid the use of both medications and surgeries as injury treatment.

 

 

Many elite athletes use their chiropractor as an advantage in enhancing their competitive performance. These athletes even include Olympians such as Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, and Kerri Walsh Jennings. That is just naming a few! In fact, a chiropractor named Dr. William Moreau (DC, DACBSP) was the chief medical officer for the USA team for this year’s Rio Olympics. Many high-level athletes are using chiropractic as a way to increase mobility, heal their bodies, prevent injuries, and provide pain relief. While high-level athletes use these as a way to improve their game, they are also the same ways chiropractic helps everyday patients too. To learn more about how chiropractic care can enhance your athletic performance, feel free to contact us today.

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Did You Know Most Insurances Cover Your Chiropractor?

SUCP - Insurances Cover Your Chiropractor

 

One of the main reasons that we hear people avoid visiting a chiropractor is due to the cost. When we hear stories like this, we always try to explain that almost all insurances cover chiropractic care and the cost to the patient is typically quite low. The reason so many people don’t realize that their policy covers chiropractic care is because it’s not something many health insurance providers are actively advertising.
 
 

At Straight Up Chiropractic, We Accept Most Major Health Insurances.

We offer this to our patients because we want high-quality chiropractic care to be as accessible to the Oregon public as possible. This is why we work with patients and their insurance coverage to ensure that they receive the best treatment for their individual needs. Most of our patients covered by insurance pay very little if anything at all. In fact, the average out of pocket expenses for our patients with accepted insurance is about $20 per visit. Based off of what we hear from patients, had they known about their insurance coverage before they would have visited us a lot sooner!
 
 

Insurance Will Even Cover Our In-House Massage Therapists.

When a patient comes in with a soft-tissue injury, our highly skilled massage therapist will take care of their treatment needs. It may be a surprise to some people that their insurance will most likely cover this treatment too! Many patients don’t realize that we can bill your insurance for an hour of physical therapy, performed by our licensed massage therapists prior to your chiropractic appointment. Then the chiropractic care and massage treatment can be under a single copay. This saves many of our patients a significant amount of money on their massage therapy, as well as their chiropractic care.
 
 

We Have Options For Patients Without Insurance Coverage too!

We believe that all of our patients should have access to the chiropractic care that they need. This is why we offer our patients without health insurance coverage a cash rate. This cash rate makes their chiropractic treatment affordable, so they get back to feeling great again. Everyone knows that the true downfall of insurance is reaching your dreaded deductible. Some deductibles are relatively small, typically averaging at around $1,000 for the year. However, we have seen them as high as $15,000 annually. When we see a deductible that high, it just doesn’t make sense to use your insurance to cover the treatment, so we will offer you our cash rate instead.
 
 

At Straight Up Chiropractic, we strive to ensure that our patients always receive the chiropractic treatment that they need. This is why we accept most health insurances and even offer cash rates to our patients who aren’t covered. If you have questions about your insurance in reference to your chiropractic needs, feel free to contact us today. We will be happy to let you know what your insurance will cover and give you a good idea of what your out of pocket cost will be.

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Not Every Chiropractor Is The Same

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Recently I’ve treated several patients that previously sought care from chiropractors and have sworn never to see one again!  Luckily they had a friend, family member, or even a medical doctor, refer them to Straight Up Chiropractic for one last try.  The problem is that there is a broad spectrum of practitioners calling themselves chiropractors and not all of them are scientific based.

 

What Kind of Chiropractor Have You Seen?

Our current patients have told us some pretty fascinating stories about their previous chiropractors. We have heard of chiropractors who will adjust only your neck, expecting it to fix anything else in your body. One patient even saw a chiropractor that had her hold up a vial of water to see if she need a kidney cleanse. (I’m not kidding.)  These treatments are not what Straight Up believes a true, scientific-based chiropractor does. To understand how there are such a variety of practitioners claiming to be chiropractors you must learn about the educational standards behind become a chiropractor.

 

The Two Kinds of Chiropractors

There are currently 16 colleges in the United States that are accredited by the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE). Almost all of them still teach the non-scientific based philosophies often associated with chiropractic work. In an article featured in the Journal of Chiropractic Humanities,  Dr. David Seaman… “contend(s) that the real battle is between the great majority of chiropractors who unknowingly allow dogmatism to guide the practice of chiropractic, and the extremely rare variety of chiropractor who’s practice of chiropractic is guided by philosophy and science.” Many of the chiropractic schools, including a majority of the ones found in the United States, teach unproven metaphysical aspects to chiropractic work, such as the previous chiropractors mentioned above.

 

How Is Straight Up Chiropractic Different?

We want any potential patients to know that Straight Up Chiropractic believes only in the science-based treatments. In fact, Dr. Halsy Carter graduated from the University of Western States Chiropractic College, one of the top scientific based chiropractic schools in the nation. If your shoulder is bothering you, we will perform various orthopedic tests, as well as examine the area to identify if the problem is joint or soft tissue related.  If it is soft tissue, we will have one of our highly trained massage therapists assist your body in recovering optimally. If it is joint related, Dr. Halsy will happily help that joint regain full function. Our science-based philosophy dictates that if we determine that the soft tissue problem is beyond our care, we will gladly refer you to your personal physician or a medical doctor we trust. That way you will always be confident you are getting the best possible care for your individual needs.

 

At Straight Up Chiropractic, we believe that educating our patients is an essential part of our job as their chiropractic care providers. We strive to achieve extremely high standards in all of the treatments we do, while always following scientific-based chiropractic philosophies. No oversimplifying our care and no crystals or vials of water, just the best possible chiropractic treatment we can offer.  For more information about scientific-based chiropractic work and its benefits, feel free to contact us today.