What Happens During My First Chiropractic Visit?
If you have never been to a chiropractor before—or you are visiting a new chiropractic office—you may wonder what actually happens during your first chiropractic visit. Will you be adjusted right away? What kind of examination will be performed? Will you leave with a treatment plan?
At Quality Care Chiropractic, your first visit is designed to help us understand what is bothering you, how it is affecting you, what may be contributing to the problem, and how you respond to initial treatment. Rather than beginning with a predetermined treatment plan, we first gather the information we need to make recommendations based on you as an individual.
Before Your Appointment
When you schedule your first appointment, we will normally send you an email with instructions for accessing our secure patient portal.
Your intake documents can be completed online before you arrive. This gives you time to provide information about your health history, current concerns, and other relevant factors without spending your appointment sitting in the reception area filling out paperwork.
It also allows us to spend more of your visit talking with you and evaluating your concerns.
If you schedule a walk-in or same-day appointment and do not have an opportunity to complete the forms beforehand, we can help you complete the necessary information when you arrive.
We Start by Listening
Your symptoms are important, but they are only part of the picture.
We will talk about what brought you into the office, when the problem began, what makes it better or worse, previous injuries or treatment, and other factors that may be contributing to what you are experiencing.
Just as importantly, we want to understand what you would like to accomplish.
For one person, the goal may be returning to work without back pain. For another, it might be sleeping more comfortably, getting back to exercise, being able to turn their head more easily, or simply moving through daily activities with less difficulty.
Understanding both the problem and your goals helps guide the examination and our recommendations.
Your Examination Is Based on You
There is not one identical examination that we perform on every patient.
Your examination is selected according to your history, symptoms, and clinical presentation. Depending on what brings you into the office, this may include aspects of a chiropractic, orthopedic, neurological, movement, or other appropriate examination.
The purpose is to gather useful clinical information—not simply to find something to adjust.
The findings from your history and examination help us determine whether chiropractic care appears appropriate and which areas may be most relevant to your particular problem.
Will I Be Adjusted on My First Visit?
In most cases, if the examination indicates that chiropractic treatment is appropriate, treatment will begin during your first visit.
That does not mean every patient receives the same adjustment or that every area of the spine is automatically treated. Your initial treatment is based on your examination findings and individual needs.
Depending on those findings, care may involve chiropractic adjustments and other appropriate treatment methods.
We Retest After Treatment
An important part of the first visit happens after treatment.
When appropriate, we repeat certain portions of the examination that produced positive findings before treatment.
Why?
Because your response gives us additional information.
Did a restricted movement improve? How did a particular examination finding change? Did something remain essentially the same?
The examination gives us information before treatment. Retesting gives us an opportunity to see whether and how your body responded afterward.
That information becomes part of the clinical picture we use when considering what should happen next.
What Happens After My First Visit?
Before leaving the office, you will pay for your examination and treatment and schedule your second appointment.
Your second visit is called the Report of Findings.
Rather than trying to establish a complete treatment plan before we have seen how you respond, the Report of Findings gives us an opportunity to bring the information together.
We can discuss what we found during your history and examination, what happened with your initial treatment, and what you experienced afterward. We will then explain our recommendations, discuss the proposed treatment plan, and answer your questions.
This gives you an opportunity to understand what we found and why we are recommending a particular approach before deciding how you would like to proceed.
We Follow Up With You That Evening
Your first visit does not necessarily end when you walk out the door.
At the close of business, Dr. Dana personally calls new patients after their first adjustment to find out how they are feeling and what they have noticed since treatment.
Sometimes the information that becomes apparent over the next several hours can be useful. You may notice a change in your symptoms, movement, comfort, or another aspect of how you feel—or you may notice very little initially.
That response provides another piece of information to consider when determining what recommendations may be most appropriate for you.
Your First Visit Is the Beginning of the Evaluation
We do not believe good chiropractic care begins with deciding how many visits someone needs before evaluating them.
Your first visit gives us an opportunity to listen to what you are experiencing and what you hope to accomplish, evaluate your individual presentation, begin appropriate care, and observe how you respond.
Your second visit allows us to bring those pieces together, explain what we found, answer your questions, and discuss our recommendations with you.
If you are considering chiropractic care and would like to find out whether it may be appropriate for you, schedule an examination at Quality Care Chiropractic.
Listen • Evaluate • Explain • Care.
This article is part of the Quality Care Chiropractic FAQ series. Visit the Quality Care Chiropractic Education Center to explore more answers to common questions about chiropractic care and what to expect at our office.
Quality Care Chiropractic PLLC
Where Quality of Life Means Everything.
