Did you ever hear that you should immediately go to the chiropractor after an auto accident?  Not many do. They are told to go to the ER, Urgent Care, or their primary doctor.  I know what you are thinking. Oh boy, the chiropractor is going to start saying we don’t need medical care!?  Not at all.  There is a place for the medical field, of course.  They take care of fractures, internal illnesses, and even heart or other vital organ system diseases and disorders. We need them too. I would like to make people think about the choices they make. 

I believe that we are consistently fed through the television, magazines, ads, and newspapers what we should do. The responsible thing to do, the right thing to do, what they would like you to do.  Sounds odd, like programming.  Ask yourself some questions.  Make it make sense if you can.  There are many things done that should not be done in medical facilities but are done to cover the butts of the doctor or hospital system. Let’s go through and review a few of these. 

Why are CT scans being ordered after a crash?  The only reason I would think is if you had a head injury and they wanted to make certain you are not having a brain bleed.  Anything else is pretty far-reaching. The reports usually come back saying unremarkable. Does the amount of exposure to radiation help the person getting the scan help either? 

Why do they take x-rays lying down? Our spines are resisting gravity when we were in the accident. We are on our feet resisting gravity when moving around and performing activities of daily living. Why would they want to see a film without the effects of gravity on the spine? It would seem as though they are trying to help the insurance companies or something.  If their films or imaging studies support the side of the insurance, they don’t have to pay as much for care. This is just one of my theories of foxes in the hen house with insurance companies and the medical world coming together for the common cause of profit. 

If the hospital or group refers to surgery, it is usually in-house physicians, benefitting the same system and administration. This is good to keep records all together and control of the clinical case.  It is bad, for the patient, because things get forced on the patient that they may not need. This would be like a spine surgery.  Some surgeries are necessary and I get that.  I just remember the last time I perused a copy of the JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) on the statistics on spine surgeries were very grim.  They noted that 85-87% of all spine surgeries failed on the national average.  YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY.  

Why would the insurance keep paying for these surgeries then if they overwhelmingly fail.  Could it be because the patient of the failed surgery would from then on be a patient of pain management for the rest of their lives?  They would be going to disability eventually and then getting Medicare SSI to pay for all these costs.  This would be a huge payoff for the pharmaceutical companies for life time customers.  I hope that I stirred your thoughts a little to the larger picture and reality of the way the world works. Dirty hands, washing the dirty hands of others to fulfill their greedy quotas. This rant over.  Please be open-minded and think about the truth.  Don’t let your health suffer. 

Every day people call or come to our office with such high hopes for their health coverage, whether it be private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or many others.  We were told that we are covered for everything as a blanket statement, with exception of deductible or co-pay.  I love my senior patients, as well as all the others, and it boggles my mind how people can be lied to over and over again. Is it because the agent is a personal friend, a trusted celebrity, or a neighbor? Is it that we have been so brainwashed over the decades leading up to this purchase and it just stuck as a truth? Sounds familiar. 

I want to clear up the fallacy once and for all. Insurance is a business to make money, not take little premium and pay out regularly if at all possible. Think of the national debt.  Does it make sense to take in $2 Trillion and pay out $8 Trillion annually? This would create a problem that should eventually grind everything to a halt when nobody will give any more money, and the business would close.  I will say that personally, I believe that Medicare should pay for everything for our seniors, but it has been an uphill battle for over 50 years and counting. They expect that a patient is given an exam and x-rays before treating them, but refuse to pay for them. This creates costs for the patient and the clinic. They also require a re-examination to be performed every 30 days or 10 visits, whichever comes first. Again, they do not pay for this and leave it up to the patient and the clinics. The clinics cannot do these services for free or else they are enticing people to come to them for the free services over another clinic. This is both a state and federal crime.  There is also a question of how to best help the patient get better faster. Would it benefit the patient to get other extra services to help make the problem get better faster and more efficiently? Many times, the answer is yes, but the insurance does not cover anything other than 80% of the adjustment cost. The other PT-type modalities really can assist the doctor and patient, but again not reimbursed by the insurance. Cannot be done for free due to the state and federal laws mentioned above. So, it is very hard to make people understand where we are coming from. 

Then comes the question of insurance limits.  Many people have a plan that includes a set number of visits or services that they can be given under the policy. There is a new thing that has happened here in Florida especially called managed health care (MHC).  This is where your company or group has decided in an effort to save some money, they will pay this company to watch the bottom line. They essentially protect the limits to the extreme. As an example, John Doe has insurance that gives him 35 patient visits, but the MHC will only allow the doctor to see them for 5 visits.  Everyone is different in their speed of healing and repair, but this is ridiculous! If you know anything about the human body and exercise, you know that it needs time and repetition to actually work. Another example, nobody gets a six pack abs or tone legs in one to five visits to the gym. It is usually going 3 times per week for a few months before we truly see the difference.  People ask why are we using this company. We are not. Your company or group is.  

Lastly, we have third-party companies for the insurance companies. These companies are a gateway for doctors to be in network with a larger insurance or group of insurance companies.  The average person in Florida does not realize that the insurance companies only allow so many doctors or clinics to be representatives in each market. As an example, when I began practicing here, Blue Cross allowed 8 chiropractors in their network for my area. The only problem was that 3 of the 8 were dead, 2 others had closed their offices or moved, and they haven’t opened up the books to add any more doctors in 30 years. So, this gateway is the only way a doctor can get into that network at all or they would have to be a cash-only practice which over 80% of doctors in the area are. 

In conclusion, I hope that people wake up to what is going on around them and take charge of their own health.  The insurance company is not about health or wellness, they are locked in on sick care. Don’t become another statistic, because the insurance wouldn’t let you do something to better your health! 

Why is a chiropractor using a laser?  What does the laser do? Do I need to consider laser treatments for my aches and pains?  These are a sampling of the many questions that we get regularly regarding our added M6 MLS class 4 laser.  I will attempt to delve into the abyss with answering some of these questions to the best of my ability. 

My first question is not a real hard one to answer.  As a doctor of chiropractic, I have a task to locate and remove misalignments from a person’s body, thus returning them to improved function.  I do not ever express to my patients that I am a pain doctor, or healing master of pains and aches.  I do, however, let it be known that as a side effect of chiropractic specific adjustments, one can have their pain diminish. The M6 MLS class 4 laser actually has two specific wavelengths of energy that reduce inflammation and pain.  This usually happens within 1-3 visits that we see and can know there is positive change. Hope this helps you understand why. 

The next stop on this line of questioning is about what can the laser specifically do.  Let’s get the nerdy stuff out of the way for my engineers and other healthcare professionals. The M6 MLS laser device utilizes a proprietary and patented delivery system that synchronizes two wavelengths, 808 nm and 905 nm. The 808 nm wavelength provides anti-inflammatory and anti-edema effects via a continuous wave delivery. The 905 nm wavelength provides analgesic effects, with some of the same effects of the 808 nm wavelength and is delivered using pulsed mode laser energy. With these wavelengths and synchronized delivery system, the laser penetrates up to 3-4 cm depending on the tissue type. Depending on which hand piece you are using, power ranges from 1.1W to 3.3W on your laser. Time and frequency can be determined by the user, or the predetermined settings for different protocols. Therefore, the total energy delivered is variable, depending on the condition. The rest of us need to know that this device works to get rid of swelling, inflammation, and pain in a gentle, non-surgical, non-invasive, and drug free method. 

The last question is a very complex question with several different answers. I have been explaining to patients that there are great reasons to use this technology, such as chronic arthritis pain in the neck or lower back, chronic knee arthritis and pain, chronic hip arthritis and pain, and several other chronic issues.  Multiple practitioners have tried everything else with no success at all. The laser doesn’t completely remove everything, but has helped in cases where others have failed completely.  I look to give a person hope with our new laser therapy equipment. The overall efficacy of this is 80-90% difference in a short time comparatively. Our doctors are working diligently to advance their education to expand to areas of expertise for the treatment of our people.   

Imagine that you have been an 8/10 on a pain scale for 10+ years with no relief whatsoever and you have begun referring to this as your normal aches and pains.  There is nothing normal about pain. It is an alarm for your body to get checked out and do something. Now imagine that you got a treatment and the pain has been cut by 40-75% on a daily basis. What would that do for your life? How would the world look to you at that time? Would you finally have some hope?  We strive to do our very best for all of our community.  We let it be known in advance that the laser is FDA approved, but it is not yet covered by any of the insurance companies.   

A change in season brings a change in habits

The season of renewal offers a lot of time to focus on what is important and one thing that we truly believe in is maintaining the youth of our bodies. At Hayes Family Chiropractic, we use the springtime to get outside and feel young again and one way to do this is by alleviating excess pressure on your spine- a great way to do this is by focusing on body weight. Every extra pound over your target weight is adding an unnecessary burden to the lower back, creating a host of problems that begin with muscle strain and pain and can end with debilitating spinal conditions. 

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How do you make a living? 

No matter whether you drive a truck, push a pencil, bench press or tweet for a living, your body and brain are the most important resources in your toolbox. So why is it that so many of us seem to freely sacrifice our bodies in pursuit of the paycheck? We don’t really think it’s that cut and dried. Let’s take a closer look at how and why we let our bodies degrade at work, and how to prevent it from happening to you! 

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Chiropractic is about much more than the joints in your spine

While the bulk of our practice focuses on restoring spinal alignment and function, the benefits of chiropractic have a positive ripple effect on your overall health. While much of western medicine focuses on treating the symptoms, chiropractic focuses on the causes. We get to the root of your pain and set a course to correct it. But our approach begins before treatment: conversation is the first tool in the chiropractor’s arsenal. 

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There will never come a time when your spine is not absolutely essential to your overall health and wellbeing

The sooner we accept this, the earlier we can start prioritizing our spines in all activities. With the computer age, we are starting to see alarming levels of spinal degeneration take place in younger generations. These problems then compound with age: consider that after age 30, all of us begin to lose muscle mass and bone density. The rate at which these deleterious processes progress is determined by your lifestyle. We believe it’s time that you started prioritizing a spine-first lifestyle. 

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In millennial-speak that’s called: “Living your best life.”

But let’s take the lid off and look at what it means to truly live your best life. We can think of a few essentials like living unencumbered, freedom of movement, full range of motion and a lack of pain. We can also think of psychological factors like living stress-free, reducing anxiety and feeling calm and happy. For most, these ideals are impossible to ever fully attain; we can only try our best. But it’s helpful to know that chiropractic is there to help you reach your fullest potential. 

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Chronic headaches- you are not alone

Headaches are among the foremost causes of lost productivity in the American workplace. And this is a terrible way to frame the problem! Let’s think about the human cost- the stress that the workplace causes is often to blame. Nonetheless, headaches are a national health problem and it’s time we addressed them in a sustainable manner.

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Defining your pain

Before starting any routine to manage pain, it is important to get an accurate assessment from a medical professional. When it comes to spinal problems and structural issues in the body, a comprehensive assessment at your chiropractor’s office is a good way to get a grip on what is causing your pain. Is it related to the recovery and rehab from a traumatic injury? Or is it part of a longer cycle of chronic pain that is only now rising to the surface? Is the problem structural and easily addressed; or is it non-specific and hard to pinpoint? Pain is a fickle creature- it needs constant management. One of the best things you can start doing, and one of the most useful for your doctor, is to keep a journal of your pain. This gives us key insights into the nature of your pain. 

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