Chiropractic services can vary a lot in pricing. They can be anywhere from $40 (for a rapid visit type) to $1500/hr (for a concierge type service). The cost of treatment is correlated with your doctor’s expertise, the type of certifications your doctor has, the treatment style, the duration of your appointment, the services offered and how frequently you come in to see your doctor. For example, is it simply adjusting the area of complaint or is the doctor also addressing the full spine with or without extremities. Treatment could also include soft tissue work or other services as well.
Some practices add services which will quickly add on the fee so it’s important for you to call and get the price as well as ask about add-ons and options so you can compare equally from practice to practice and know what is included. It’s not uncommon for a doctor to charge an extra $30-40 for multiple services (e.g. foot or shoulder adjustments, muscle work/massage, kinesiotaping, ultrasound, eStim). While the add-on model is standard for an insurance practice based on a medical model it can quickly become expensive in a cash practice without insurance.
It is also common that non-insurance doctors tend to spend more time with a patient because they know they’re getting paid for the time and don’t have to risk their bill being cut by more than half by the insurance later. When people complain of how bad insurance doctors are it’s not because they’re heartless doctors it tends to be because the insurance only pays them for certain services versus what the patient really might need. For example, Medicare only pays for chiropractic adjustments but not new patient exams, teaching exercises, taking an x-ray to rule out any red flags therefore it pushes doctors to rush through patients and just ‘crack’ and move along to the next patient.
At ProActive Chiropractic we have adjusted our fees so patients can pay directly and it resulted in happier patients appreciating the extra time and the better and faster results they were seeing when our doctors could use all of their tools instead of just the ones the insurance paid for (which in reality was only the adjustment).
Over the past 15 years and also working with higher and higher level athletes we have improved our systems and patient results at ProActive Chiropractic. If you’ve only had a “ok” experience with a chiropractor, let’s assume they were either an insurance doctor who had limited time or a high volume cheap chiropractor who practices very similarly where he/she is just trying to see as many people as possible in a day.
At ProActive Chiropractic we have our service menu posted on the front desk so everyone knows what they pay for beforehand and there are no surprises for you. It enables us to offer the best care possible and gives you faster results so you can go back doing what you like quicker.