I am truly astounded by all the positive reviews for this business because my experience there was unpleasant in every possible way.
I had some lingering neck pain from a ski accident (a previous visit to a different chiropractor in my hometown had cured most of the pain) and made an appointment to have it addressed. After spending two hours on two different days and almost $100 at Terry Chiropractic, my previously mild neck pain is now worse.
I went in on the new patient special, which is supposed to be $34 for my first adjustment. During the extensive evaluation by Dr. Duff, during which he touched me excessively, stood unnecessarily close to me, and bragged about his own exercise routine, he told me that they would need to take four x-rays at $30 each, quintupling the price of my visit and meaning that I would not get adjusted that day, and would have to make a second appointment to go over the x-rays and get the adjustment. As a graduate student, I do not have a ton of extra time and money, and as a graduate student in physics, I highly disapprove of exposing people to ionizing radiation such as x-rays if it is not truly necessary. I resisted this extra expense and they said fine, we will only do x-rays for the area you came in for, so my visit was only triple the cost I originally anticipated. Then they said could not bill my insurance provider directly (they only work directly with Blue Cross Blue Shield), but they could provide me with a superbill which I could submit for reimbursement. I didn't notice until after I left the office that the charges on the superbill did not add up to the full total I paid at the office, and so even if my insurance provider does reimburse me it will not be for the full amount.
When I went in for my actual adjustment, I was forced to watch a twenty-minute advertisement justifying why they take so many x-rays, which makes me believe that this is a common practice for them to lure people in with the cheap-seeming specials and then tell them that they need lots of x-rays at a high additional cost. Then both doctors came in the room with me to look at my x-rays, exerting pressure that a used car salesman might find excessive, telling me that my neck was extremely messed up and if I did not submit to their regimen of at least 40-80 visits (or, at ~$40/adjustment, if I did not give them $1600-$3200) over the next 3-6 months, I would stay sick and get sicker (please note that I am very young and healthy, and never claimed to be sick, only to have mild neck pain). They also told me that I would need to attend a "wellness clinic" which I assume would just be more marketing. I did not want to commit to this and I really just wanted the adjustment I had already paid for, however after the adjustment my neck pain was worse than before.
Another thing to note is that they kept using the word "subluxation," and Dr. Duff acted surprised that I didn't know the word. It sounded like pseudoscience to me and after some quick research I found that the International Chiropractic Education Collaboration holds the following position:
"The teaching of vertebral subluxation complex as a vitalistic construct that claims that it is the cause of disease is unsupported by evidence. Its inclusion in a modern chiropractic curriculum in anything other than an historical context is therefore inappropriate and unnecessary. . . . Practice styles promoting preset 'high volume' chiropractic care models as wellness care, which may contribute to inappropriate patient dependence, compromise patient confidentiality or require repeated exposure to ionising radiation are not part of an undergraduate chiropractic curriculum. Students should be taught to recognise that such approaches are not acceptable in terms of the best interests of patients or the chiropractic profession."
Unfortunately, the above describes this practice to a T. I truly do not understand the positive results others have had here. I found them to be extremely predatory, as well as unhelpful, and cannot recommend them. I would advise anyone considering coming here, as well as current patients, to do more research into Chiropractic BioPhysics, as I wish I had before I came here, because it is generally considered pseudoscience, even by other chiropractors.
Full disclosure: this happened in January, but after talking to a friend about this she urged me to finally post this and warn others. I would also like to say that after complaining, they did refund my money, which honestly is another red flag for a "medical" establishment. read more