What to Expect When You Bring Your Medical Records to a Chiropractor

In this episode of 'Ask The Chiropractor,' Dr. Brant Hulsebus from Rockford, Illinois, explains the importance of getting a second opinion and bringing your medical records to a chiropractor. He discusses common scenarios where patients may want to consult a chiropractor after seeing other healthcare providers, how chiropractors use medical records, and the types of specialized chiropractic care available. Dr. Hulsebus also addresses common misconceptions about chiropractic care and emphasizes the importance of collaboration between different healthcare providers. Learn how to find the right chiropractor for your specific needs and what to expect during your consultation.

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask The Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford IceHogs Let's dive into it. you for joining us. We're gonna continue talking about this path that we're on this month, about getting a second opinion. So let's say you've been to your doctor, medical doctor or osteopath or something like that, and you went there with an ailment, a complaint, a health concern, and they did an exam on you. Maybe they took some imaging, x-rays, MRI. Maybe they sent you up to a specialist. Maybe you started with your family doctor or a walk-in clinic and they sent you to the next level of doctors. Maybe you've been to a pain specialist and maybe they've given you a course that they believe is gonna help you. They tell you, we're gonna give you an injection, maybe start some physical therapy. Maybe talking to even about surgeries. And maybe you have a little hesitation about this, maybe you wanna inquire more of different options and different choices. A common error in the system happens if you ask that person about chiropractic. If you ask your family physician about chiropractic. If you asked an orthopedic doctor about maybe trying chiropractic, if you asked a physical therapist about chiropractic, if you asked whoever in the healthcare system, the medical system, their opinion about whether or not they should consult a chiropractor on this also, and this is something that this podcast began about because I've learned working with these different healthcare providers that very few of 'em actually understand what I do and how I do it. I've had some doctors of osteopath dos, not MDs, but dos. A lot of times you don't know if you're seeing an MD or a do, but I've had a do come up to me and tell me I'm I understand what you do. I do a lot what you do. I'm a do, and as soon as we start talking and getting involved in the case and talking about what I do and what I don't do and why I do this, why I do this, and they quickly learn. They don't really know what I do. They might know how to manipulate a joint, but they do not understand chiropractic whatsoever happen to me all the time. Now, why do I say this? Why do I have this experience? I've been the team chiropractor for many teams. I've been in the same room with them. We had meetings together. We coincide. We worked together with all kinds of healthcare providers. And a lot of 'em come up to me, start talking to me as if they're, some of 'em are very curious about what I do and want to learn more what I do. And I love that. I love being able to sit down with 'em, show them that, explain 'em things that I do, but others have that attitude that they already know what I do and they don't really care what I do and they don't. Follow what I do. And then they start watching me.'cause we share space. They start watching me taking care of the players and they know the player has this issue and they see me take care of the player. And they see the player get really satisfied. And that they see the player says instead of following up with that doctor, can I follow up with this doctor, the chiropractor instead? And then they started asking the medical doctor questions about what I did. They said, Hey, I noticed the chiropractor did this and this, what's going on with that? And they quickly learn. They don't really know. What I found, what my exams were.'cause I don't, I mean I use, we use orthopedic tests as chiropractors, but we also do a lot of chiropractic exams and they're not taught those. So I'm having you turn your head and I'm having you measure your feet length. I'm having you lift a leg, don't bend the knee, and stuff like that. None of that's taught in medical colleges or osteopath school. That's all taught at chiropractic schools. So they really don't know what we're doing. So let's say that you've been down this path. Let's say you've been at the doctor and maybe you got something on your lower back, maybe something in your neck, maybe something you know. Completely not on top of the spine, but maybe you've seen an article online about chiropractic Help somebody with that. Maybe because you're searching for this on your computer or your phone, and maybe because you type in chiropractic, the algorithm now is sending you information on chiropractic and whatever that and is, whatever that is. Bother you carpal tunnel. Maybe it's headaches. Maybe it's GI issues, maybe it's fertility issues. Maybe it's all these different issues. And now you're starting to see little things pop up on your social media about chiropractors, helping people with this, helping people with that. And then you go back to your doctor, you say, Hey, I've seen all this stuff. What do you know about chiropractic And this, and my point is, but that is that they don't know how to answer that from my experience with my hands on. So you have to ask a chiropractor. So you get these, you have to call and make an appointment with a chiropractor. Now, how do you find the chiropractor that maybe you want to see the area that specializes in you? Let's say you have fertility issues. How do I see a chiropractor that specializes in fertility issues? That's when you go to the chiropractor's website and you look at it, you and you look to see if they do that or not. And myself, I've taken classes on pediatrics. I've certified taking care of pregnant women. So I do a lot of that, but there's chiropractors that specialize, let's say in upper cervical care where they only adjusted top bone in the neck. While I have experience with that, I am not a certified upper cervical practitioner. So there's even some people I've referred to an upper surgical practitioner because they have a more advanced case. So then you look that up, you find that now maybe you find upper cervical chiropractor that only adjusts to see one neck and you have a sports thing. You probably don't want to see that one. You wanna see somebody else who does the whole sports thing.'cause they don't do that. They specialize something else. So go to the individual chiropractor's website and do some research on 'em. See what their website tells you, the kind of patients they see. If they don't have a website that tells you they haven't stayed of with things that would move on. So on top of that, there's a great option. You can also usually email the office and say, I'm dealing with this and this is this, the type of patients that you, the chiropractor takes care of, but do us a favor when you come for that consultation. Bring your records. There's a thing with patients today that they believe that all the healthcare systems are interlinked. So if I go to this clinic and I have X-rays taken, then I go see the specialist, they can pull up my x-rays right there. If I go to this clinic and have an MRI taken, then I go see my doctor. My doctor has my MRIs right there. And that's true 'cause part of the Affordable Care Act that came out a while ago that they wanted everybody interlink and be able to get information, but. Majority of chiropractors were left out of this. We were told we had to join. We asked to join. We tried to join, and we were told no. So we don't have your records. We don't have access to that like your other healthcare providers do.'cause they're not letting us be part of that system. So when you go to the chiropractor, bring your x-rays with you, bring your MRI with you, bring that stuff with you so we can see and actually have the conversation. It's happened here all too many times. Somebody comes in for the first time and they said I just had x-rays on my back till we have to do 'em again. And I said, no. Do you have 'em with you? No, I don't. And I said, okay, we have to see those before I can take care of you for patient safety reasons, if nothing else. And then they get a little upset with me because I don't have the direct access to. So get your records now. How do you get your records to take to the chiropractor? There's many different ways you can do it. One way, which is not the best way, but a lot of us can log in and see our charts. Now, with the healthcare system, the problem with that is you can't always see the image, right? Can't always see the x-ray. Sometimes you can't. That you can't. If you can see it and you can download it, put on a thumb drive or be able to email it to the chiropractor ahead of time, and the chiropractor can tell you, yes, that works. We can use this. If it's only like a little image and we probably can't see what we want to see on that image, or to give you the diagnosis and the care we want to. Now, a lot of times doctors will tell my patients I'm gonna give you the x-ray report. That's all the chiropractor really needs, and that's totally wrong. That's just totally wrong. That's a portion of what we need, right? And that's the part that they need, right? But that's not the part that we need. We need to actually see the alignment. We wanna see how you look in a weight bearing position. We wanna see your posture and stuff like that. And we do a much deeper dive into that and a much more analyzing your spine than they do for their x-ray reports. So an X-ray report's nice, like it's nice for me to look at and see that you don't have a tumor, you don't have this, you don't have that nothing's broken. Fantastic. But it doesn't help me get the big picture.'cause usually the person who doesn't bring me their x-rays, only the report, they look at me and say how much times do I have to come? How many business does it take? I can't see your disc heights, I can't see your alignment. I can't see the the overall health of your spine. I don't know how big the osteo fights, a little arthritis areas have grown and where they've grown and what's going on with 'em, just by an x-ray report. So I can't even answer that for you. I also can't tell how severe your curve is without the x-ray, so that's impossible for us to answer. So we want to actually have the x-ray, so you could ask your physician's office to send a copy of the x-rays to the chiropractor. You can do that either at the front desk or you can do that when the procedure's being done. A lot of times today when you go to the doctor's office to ask you, is there where else you want to send your records to? And you just go ahead and write your name down. I have several patients that have all their records sent to me every time they go to any doctor's office because they know if they want to get them. A lot of times it's easier to ask me than the giant hospital. So you can do that for sure, but let's say you weren't thinking about chiropractic, like you walked in with a shoulder issue. You never thought about a chiropractor to the doctor says, let's do complete surgery. Maybe a reversal, and maybe now you want to see which other options are, but you've already had all that done. You can still request the records to be sent. Or simple even that you don't have to do anything far as trying to go and get your records. You can call a chiropractor and say, I'd like to have a consultation about my case. I've had x-rays and exams done somewhere else. Now, if you stop by the office or today's world, we can do electronic signatures. We can request those sent to us. Then when we get those, we can call you and then we can set up a consultation. So if you don't want to go get your x-rays and your exams and your MRIs, you don't have to, but you have to sign legal paperwork from me order so I can send over the request and then they have to send 'em to me. They have to send 'em to us. It's part of the laws, the federal laws that they have to cooperate with, record requests. So when we ask for records, they have to send 'em to us. There's no issues there. Now, some people are like I don't want my doctor to know I'm going to the chiropractor. And if that's the case, that's just, I think that's just sad. The it because today we all should be working together. We all should be cooperating. I've said it many times, I would never go to a medical doctor that told me not to go to a chiropractor, and I would never go to a chiropractor who told me never to go to a medical doctor. It goes both ways. So if they're not willing to work and talk to each other and cooperate or get mad at you for getting another, advice that I just question who you're working with. I've sent many of my patients over to orthopedic doctors to get advice too, to get their opinion, just to see what their options are. And I'm really known for telling people that, if you want to go an orthopedic doctor, I can set the appointment up for you to get more opinions and more options. But this is what we're gonna do. And I would ask you not to ask the orthopedic doctor about what I said,'cause they don't understand what I do, nor will I do the opposite. I'm not gonna sit there and tell you the orthopedic doctor's crazy. He, I don't think you should do this. I'm not an orthopedic surgeon. I would not do that. So again, the best way to get a consultation is to bring your records in your MRIs, your x-ray reports. Bring 'em to the chiropractor. Let the chiropractor look at 'em. Now, just sometimes we might have to take some more, more than just your records, but most chiropractors should be able to use your records. Now, 20 some years ago when I first started practice, a lot of x-rays were taken when the patient was laying down. Those we can't use, you have to be standing up in order for us to see your posture and weight-bearing positions. But I've noticed more and more that the orthopedic doctors are agreeing with us today on the idea of weight-bearing position being better. They're actually trying to invent MRI machine technology now, while you're in a weight-bearing position to get a better imaging of the what the MRI has to say. Did you know that an MRI when you're laying down versus an MRI, when you're standing up the disc boulders and stuff can change? New literature just came out on pub me demonstrating that. Okay, so we're all agreeing more and more than ever than the history of chiropractic and medicine on the way to take imaging so we can both share the same imaging. There you have it. If you have questions about whether or not chiropractic care can help you, you definitely only can ask a chiropractor, but you could take your records from the medical doctor and bring that in. Allow that, an x-ray of your spine is an x-ray of your spine. It doesn't matter who takes it. We can use the same x-ray majority of the time. So go ahead and bring your records in, set up a consultation. If you don't have 'em with you, get the records and have the chiropractor call you back when you get the records. That's how we do it in my office. You would either stop in or let us send you the form. You'd sign it, get the form back to us. We'd send the form and ask for your records. Then once we have your records, then we can sit down and have a confrontation. All right everybody. Thanks for tuning in and listening. If you have questions about chiropractic or chiropractic care, make sure you reach out and maybe next time you'll be the question of the week. Thank you.