FAQ

Your initial evaluation will be one hour. Follow up visits with the doctor are 30-45 minutes and one hour (split into two 30 minutes sessions) to see the doctor and the trainer.

We send out new patient paperwork via email two days before your initial appointment. Feel free to fill these out and send them back electronically. Of course if you prefer to hand write your forms, please arrive 15 minutes early to your first appointment to fill out the forms in the comfort of our office.

Urban Wellness Clinic works with most major medical insurance plans as out of network providers. Prior to your initial evaluation, Eva our billing manager or Melissa, our office manager will call your insurance company to verify your benefits and make sure there are minimal out-of-pocket expenses.
We accept these insurances:

• Aetna
• Cigna
• Blue Cross
• Blue Shield
• Oxford
• United Healthcare

Our Midtown West office is at 57 West 57th Street at 6th Avenue, Suite 1406, New York, NY 10019. We’re conveniently located in the heart of midtown—near Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, and Columbus Circle.

Yes, we are HIPAA compliant. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, we ensure all required physical, network, and process security measures are in place and followed to protect your sensitive data.

We like to begin with a comprehensive movement assessment. From there, based on your needs, we combine chiropractic adjustments with soft-tissue massage and Active Release Technique to heal your pain at the source. We also teach you how to extend your session’s benefits at home—through stretches and strengthening exercises—to keep you stronger, longer. Once you are out of pain, we collaborate with our trainer to get you strong with our Essential 7 moves, our version of the New York Times 7 minute workout and the moves we believe everyone needs to know how to do to be a human being. We co-treat with our acupuncturist, podiatrist, or functional medicine doctor based on our assessments and what we believe will help bring the body into balance.

Our approach to wellness is holistic and integrative. We combine our extensive knowledge, techniques, and styles to ensure your best treatment plan. Your chiropractor stays in the loop as you visit your movement therapist, and what your trainer observes during a workout helps your doctor refine their focus. Often times we find physical pain goes hand in hand with needing to restore your metabolism, balance your hormones and optimize body composition. This is when we collaborate with our functional medicine doctor to help you feel like your best self. We collaborate with our acupuncturist to help heal scar tissue from old surgeries and sport injuries. Any foot problem that walks through our door, we call upon the experience of our barefoot podiatrist and regenerative medicine specialist to help teach core strength from the foot up to the pelvic floor.

First, we take an in depth history and perform an exam including a Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA) to identify why you are in pain and determine whether it’s a mobility or stability issue. We look at where the body is moving too much and where in the body you are not moving enough.

We use Neurokinetic Therapy (NKT), which is hands-on muscle testing, to quickly diagnose why a muscle is tense and overcompensating for weakness in other parts of the body. We like to test—not guess—to get to the root of the problem for the fastest recovery possible. For example, tight hamstrings in runners is often due to an underlying weak core. The hamstrings lock down when we don’t move from our core.

For those tight parts of the body, we use Active Release Technique (ART), the most effective approach and gold standard in release of a tight muscle. This custom tailored treatment evaluates your body’s muscles and tense spots to uncover scar tissue that’s formed from acute trauma or long-term overuse. You’ll experienced the freeing of compressed nerves, improved oxygen flow, pain relief, and restored movement.

We strengthen and rehabilitative the body with a unique approach called Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS). The DNS approach begins by teaching you how to breath and stabilize your core like how we learned to brace and move when we are babies. Ideal stabilization patterns are trained with specific functional exercises, targeting your deep core. You will move through rolling, crawling, and kneeling patterns using your breath and core for strength, just like we did when we were in those first two years of life.

We then use Anatomy in Motion (AIM) to rehab a new and healthy gait and walking patterns. AIM is all about helping find our body’s center through every joint, every part of each gait cycle, and all three planes of motion.

From there, we can customize a home therapy program that will work best for you.

Chiropractic has been proven to be one of the safest drug-free, non-invasive therapies available. The risks associated with chiropractic are minimal. Most patients feel instant relief from treatment, but some may experience minor soreness, which typically fades within 24 hours.

Finding a reputable chiropractor is critical. You’ll want one who takes a holistic approach to spinal manipulation—giving thought to the entire body rather than just the area causing the pain.

Here are key things to look for on your quest:

1. Were they trained in a holistic approach? This is important because not everyone can benefit from an adjustment all the time. You’ll want a chiropractor who can recognize that some body types specifically those who are hypermobile will probably not need to be adjusted.
2. Do they know rehabilitation tools? There’s no sense in continually getting adjusted without doing any physical rehabilitation to help the joints hold the adjustment. Without retraining, your muscles are going to fall back into their old patterns and continue to pull your bones out of alignment.
3. Do they do the Active Release Technique? ART is the gold standard in soft tissue release.
   Orthopedists recommend it to their patients, and the practitioners in the Active Release community are top-notch talent.

Absolutely. Chiropractic care can make pregnancy more comfortable and delivery less complicated. We assess your pelvic biomechanics and your baby’s positioning, and use a gentle and effective method, called Webster Technique to assist in turning a breech baby and improve pelvic floor health. Our own Dr. Emily Kiberd is highly trained and experienced in the art of prenatal chiropractic care.

Everyone can benefit from chiropractic care especially if you’re:

• In pain, whether chronic or acute
• Aspiring to enhance your athletic performance
• Needing a posture tune-up
• Experiencing headaches
• Dealing with back pain
• Feeling tension in your neck

Absolutely not. Spinal alignment affects the health of your whole body. Much of the nervous system passes through the spinal column, which means a misalignment is likely to affect its function. From pinched nerves to headaches, regular chiropractic care can have numerous benefits. Our chiropractors look head to toe to identify movement dysfunction and discover the root cause of your pain.

Depending on your specific needs, you may achieve optimum results with once-a-week chiropractic sessions. For some conditions, once or twice a month may be all that is needed. We rarely we patients more than once a week unless they come in with acute discogenic pain or nerve pain, then we see these patients two to three times a week to enhance pain relief the first couple of weeks. By incorporating rehabilitation into your treatment plan, you’ll be able to prolong the benefits and reduce the number of sessions needed.

Yes. Chiropractic care includes highly skilled techniques, thus, licensure is required. The extensive training—a minimum of 4,200 hours of classroom, laboratory and clinical experience—is approved by the Council on Chiropractic Education, an accrediting agency that is fully recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

We see many herniated discs in our clinic and very few require surgery. Our team of experts are well-versed in the condition and our rehabilitation outcomes have a high success rate. Plus, we will work closely with your doctor to keep them updated on your progress and informed throughout the process.

Absolutely. We encourage your trainer to come to your next appointment with you. We love to see firsthand your workout routine and ensure you’re using proper form. We believe strength training is essential to rehab and we want every rep to be completed with impeccable form. We can also collaborate virtually, via email, to work together to guide your programming.