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Move Better

New Patients Guide

A completely unique medical experience. What to expect, what to bring with you to your appointment, billing and insurance information.

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What to Expect

Your initial visit with Move Better Chiropractic will be like nothing you have ever experienced at any medical clinic. You will spend a significant amount of time with your clinician, at least 1.5 hours. This appointment is our chance to get to know you as a person, not just an injury. We go over an extensive history of your health and lifestyle, as well as dig deep into what your current conditions may be, in order to best serve your needs. At this visit, as well as any other, you are encouraged to ask any questions about what we are doing.

Therapeutic Movement Plan

After the history is complete, we jump right into looking at your movement patterns and establishing your Therapeutic Movement Plan. We use a Clinical Audit system, which is a fancy way of saying that we test and re-test interventions constantly. The right movement should create immediate improvement that is apparent to both patient and clinician. We are attempting making connections to what is causing your discomfort and/or holding you back from doing the things that are important to you. The majority of the time, pain is coming from inefficiencies elsewhere in the body and it is our responsibility to find those areas and correct them. Often the source of dysfunction is not at the site you feel pain, so if we look elsewhere, don’t think we are ignoring your problem. Improving movement is our focus in every treatment session. We will find the exercises that decrease your pain before moving into passive work on the joints and tissues.

There is a significant amount of education during this process. We provide a simple and logically driven system of medicine that often gets overlooked by many other physicians. We will teach you to understand how we think your problem has occurred and give you a broader way of moving in a way that does not create those problems again. Despite all of the exercise equipment in clinic, your first treatment will likely only involve a mat on the floor, a chair, and perhaps some kettlebells. Even with the simple tools we use the most common feedback we hear from patients is “I wish I knew this earlier.”

Once your Therapeutic Movement Plan is established, you will be taken into the treatment room where we will work directly on the soft tissues and joints. Our goal at the end of your first visit is for you to leave with a significant decrease in pain and symptoms. However, just like anything worthwhile in life, long-term improvement takes proactive practice and commitment on your end. You will be sent home with your Therapeutic Movement Plan, which generally requires 10 minutes every day. These exercises are delivered electronically through a program called PhysiApp, which is our way of digitally communicating exercises with you. Through the app or a web based portal, you will have curated or personally made videos to remind you of the movements you need to do. These exercises will be constantly evaluated, refined, and progressed during your entire time with us. As a generality, patients that regularly complete their Therapeutic Movement Plan get better 75% faster than those that don’t. As with all things, something is ALWAYS more than nothing so do not think this is an all or none scenario.

What you need & What to Bring

In our experience, it is best for patients to contact their insurance company so that they know exactly what is covered. When coming in for your initial appointment make sure to bring the following: 

  • Your license
  • Your insurance card
  • A list of any medications you are taking
  • Clothing that you are able to move in
Download Insurance Cheat Sheet

Billing And Insurance

Billing

After you have figured out your Insurance, understanding our billing will be very easy.

Here is some terminology that will help:

  • Claim: This is our bill that we send to insurance
  • EOB (Explanation of Benefits): This is a letter the insurance company sends to us and you. It is them telling us how much they will pay and how much you need to pay.
  • Jane: This is the electronic health care and billing system we use to take chart notes and bill out you and the insurance company.

Here is our billing system, if it seems simple, that is on purpose:

  1. After your visit, we submit your claim to the insurance company electronically
  2. The insurance company takes the better part of a decade to do anything with it
  3. The insurance company sends us an EOB saying how much they will pay and how much you owe
  4. We enter that into Jane
  5. We send you a bill digitally or in the mail when we have real numbers back from the insurance
  6. Done

Insurance

We accept most major insurance plans as well as provide reduced costs to patients choosing to pay for services outside of insurance coverage.

Many of our peers choose to run a cash practice in order to avoid working with insurance companies. We believe that you already pay a lot of money for your healthcare and we want you to get as much out of it as possible. We also believe that it is important for us to work within healthcare to change their policies to recognize the value of our services. Unfortunately, many healthcare plans do not cover our amazing services or pay so little that we can not accept them. 

We currently accept the following insurance plans:
  • Fire and Police Disability and Retirement
  • Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield
  • Premera Blue Cross (BCBS of Washington)
  • ASH (American Specialty Health)
  • Providence
  • Moda
  • Cigna
  • Health Net
  • Pacific Source
  • EBMS
  • First Choice Health Network
  • BridgeSpan Health Company
  • Automotive Insurance (PIP)

If your insurance is not listed you may still have Out-of-Network (OON) coverage.

Healthcare Insurance is a complicated world. We would like to think we know insurance plans in and out, but we are surprised every day by them. As such, it is your responsibility to know and understand your insurance coverage and deductible amount. We recommend reaching out to your insurance provider prior to your appointment to understand how your insurance bills.

We have done our best to provide more information about billing here. Here is some terminology that may greatly simplify things when trying to understand your insurance:

  • In-Network (IN)This means that we have signed a contract with your insurance company and agree to charge our services based on their fee schedule
  • Fee Schedule: A list of services and how much an insurance company is willing to pay for those services.
  • Out-of-Network (OON): This means that we have NOT signed a contract with your insurance company. This is either because they pay so poorly for the services that we refuse to contract with them or, more likely, they are not allowing any more chiropractors to contract with them.
  • Deductible: This is how much you will need to pay before your insurance pays anything. You generally have a lower deductible for IN and a higher deductible OON.
  • Coinsurance: This means that your insurance will pay a certain percentage of the service and then you are responsible for the rest, even after you have met your deductible. They usually cover 80% for IN and 70% for OON. Please verify this with your insurance company.
  • Co-pay: Generally a small amount that you are required to pay for any visit to any provider
  • Office Visit Benefits: This applies to all visits. It is entirely independent of any other services. 
  • Chiropractic Benefits: If you have chiropractic benefits this means that you are ONLY covered for chiropractic manipulation. This does NOT include the movement therapy and soft tissue work that are a cornerstone of our treatment.
  • Physical Therapy Benefits: If you have physical therapy benefits this means you have coverage for movement therapy as well as soft tissue treatment (manual therapy).
  • CPT Code: A CPT code is a number that insurance companies use to label a treatment.
  • Unit: A unit is the amount of paid pieces being used. Generally speaking, a unit is a 15-minute block of a treatment being provided. We usually spend 30 minutes on movement therapy each visit, so this would be considered two units. Often times you may have a limit on units available under your healthcare plan.

Below, we have included the most common CPT codes, units, and costs used for an average follow up treatment.

  • 99213 – Established Patient Office Visit. One unit, $176.28.
  • 97530 – Therapeutic Exercise. $65.37 per unit.
    • This is a KEY component to treatment as our entire model of health is based on movement.
  • 97140 – Manual Therapy/Soft Tissue Mobilization. $47.54 per unit.
    • This allows us to focus on treating muscles and ligaments that may be contributing to your symptoms.
  • 98941 – Chiropractic Manipulative Therapy. $81.17 per unit.
    • This allows us to use traditional chiropractic treatment.  This service only covers joint manipulation to the spine.

So, lets put it all together.
A very common follow up treatment could be:

  • 1 unit of 99213.
  • 3 units of 97530.
  • 1 unit of 97140.
  • 1 unit of 98941.

This visit would use 1 Office Visit, a total of 4 units from your Physical Therapy Benefits and 1 unit from your Chiropractic Benefits.

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PORTLAND, OR
237 NE Broadway
Suite 245
Portland, OR 97232

VANCOUVER, WA
10303 NE Fourth Plain Blvd
Suite #105
Vancouver, WA 98662

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CONTACT

(503) 432-1061
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FAX: 888-416-2818

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