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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT ARE THE RISKS OR THESE TREATMENTS?
There are very few risks involved. You will likely be sore for a few days after the procedure. Infection is within the realm of possibility but is almost unheard of in the Regenerative Pain Medicine community. RIT, PRP, and ASC are conservative approaches to treating pain unlike surgery that might help, but it might make it worse. You can always have surgery, but you can’t “un-have” it. These procedures will not make your condition worse unless the practitioner is not properly trained. Dr Adelson is properly trained. Over his entire career (over 10 years, over 2,000 patients, over 10,000 procedures) he has never caused a serious adverse outcome.
HOW MANY TREATMENTS WILL I REQUIRE AND HOW OFTEN WILL I RECEIVE THEM?
Most people require two to six treatments to achieve the desired result. Each treatment is spaced approximately three to six weeks apart and then you may desire an additional single ‘tune-up’ treatment once per year.
HOW WILL I FEEL IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TREATMENT?
While the treatment itself is not very painful because local anesthetics are used, after the procedure, you will have localized soreness and discomfort, especially after bone marrow aspiration. Most patients find over the counter medications and rest sufficient to help with the pain.
HOW SOON WILL I NOTICE IMPROVEMENT?
These therapies stimulate the growth and repair connective tissues requiring time. Typically, patients notice improvement after two weeks and continue to notice continual improvement months after the treatment.
I HATE NEEDLES AND AM NERVOUS ABOUT HAVING THESE PROCEDURES DONE. WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP WITH MY ANXIETY?
We offer you nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to help get you past the anxiety. Many people chose not to use it, but those who do, very much appreciate it. The huge advantage of laughing gas is that it completely wears off within a minute of turning it off and running pure oxygen. Some clinics offer intravenous medications during the procedure, the same drugs used during colonoscopy. We do not like these medications because one of the biggest risks of these therapies is injecting fluid directly into a nerve and if the patient is “too far under”, they may not let us know if the needle is in a nerve. “Poking” a nerve with a needle is not a problem, but injecting fluid directly into a nerve can be a very serious problem. We’ve had patients in our clinic who have had this very thing happen to them in other clinics when these drugs have been used and suffer from chronic nerve pain as a result.
DOES INSURANCE COVER THESE PROCEDURES?
RIT, PRP, and ASC are considered experimental procedures. While most insurance companies will pay for PRP or ASC when used by a surgeon in conjunction with surgery, they generally do not pay when used alone. For this reason, Docere Clinics has a ‘fee at the time of service’ policy.
Some clinics that offer RIT, PRP, and ASC today list on their websites the insurance plans they accept, but usually these clinics will only submit for the consultation and anesthetic/steroid injections. They require fee at the time of service for RIT, PRP, and ASC. It is best to check with both your insurance company and any clinic you are considering. Please read about The Docere Clinics Advantage to learn more about how we are able to charge often less than half the amount of other clinics.
When Docere Clinics opened in 2002, we were one of five RIT/Prolotherapy clinics in the greater Salt Lake City area and of the five, the only one that did not bill insurance. Over the next four years, one of the largest insurance companies in the US told the four other Salt Lake area clinics (and many more around the country) that they had paid their doctors “by accident”, despite many letters of pre-authorization. They demanded the money back from the three years leading up to that date (three years is the statute), accused them of fraudulent billing (a federal offence) and threatened legal action (and in fact did pursue legal action against one Utah doctor and many more around the country). The Utah doctors, all friends of Dr. Adelson, were all driven out of private practice. Because insurance companies have enormous full-time legal staff, fighting them in court would have been a losing prospect and financial suicide. This was a terrible time for the RIT/prolotherapy community in Utah and nationwide. Because of its payment policy, Docere Clinics was the only Salt Lake City area clinic spared.
WHAT IS AN ND?
Dr Adelson is a Naturopathic Physician (ND). After a receiving a bachelor’s degree at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, he underwent a four-year ND program at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon. This was followed by one year of post-graduate medical education at the Yale/Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut under the supervision of David L. Katz, MD, MPH and then an additional year as clinical faculty at University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine before opening Docere Clinics. He holds licenses to practice Naturopathic Medicine in Utah and Oregon and he is licensed with the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Utah and Oregon grant NDs broad scopes of practice and Dr Adelson is authorized to perform RIT, PRP, and ASC. For more information on his qualifications, please see About Dr Adelson.
WHERE DID DR. ADELSON LEARN TO INJECT?
While still in naturopathic school in 1995 - 1999, Dr. Adelson was cured of an injury with RIT/Prolotherapy by the since deceased and very much missed Richard Bachrach, DO. He decided from that experience that he would devote himself to Regenerative Pain Medicine. He underwent training in RIT/Prolotherapy from the American Association of Orthopeadic Medicine, the American Academy of Musculoskeletal Medicine, the American Academy of Osteopathy, and from his mentor, Rick Marinelli, ND. During his years in Connecticut in 2000 - 2002, he volunteered after working hours in a large homeless shelter in Bridgeport offering RIT/Prolotherapy to its residents. In addition to providing Regenerative Pain Medicine to those living in pain that could otherwise not afford these services, this allowed him to perform several hundred RIT/Prolotherapy procedures before he opened the doors of Docere Clinics.
WHAT DOES ROSS HAUSER, MD THINK OF DR. ADELSON’S WORK?
“Harry Adelson and I have shared clients over the years. I consider him one of the most innovative Prolotherapists in the country today. His work on stem cell and bone marrow prolotherapy will likely make this therapy available to the masses, who through trauma and subsequent injury have marked joint degeneration. I look forward to the publication of his work.”
Ross A. Hauser, MD
Medical Director, Caring Medical & Rehabilitation Services
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Prolotherapy
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