Some back and neck pain needs a doctor today, not a chiropractor. Some back and neck pain is not a case for a chiropractor and needs a doctor the same day. Go to an emergency room, not to us, if you have numbness in the groin or inner thighs, if you have lost control of your bladder or bowels, if a leg is becoming weak rather than just painful, if the pain followed a serious fall or a car crash, if you have a fever with back pain, if you have unexplained weight loss alongside it, if you have a history of cancer, or if a headache came on suddenly and is the worst you have ever had. We would rather you rang your doctor and never rang us at all.
A collision does something to a body that ordinary life does not: it applies a large force very quickly, in a direction nobody braced for. That produces a characteristic pattern — neck and upper back pain that is frequently worse on the second or third day than on the day itself, headaches, stiffness that spreads across the shoulders, sometimes low back pain, and a general sense of having been shaken that people find hard to describe. Almost everyone underestimates it in the first twenty-four hours because adrenaline is doing its job.
Getting examined early matters for two separate reasons. Clinically, a proper baseline lets us track whether things are improving on schedule and catch the small number of cases that are not. Practically, an accurate record from the first visit is what an insurer or an attorney will later rely on, and a gap of several weeks between the collision and the first examination is something that gets used against people. We document what we find from the beginning, in detail, whether or not anybody ever asks for it.
The other half of this page is administrative, because in New York a motor vehicle injury is usually billed to no-fault insurance rather than to your health plan, and no-fault has its own forms and its own deadlines. Some of them are short. Tell us at the first appointment that this was a collision and we will go through the paperwork with you rather than leaving you to discover a deadline after it has passed. The insurance page sets out the billing.
The first forty-eight hours
What to do, in order, starting from the roadside.
Get medically assessed if anything is serious
Loss of consciousness, confusion, a headache that is severe or worsening, vomiting, neck pain with numbness or weakness, chest or abdominal pain, or difficulty breathing all mean an emergency room rather than a chiropractor. We are not the first stop after a significant collision and we will not pretend otherwise. Come to us afterwards.
Expect it to be worse tomorrow
Neck and back symptoms after a collision commonly peak on day two or three rather than on the day. Feeling all right at the scene is not evidence that you were not injured, and it catches out people who declined assessment because they felt fine. If you felt fine and now do not, that is the normal pattern rather than something new.
Report it and keep the numbers
Police report, insurer claim number, the other driver's details, photographs of the vehicles. The claim number is the thing we need to bill correctly, and chasing it three weeks later is considerably harder than writing it down on the day.
Get examined and documented
Within days rather than weeks. The examination establishes a baseline, and the record it produces is what everything else later rests on. Bring whatever the hospital gave you if you were seen, along with your insurance details and the claim number.
How we treat it
Gently at first, then progressively — and with a clear view of what should be improving by when.
Early: settle and move
In the first days the aim is to reduce pain and keep the neck and back gently moving. Immobilising a neck after a collision was standard practice for years and it produced worse outcomes than early gentle movement does. Treatment is mobilisation and soft-tissue work rather than vigorous manipulation, and it is chosen to be tolerable rather than impressive.
Then: restore range
As the acute irritability settles, the work shifts to getting full rotation and side-bending back, releasing the muscle that has been guarding across the shoulders, and dealing with the headaches that frequently come with it. Most people notice steady improvement through this phase, and it is where most of the visits fall.
Then: rebuild
Deep neck strength, shoulder blade control and general conditioning. This is the phase that determines whether somebody is still stiff and sore in six months, and it is the phase most often abandoned because the worst of the pain has gone. It is short, it is dull, and it matters.
Throughout: document
Findings, measurements, what changed and what did not, at every visit. If a report is later needed for an insurer or an attorney we can produce one from real contemporaneous notes rather than from memory. That report is priced on the fees page and it is the only thing on this page billed separately.
How the billing works in New York
Different from ordinary care, and worth understanding before rather than after.
No-fault, not your health plan
In New York, treatment for injuries from a motor vehicle collision is generally covered by no-fault insurance regardless of who caused the crash, and it is billed to the vehicle insurer rather than to your health plan. This surprises people, and it means the details we need at the first visit are different from the ones we usually ask for.
The deadlines are real and short
No-fault has a claim application that must be filed within a limited window after the collision, and missing it can cost the whole claim. This is the single most common way people lose coverage they were entitled to. Tell us it was a collision when you book and we will make sure the form is in.
What we need from you
The claim number, the insurer, the date of the collision, the police report number if there is one, and the name of any attorney representing you. Bring it to the first appointment. We handle the billing from there and you should not be paying us out of pocket for covered treatment.
If you are represented
We will correspond with your attorney and provide records and reports on request. That is normal and it does not change how you are treated clinically — the treatment plan is decided on what your examination shows, and it is not lengthened because a claim exists. We would rather discharge you on time than pad a file.
Auto Accident Care in western Queens
Care after a collision, documented properly from the first visit. In New York, no-fault insurance usually covers this rather than your health plan — and some of its deadlines are short.
Every course of care here starts the same way: a full hour, a proper history, an examination, and then a plain statement of what we think is going on and how confident we are about it. You are told what we propose, roughly how many visits it ought to take and what should have changed by when — and we agree a date to stop and look at whether it worked. If the honest answer at any point is that this needs somebody else, you get that instead, and we write to them the same week.
Chiropractic care is not a substitute for medical diagnosis. Chiropractic care is not a substitute for medical diagnosis, and nothing on this website is medical advice for your particular problem. We are not physicians: we do not prescribe medication, we do not perform surgery, and we do not treat disease. What we do is examine how your spine and joints move, work on them by hand, and give you something to do between visits. If your problem turns out to be outside that, we say so and refer you — which happens often enough that you should expect it as a normal outcome rather than a failure.
What chiropractic does not treat. We treat musculoskeletal problems: the spine, the joints, the muscles and the nerves that are irritated by them. We do not claim that adjusting a spine treats asthma, allergies, ear infections, colic, digestive disease, high blood pressure, infertility, immune function or any other internal illness. Chiropractors who make those claims are making them without good evidence, and you should be wary of anybody who does. If somebody has told you that spinal care will fix a condition on that list, we will tell you honestly that it will not.
Questions
Auto Accident Care — the questions we are asked most
I felt fine at the scene. Should I still get checked?
Yes, and this is the most common mistake people make. Neck and back symptoms after a collision typically peak on the second or third day rather than on the day itself, because adrenaline masks a great deal at the time. Getting examined within days rather than weeks gives you a clinical baseline and a contemporaneous record, and a long gap between the collision and the first examination is something insurers routinely use to dispute claims.
Will my health insurance pay for this?
Usually it is not your health insurance at all. In New York, injuries from a motor vehicle collision are generally covered by no-fault insurance through the vehicle's policy, regardless of fault, and billed there instead. It has its own claim form with a short filing deadline. Tell us it was a collision when you book, bring the claim number, and we will go through the paperwork with you.
Do I need a lawyer?
That is not our call and we do not refer anybody to one — a clinic that routes patients to particular attorneys has an interest that is not yours. Plenty of people handle a straightforward no-fault claim without representation. If you do instruct someone, tell us and we will provide records and reports on request. Your treatment plan is decided by your examination either way.
How long does whiplash take to settle?
Most people improve substantially over six to twelve weeks, and a minority take longer or have symptoms that persist. The things that predict a slower recovery are high initial pain, a lot of movement restriction early on, and — genuinely — how frightened somebody is about the injury, which is one reason we explain what is going on rather than leaving people to imagine it. The whiplash care page goes further.
Is it safe to be adjusted after a car accident?
Not immediately, in most cases, and not with vigorous technique. Early on we use mobilisation and soft-tissue work rather than high-velocity manipulation, and we do not touch a neck at all until a fracture and any neurological problem have been excluded. If you have not been medically assessed and you have neck pain with numbness, weakness or a severe headache, go to an emergency room first.
Will you keep treating me as long as the insurance pays?
No. The treatment plan comes from your examination and it ends when you are better, whether or not there is coverage remaining. We agree a review date at the first visit as we do with everybody, and we would rather discharge you on time than keep a file open. A clinic whose treatment length tracks the available coverage is not treating you, it is billing you.
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Book an appointment
Pick a chiropractor and an hour from the calendar — it shows only the times each of them genuinely has free. A first visit is a full hour and costs $95 for the examination on its own, or $145 if we treat you at the same appointment. You decide which after the examination, not before.