Why choose an integrative medical approach for your health care needs?

Have you ever experienced a scenario like this one?  You have a problem that is affecting your life.  You call to get an appointment to see about getting it fixed, only to be scheduled 2 months out.  You decide to go ahead and wait for the appointment.  The day finally comes and you go into the office to finally get an answer!  Now, you have to wait for an hour to see the doctor.  Once you have finally gotten back to a room, the doctor finally comes in.  However, you come away from the appointment frustrated and hopeless, because the doctor never seemed to listen and just said you should have surgery (even though you said that was the one thing you wanted to avoid), and did not give you any other options for treatment.  All the doctor said was to call him when you were ready to take care of it. 

Has this happened to you?  You may want to go get a second opinion, but to wait through another 2 months of pain and anguish may be too much!  This is exactly why an integrative medical approach is the best route for your healthcare needs.  There are a multitude of benefits at an integrative health center, but here are three that stand out:

            1)  A team of doctors work together under one roof to assist with your needs.

            2)  They can provide more diverse treatment plans.

            3)  They can generate better outcomes.

Let’s break these down a little more and explain.

1)  A team of doctors work together under one roof to assist with your needs. 

In an integrative office, a team of doctors work together to assist the patient’s needs.  Have you ever been frustrated because all of the different doctors that you have to go to don’t seem to know what each other are doing, and sometimes it even feels like they don’t care?  Take a patient with lower extremity pain.  This person has pain in the lower back/hip region, knee and foot.  The podiatrist says it’s a foot problem, the orthopedist says it’s a knee issue, the physical therapist is positive it’s the hip, and the chiropractor is certain it’s a back issue.  Who is right?  Which advice should you take?  It is an extremely hard and frustrating place to be in. 

You remember the saying, “two heads are better than one”?  It’s true.  In an integrative office, a team of doctors will look over a case and determine what the best courses of treatment are, based off of the patient's goals.    Having some of the best minds in healthcare (all from different backgrounds) looking at your case and determining what treatment is best for you helps you determine your path toward health and really know what options are available, and what are best for you. 

2)  They can provide more diverse treatment plans

An integrative office isn’t pigeon-holed into providing just one type of care.  It is able to offer many more treatment options to its patients.  In the past, I have had patients come to me frustrated because they hadn’t seen any improvement even though they have spent a lot of time and money on their problem.  After investigating, I realized that they had been going to the same doctor, who had been performing the same treatment for over 54 visits without the patient getting better.  It doesn’t matter how good the treatment is; if the patient is not improving, then it isn’t the right treatment for the patient.

Many doctors can fall into this trap.  Medical doctors can often speed through a visit and prescribe medications without assessing the full clinical picture, and, therefore prescribe medication that the patient doesn’t fully need.  Surgeons can move too quickly to cut before assessing all of the treatment options available. Physical Therapists can get a patient set up on a list of exercises that may not be handling the cause of the issue and just addresses the effects.  Chiropractors can fall into providing the same adjustments over and over. 

An integrative office provides a team-centered approach that utilizes a multitude of different services to assist a patient in achieving optimal health.   The team of doctors can determine what options are best and will provide the greatest improvement, and (if for some reason) the patient isn’t improving as expected, can change the treatment to achieve the results that everyone wants.

3)  They can generate better outcomes

As mentioned above, an integrative health center provides a team-centered approach utilizing some of the best doctors around that have joined up to provide the best healthcare possible.  The team-centered approach helps get everyone on the same page with your health care.  In addition, the doctors are always being pushed to excel on a daily basis.  In an integrative office, every doctor is expected to explain and back up the services that they are providing for this patient.  The team of doctors question each other daily on the services and outcomes of the patient, all with the intention of getting the patient back to optimal health and achieving the goals that the patient came in with.  Because of this continued push toward excellence, an integrative office has better clinical outcomes and is able to help a patient to a much greater degree.

Therefore, don’t just follow the guidance of your doctor if you aren’t achieving great results.  There are other options.  An integrative office provides those options all under one roof to help achieve the best results possible and get you back to enjoying life again. At Natural State Health Center, we've worked to assemble a team that will bring their skills and services to the table, to provide the best care possible for you. If you're looking for care in Little Rock or Central Arkansas, our team is ready to meet with you.