What to Expect

What to Expect

At Burien Wellness, our goal is to find the cause behind any health problems that are keeping you from experiencing life at its fullest.

On your first visit, we’ll do an overall health evaluation that may include x-rays and computerized nerve scans.

On the following visit, Dr. Collins will go over the results with you, then discuss a plan for you and your family to get started on the path to wellness. If you choose to receive chiropractic treatment at our office, you and your family will attend our New Patient Orientation to learn more about chiropractic health and how you can get the most out of your time with us.

Above all, expect to be greeted with a smile and treated as the amazing person you are!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is your purpose?

For Burien to be the healthiest place on earth.

What is your mission?

To shift the health paradigm from one of a sickness model (if you’re broke we fix you) to a family health paradigm (you were born to be healthy and it starts at birth and continues through a series of choices you make about your health).

What is your commitment?

It’s not just 9-5. The people who work here are committed to our health mission and to the future of Burien.

What is your patient philosophy?

You were born to be healthy. You get to choose how much of that you want.

What is your team's objective?

To make this part of your day the best part of your day every time you come in.

What sets you apart?

What sets us apart is our why.  Rather than wait around for people in our community to have their bodies break down, then come in to try to restore health in places where it has been lost, we subscribe to the idea that if we are able to check kids and find symptomless problems before they become big, noticeable problems, you can make a lot of impact with just a little bit of work. So we have developed our whole model around that.  We have a suite in our office designed just for small children to get checked and adjusted in.  The technology that we use to examine patients is very kid-friendly.  We also have a nursing mom’s room for mothers to have an opportunity to quietly nurse, which can be especially important after an adjustment.   Our team is very much enamored with this mission and they love to be a part of your family’s health care.  They light up when families come in.  So your kids are not an annoyance to us.  Your kids are the reason we are doing this.  If you are going to go about trying to create the healthiest community on the planet, the place to start is with pregnant mothers and kids.

What can your patients expect?

Patients can expect us to be truthful and fair and that we will ask as much of them as we ask of ourselves in terms of them being healthy and getting better.  We will try to do an unbelievably good job but we will ask you to do the same.

What are common misconceptions about what you do?

That chiropractic is for neck and back pain (not that they won’t benefit from chiropractic care if they are in pain but it’s not for that…the only reason we adjust the neck and back is to affect the nervous system).   We don’t control whether or not symptoms go away, but we do remove interference to the nervous system and increase your likelihood of your body being able to heal itself.  The other major misconception that chiropractic care is expensive.  If you compare it to any other healthcare out there, you get more bang for your buck out of chiropractic care than anything else out there.

Can chiropractic help with (insert condition here)?

The answer is that when your nervous system isn’t working properly you can have trouble anywhere in your body, by the same token when you remove interference you can experience healing anywhere in the body.  We don’t treat conditions, we treat people.  We treat the whole person.

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When will I be done with care?

The field of chiropractic has more in common with dentistry than medicine. Just like your dentist works for you, we do too so you can quit any time you want.  But once the symptoms are gone people continue with dental care for their overall health. Chiropractic care works the same way: if you want to patch one problem after another for life you can, but if you want to stay healthy for the rest of your life chiropractic care should be part of your wellness plan. Keeping your nervous system functioning optimally is a lifelong choice.

Why is it so positive in your office all the time?

Seriously…people ask us that! It is because we have tapped in to the idea that you can’t help people who are at or above the level you are at with your health. You have to aim high.  We have bad days just like everybody else but if we allow that to become part of your day, it makes it really difficult for you to have an environment to heal in.  So we consciously seek to hire happy people. Our attitude in the office is a reflection of our attitude about health.  We take our attitude about health really seriously…because your life depends on it.

What is chiropractic care?

Chiropractic care is a natural method of health care that focuses on treating the causes of physical problems, rather than just treating the symptoms. Chiropractic is based on a simple but powerful premise: with a normally functioning spine and healthy nerve system, your body is better able to heal itself. That’s because your spine is the lifeline of your nervous system. It controls feeling, movement, and all function through your body.

How does chiropractic work?

Chiropractic works by restoring your body’s innate ability to regulate itself and function at peak capacity. Your nervous system controls all the cells, tissues, and organs of your body and they were designed to resist disease and poor health. The chiropractic approach to improving health is to locate and remove interferences (subluxations, misaligned vertebrae) to your nervous system. Correcting spinal alignment and restoring normal tone to your nerves allows them to signal to your body how to operate everything from immune function to digestion and elimination. The goal of the chiropractor is to remove interference that may be impairing optimal health through specific chiropractic adjustments, allowing your body to heal itself.

What is a chiropractic adjustment?

A chiropractic adjustment is the art of using a specific force in a precise direction, applied to a joint that is subluxated, “locked up,” or not moving properly. The purpose of this safe and natural procedure is to eliminate interference to the nervous system, improving spinal function and overall health.

Do you adjust kids?

Yes! Since significant spinal trauma can occur at birth, many parents have their newborns checked for vertebral subluxation. Naturally, chiropractic adjusting procedures are adapted for the child’s spine. Anyone can become subluxated, resulting in decreased nervous system function, and that includes children. When we stop looking at chiropractic as being care for simply back or neck pain and start looking at what chiropractic actually does at its core, which is to remove the kind of interference to the nervous system that results in uncomfortable symptoms over time, it makes sense that it is imperative that we get kids checked by a chiropractor regularly. Health problems that emerge in adulthood could often be prevented by having your child’s spine checked by a chiropractor early.

What causes the sound during an adjustment?

Actually, adjustments do not always produce a sound. Often, however, adjustments do create the sound of a spinal “release,” or “popping” sound. The sound is caused by gas rushing in to fill the partial vacuum created when the joints are slightly separated. This sound is painless and totally harmless.

Do you take insurance?

Collins Chiropractic is a preferred health provider on most insurance plans. We are happy to verify your benefits for you. But ultimately your treatment plan should be determined by you and your doctor, not what your insurance company dictates. We live in a time when we must actively seek out healthy options, not just settle for what the insurance industry allows.

Is it true that once I start seeing a chiropractor I will get addicted and keep needing to go back?

This one makes us laugh. If wishing to continue feeling healthy and energetic is addictive, then yes, you’ll probably keep coming back. We would suggest coming back to the chiropractor regularly to maintain spinal health the way a dentist would recommend brushing and flossing more than just the one time to keep your teeth healthy. But the decision to continue lifelong care of your nervous system is, of course, always yours.