With the advancements of digital x-ray technology, it’s common for chiropractors to ask if now is the time to add digital x-ray to their practice. While there are numerous advantages to adding digital x-ray to your chiropractic practice, here are my top three reasons you should consider adding digital x-rays to your practice.
Digital x-rays can help chiropractors to:
- Improve patient care
- Improve patient records.
- Improve patient education and treatment planning.
Improve Patient Care
Digital x-rays help chiropractors obtain key information to help guide personalized treatment planning. A digital x-ray can help a chiropractor identify conditions and abnormalities a patient may have that are impacting their symptoms such as scoliosis, arthritis, and other conditions affecting the joints and spine that may impact the recommended treatments for a patient. High-quality digital x-rays can allow a provider to give a more tailored approach to their care and potentially avoid treatment options that may not be safe or beneficial for patients with certain conditions.
Improve Patient Records
Digital x-rays can allow Chiropractors to better document a patient’s baseline and track progress. With advancements in digital x-ray software, chiropractors can take precise measurements to provide a more accurate assessment of a patient's baseline. Digital x-rays can also allow a provider to track a patient’s progress with treatments.
With digital x-rays, it is easier to store and even share your x-ray records with other providers should you need to coordinate care with a patient’s primary care provider or other physicians. Digital x-rays for a chiropractic office are often stored on a mini PACS system, that is typically the size of a computer CPU. Digital x-ray images can also be stored remotely in a cloud-based PACS system.
Improve Patient Education and Treatment Planning
The data obtained by chiropractic digital x-rays can be extremely helpful when it comes time to educate a patient on their condition and help explain treatment plan options. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the case of digital x-ray, the images really do help to tell the story of what is going on in a patient’s body by providing a visual representation of the patient’s symptom source.
Often, a single adjustment or treatment may not be enough to fully address a patient’s chiropractic needs. Depending on a patient’s individual needs, an effective care plan may involve a series of visits that require both a time and financial investment for the patient. Having a digital x-ray image that shows the source of a patient’s symptoms can be extremely helpful in getting a patient on board with committing to invest in an extended treatment plan.
If you are looking to add digital x-ray to your chiropractic practice, our team can work with you to customize your digital x-ray system based on your specific needs and budget. For more information on chiropractic digital x-ray systems, please click here to download our Chiropractors Buyers Guide. If you are interested in receiving a quote, please click here.
