Logan University recently began its third partnership with a federally qualified community health care provider to meet the demands for alternative healthcare to address musculoskeletal conditions in their patients.
Chiropractic services began in April at Affinia Healthcare’s 1717 Biddle St. location, where Logan is seeing about 60 patients a week.
“We see mostly back pain and neck pain and the rest of it is extremity complaints – shoulder pain, knee pain and hip pain, predominantly,” said Patrick Battaglia, DC, Logan’s lead clinician at Affinia.
“Once the primary care docs started realizing we could start managing conditions outside of the spine, then that opened up the referrals as well. It’s nice to have a conservative, non-drug, non-surgery option to manage that complaint.”
Battaglia said they also implement “active care” of a patient’s condition.
“We kind of teach them how to self-manage their care as well if the pain does recur, rather than feel they have no options rather than popping a pill.”
Overseeing chiropractic care is Barry Wiese, DC, director of Community Health and Hospital Partnerships at Logan.
Wiese said, “We look forward to being a vital component of their health care system and making a difference in the lives of the patients we treat.”
In addition to Affinia, Logan provides chiropractic care to patients of Family Care Health Centers and to Myrtle Hilliard Davis Comprehensive Health Centers, where its CEO, Angela Clabon, said “chiropractic services had been phenomenal” for them.
“We have now expanded our services to two more health center sites. As you know, the opioid crisis is real in our community and it has been determined that lack of access to pain management providers impacts this crisis,” said Clabon.
“Having the partnership with Logan has afforded us the opportunity to help our patients/community in a very creative way with this crisis. Watching this opioid crisis escalate brings me to tears, but participating in the chiropractic integration pilot project places a smile on my heart. It’s a miracle for our community to bring this to them free of charge.”
