We’d rather you stopped coming.
No twelve-month contracts. No pre-paid blocks of forty visits. No “maintenance” schedule that never ends. Your plan is written down at the first appointment and formally reviewed every fourth visit — and if it is not working by then, we say so and refer you on.
How this practice runs
Four facts about how appointments here are booked, reviewed and paid for. None of them is a claim about how your own problem will turn out.
Treating out of the same Martha St rooms.
Visit at which your plan is reviewed and compared in writing against where you started.
First visits that end in a referral rather than a treatment plan.
Contracts, pre-paid blocks or direct debits, ever.
What we don’t do
The complaints people have about chiropractic are mostly complaints about business models, not about treatment. Here is where we stand on each of them.
No pre-paid blocks
We do not sell twenty or forty visits up front at a discount. The discount only makes sense to the practice that has already banked your money, and it quietly commits you to treatment you may not need.
No contracts or direct debits
Nothing to sign, nothing to cancel, no minimum term and no exit fee. You pay for the appointment you just had.
No routine x-rays
Current guidelines do not support imaging most spinal pain without specific red flags. We have no machine on site and nothing to gain from sending you for a full spine series.
No claims beyond the spine
Chiropractic has reasonable evidence for spinal pain and certain headaches. It does not treat asthma, colic, ear infections or immune function, and we will not say otherwise.
No commission-based pay
Our practitioners are salaried. Nobody here earns more by booking you in more often, which removes the single biggest driver of over-servicing in this profession.
No endless maintenance
If you want a check-up every few months because it genuinely helps you, that is your call. We will not put you on a schedule and we will not ring you to chase it.
A checkpoint, in writing, every fourth visit
At visit four we measure the same things we measured at visit one and compare them side by side. You get a copy. Three outcomes, and we will tell you which one it is.
Roughly a fifth of the people we see get referred elsewhere at that point. That is not a failure — it is the review doing its job.
It is working — keep going
Measurable improvement against the baseline set at your first visit. We continue with the plan and set the next review at visit eight.
It is done — you are discharged
Problem resolved. You leave with the exercises that keep it that way, and nothing further is booked.
It is not working — you are referred
No meaningful change against the baseline means this is not the right treatment. You get a referral letter to a GP, physio or specialist, and the charging stops there.
Six things people come in with
Lower back pain
Acute episodes and the backs that have grumbled for years. The best-evidenced thing we do.
Neck pain & stiffness
Mobilisation, soft tissue work and the boring ergonomic conversation that actually fixes it.
Cervicogenic headache
Headaches that start in the neck and refer upward. Not migraine — we will tell you which you have.
Sciatica & nerve pain
Leg pain from a lumbar source. Assessed properly before anyone touches you, and referred if it needs it.
Shoulder, hip & knee
Peripheral joints and the soft tissue around them. Often a strength problem dressed up as a joint problem.
Pregnancy-related back pain
Modified low-force techniques and pelvic support. Common, treatable, and not something to put up with.
Pay per visit. That’s the only option here.
There is no discount for buying ten up front, because we do not sell ten up front. If you improve in three visits you pay for three visits.
First visit
Fifty minutes. Examination and treatment in the same visit, with a written plan before you leave.
Standard visit
Every follow-up, twenty minutes. No separate charge for the technique used on the day.
Who’s treating you
Three chiropractors, each salaried rather than paid by the visit. You are booked with a person, not with the practice.
Dr Nathan Broome
BAppSc, MClinChiro
Dr Priya Raval
BChiroSc, MChiro
Dr Liam Ottey
BSc, MClinChiro
The awkward questions
The things people ask before they book.
Will I be told I need forty visits?
No. Nobody is quoted a number of visits before being examined. You get a written estimate at the end of the first appointment, and the plan is reviewed formally every fourth visit — if it is not working by then we say so and refer you on, rather than keep booking you in.
Do I need x-rays first?
Almost certainly not. Current guidelines do not support imaging most spinal pain in the absence of specific red flags, and a full spine series carries a meaningful radiation dose. We have no x-ray machine here, so there is nothing in it for us either way. Where imaging is genuinely indicated we refer you to bulk-billed radiology.
Is chiropractic evidence-based?
For spinal pain and certain headache types, spinal manipulation performs about as well as other manual therapies and better than doing nothing — that is a fair summary of the research. For anything outside the musculoskeletal system, the evidence is not there, and any practice claiming to treat asthma, colic or immune function is going well beyond what the literature supports.
Is it safe? What about neck manipulation?
The common adverse effect is soreness for a day or two, which around a third of people get. Serious complications are rare but not zero, and the risk associated with upper cervical manipulation specifically is genuinely debated inside the profession. You will always be told what is planned and why, and mobilisation or soft tissue work is available instead — declining a technique changes nothing about your fee or your plan.
Do I need a GP referral?
Not to see us. A referral only matters if you want the Medicare rebate through a chronic disease care plan, which gives you five subsidised visits a calendar year with a $23 gap each. Without one you simply pay the fee and claim on your extras if you have them.
New patients usually seen within two days
No referral needed. Ring between 7am and 6pm and whoever is on the desk will find you a slot.