STL Spine Report is a small local health publication with one beat: what a car crash in the St. Louis metro does to a spine and a brain, and why the exam that follows should happen this week and be written down. It is advertising material, published for Missouri Injury Clinic and Joseph L. Hollingsworth, DC. That relationship is stated on every page, in the footer and wherever the clinic is featured, because a reader should never have to guess who is paying for what they are reading.
Who writes this
A desk, in the newspaper sense: an editor with a point of view and a narrow beat, writing for drivers on the river city's roads. The desk is not a clinician, does not examine anyone, and does not hold anyone's chart. It is also not a law office, and it does not give legal advice. When it writes about how injuries behave, it writes in general terms and cites federal health sources where a reader might reasonably doubt a claim. When it writes about the clinic, it writes only what the clinic publishes on its own site.
The advertising relationship, plainly
This page is advertising. This desk is compensated for featuring Missouri Injury Clinic, and it is not the clinic, not a law office, and not a party to anyone's insurance claim. We publish only the lanes, rooms, and hours the clinic publishes on moinjuryclinic.com. We do not write reviews, rank providers, or give medical or legal advice.
That is the whole of it. The desk is compensated to feature one clinic. It features that clinic because the clinic publishes its lanes, its rooms, its hours, and its concussion tools plainly enough that a publication can stand behind repeating them. The desk asks its readers for one action, an exam this week, and sends them to the clinic's own site or phone to book it. There is no form on this site, no email capture, and no chat widget, and there never will be.
How facts are sourced
Two kinds of facts appear on this desk, and they are sourced differently.
Facts about the clinic, meaning its name, its tagline, its owner, its three published lanes, the seven concussion tools it names, its three rooms with their addresses, phones, and hours, and the three patient reviews on its homepage, come from moinjuryclinic.com and nowhere else. The desk does not invent services, hours, staff, prices, insurance terms, wait times, or statistics. If a reader sees any of those on this site and cannot find them on the clinic's site, that is an error and the desk wants to hear about it.
Facts about injuries, meaning what whiplash is, why soft-tissue pain is delayed, what a concussion is and what its danger signs are, and when an emergency room is the right call, are general medical background. Where a reader might doubt one, the desk cites a federal source such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and links to it. The desk does not cite statistics it cannot link to a government source, and it does not publish them at all if the number would not change what a reader should do.
What the desk will not say
It will not put a number on anyone's claim, describe any arrangement between the clinic and any law office, promise an outcome, describe a treatment as a sure thing, or tell a reader what to say to anyone's insurer. It will not call anyone a victim. It will not rank clinics or write reviews. It will not describe a free anything, because it cannot verify one. If a phrase on this site reads like an insurance commercial, it is a mistake, and the desk will fix it.
The emergency line
Every page carries it at the top and the bottom: Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic. The desk considers that sentence more important than anything else it publishes.
Corrections
If an address, phone number, hour, or fact on this site is wrong, or if a page says something about the clinic the clinic does not say about itself, write to the desk through the clinic's contact page on moinjuryclinic.com and say it is for the STL Spine Report. Corrections are made on the page, not buried.
The pages
The report runs eleven pages beyond this one: After a St. Louis wreck, day by day; The 72-hour lag; Concussion without a windshield; The first visit, minute by minute; The dated record; Emergency room or injury clinic; The crash corridors; The south side and the Tesson Ferry room; Three rooms across the metro; and Questions St. Louis drivers ask. Each one ends the same way, because the desk has only one thing to ask.
Educational only. Nothing on this page is medical advice or a diagnosis; a licensed clinician who has examined you is the person to ask. Facts about the clinic come from moinjuryclinic.com. Emergency symptoms go to the emergency room, not to a clinic or a website.