Services
Over the years, the patient-physician relationship in North America has become strained, rushed, and impersonal. People in British Columbia and throughout Canada with a variety of injuries and pain conditions often experience difficulty establishing care with a family medicine physician, wait an inordinate amount of time to see a specialist or subspecialist physician, and then frequently walk away after a shorter than expected appointment still unsure of their diagnosis and what comes next in terms of diagnostic testing and treatment. Direct private care with Dr. Best is looking to change the patient experience for the better!
Visit Types
With direct private care with Dr. Best, an initial comprehensive consultation is 50 minutes in duration. It will begin with a comprehensive history including all the usual physician questions along with discussion of additional important details such as sports activities, exercise regimen and training history, hobbies, nutrition, metabolic health, stress management, sleep habits, and, ultimately, goals for your care with Dr. Best. A thorough musculoskeletal and neurologic examination will then be performed followed by review of imaging and diagnostic testing, if already available. Dr. Best will then discuss his diagnosis or differential diagnosis (list of possible causes of a given painful issue) followed by detailed patient education about the condition(s) and a clear, often algorithmic list of next steps as it pertains to diagnostic testing and treatment. Dr. Best will discuss and provide educational resources for adjunct aspects to optimize one’s recovery including sleep, nutrition, metabolic health, stress management, mental health factors, lifestyle modifications, and exercise/training modifications.
Dr. Best wants his patients to feel as though they’ve established a truly positive and therapeutic patient-physician relationship where they will walk away from their visits armed with a greater degree of knowledge about their condition(s) and a clear picture of what next steps look like on the road to recovery.
In some cases, a person may have been previously evaluated by a healthcare professional and have an established diagnosis that requires a diagnostic or therapeutic injection or procedure. Frequently, the wait times for many of these procedures range from weeks to months or even years in the Greater Vancouver Area, which can delay both the diagnostic process as well as prolong the recovery from injury. Dr. Best, a physiatrist and interventional pain medicine physician, has the education, training, and experience to perform your procedure with precision and safety. He offers direct private access to perform a recommended or requested procedure with little to no wait time. These visits include a brief 30-minute consultation that includes a typical history, physical examination, review of diagnostic testing, discussion of procedural details, and completion of informed consent followed by performance of the requested injection or procedure. Check out the Procedures page to learn more about which injections and procedures Dr. Best performs to help get you back in the game today!
Follow up visits are typically 15-30 minutes depending on the anticipated scope or complexity of care required. Dr. Best has both in-person and virtual options available. These visits often entail updates regarding diagnostic testing results, the effects of medications, therapies (physiotherapy, chiropractic, athletic therapy, kinesiology, etc.), and/or injections/procedures as well as coaching and discussion about additional factors that can influence one’s recovery from an injury or painful condition. These factors may include including sleep, nutrition, metabolic health, stress management, mental health factors, lifestyle modifications, and exercise/training modifications.
Whether you’re out of town or need some additional flexibility in your life, virtual consultations and follow up visits are available via both video and telephone options. Because of the inability to perform a full physical examination, virtual visits don’t allow for quite the same level of diagnostic certainty relative to in-person evaluations. However, virtual visits remain a very viable option for initial consultations as they allow for a comprehensive history including all the usual physician questions as well as questions pertaining to sports activities, exercise regimen and training history, hobbies, nutrition, metabolic health, stress management, sleep habits, and, ultimately, goals for your care with Dr. Best. This is followed by review of imaging and diagnostic testing, if already available. Finally, Dr. Best will establish a diagnosis or differential diagnosis (list of possible causes of a given painful issue) followed by detailed patient education about the condition(s) and a clear, often algorithmic list of next steps as it pertains to diagnostic testing and treatment. Dr. Best will discuss and provide educational resources for adjunct aspects to optimize one’s recovery including sleep, nutrition, metabolic health, stress management, mental health factors, lifestyle modifications, and exercise/training modifications.
