Specialized Spine Care was created by Jennifer Halloran and her husband, Rick. Jen is a physical therapist who has worked with patients with spine pain for 23 years, both at Physicians Neck and Back Clinics in the Twin Cities and the last 15 years here in Sartell until that clinic closed. Once that clinic closed, she and Rick decided to open their own clinic along with several of the other staff from PNBC to continue to provide their highly effective physical therapy treatment for spine pain to those in central Minnesota.

Jennifer Halloran graduated in 1997 from St. Mary's University with an undergraduate degree in Biology: Pre-Physical Therapy. She later went on to the College of St. Catherine and earned her Masters in Physical Therapy in 2002. During her graduate education she worked as an Aide at Physicians Neck and Back Clinics and then continued to work there after getting her degree because she could see how effective the program was for those with neck and back pain, much more effective than the traditional physical therapy that she had been doing throughout her clinicals. She had also endured chronic recurrent low back pain and leg pain throughout college and later neck pain and arm pain in graduate school. She treated herself with the program used in that clinic and her pain was resolved in both areas. For this reason, once she graduated from PT school she decided to continue to work for Physicians Neck and Back Clinics and now wants to carry on that program in this new clinic to help others fight back at their neck and back pain and WIN!

So what makes this program so effective? This program addresses the cause of spinal pain rather than the pain itself, spinal weakness. The initial cause of pain can be due to many things, doing activities with poor posture or body mechanics, lifting something too heavy or awkwardly, a fall, slipping on the ice, having to hold your head in one position for too long, sitting at a kitchen table in an uncomfortable kitchen chair working on a laptop for a full workday or school day during COVID, or it can be a gradual progression from tightness to pain over several years. The longer the duration of pain and the more severe the pain gets, even if it comes and goes, the more we find ways to compensate to avoid it. When we compensate, we put increased stress on surrounding areas and start to lose strength in the muscles that we have been protecting. Then when we need that strength to hold our heads flexed to read, to look over our shoulder to merge into traffic, get up from a sitting position, hold a leaning position over a counter to make a meal, or to pick up a child it causes increased pain because the muscle strength and support isn't there. This program rebuilds that spinal strength using very specialized strengthening machines that prevent compensation from the surrounding muscles that would otherwise do the work. Once the spinal strength gets back to the level it was prior to having pain, the pain is typically significantly reduced and sometimes even completely resolved.

Specialized Spine Care accepts most insurances, but there is also a "cash pay" option for those who have insurance that we do not accept. With the Cash Pay option, we will not bill out services to insurance, but rather directly to the patient. To most, this sounds like it would be much more expensive, but in reality it is very similar and sometimes even less cost to the patient because each visit is billed at a flat fee. That flat fee needs to be paid at the time of the visit and because it is, a same day discount can be applied making the amount owed significantly less. By taking insurance out of the equation, the patient can get immediate treatment and insurance cannot deny treatment because we are Out of Network. The best part is that the patient can still submit their bill for each visit to their insurance and potentially get reimbursed to some extent. This is not guaranteed and the amount that is reimbursed is based on each insurance company's out of network benefits. Click here for Out of network benefit for questions to ask your insurance about out of network benefits.