A good clinic visit answers your main questions

The clinician examines the joint before discussing care

A medical provider is the licensed clinician who examines you. During the exam, the clinician tests how the joint moves and feels. You can describe which movements cause trouble and when soreness began.

The provider may review a scan that you already have. A scan doesn't replace the hands-on exam or your account. Together, those details guide the next discussion.

The clinic must name what goes into the shot

Ask whether the proposed shot comes from blood taken from your arm or tissue from a donor. If it uses your blood, ask which parts remain after the office separates it. A full answer names who prepares the shot, who gives it, and where it will go.

The care discussion follows your exam. QC Kinetix offers consultations and regenerative choices, including shots made by gathering the blood parts that help bleeding stop. Its licensed clinicians prepare and give the shots at the clinic. These treatments aim to ease soreness and help movement, but they can't promise a result.

The full price includes follow-up care

You need one written price before making a choice. It can show the visit, the treatment, and each planned follow-up. You'll also know whether another treatment could add a charge.

Ask how long the office expects to follow your progress. The answer needs to cover who handles a concern after hours. Clear cost and follow-up details make the choice easier to judge.

Sources

1. A 2016 analysis of internet marketing found widespread direct-to-consumer promotion of unapproved stem cell interventions by businesses based in the United States - not only in countries with lax medical regulation - and concluded regulators must better oversee the marketplace.

   Turner L, et al. — Selling Stem Cells in the USA: Assessing the Direct-to-Consumer Industry. Cell Stem Cell, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.06.007.

2. Hundreds of US businesses and clinics market unproven and unlicensed stem cell-based interventions, and many of them appear to violate the federal regulations that govern human cell and tissue products.

   Turner L, et al. — The US Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace for Autologous Stem Cell Interventions. Perspect Biol Med, 2018. DOI: 10.1353/pbm.2018.0024.

3. A 2019 JAMA research letter documented the credentials and scope of training of the physician and non-physician practitioners staffing US companies that market unproven stem cell procedures - many practise well outside the specialty their training covers.

   Fu W, et al. — Characteristics and Scope of Training of Clinicians Participating in the US Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace for Unproven Stem Cell Interventions. JAMA, 2019. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2019.5837.

4. A systematic analysis of 243 clinic websites offering stem cell therapies found routine use of hype language and inconsistent disclosure of the experimental or unproven status of what was being sold, with complementary and alternative medicine practitioners heavily represented.

   Murdoch B, et al. — Exploiting science? A systematic analysis of complementary and alternative medicine clinic websites' marketing of stem cell therapies. BMJ Open, 2018. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019414.

5. In orders issued 26 December 2024 and announced 8 January 2025, a federal court permanently banned the co-founders of the Stem Cell Institute of America and their companies from marketing any regenerative medicine treatment, and ordered $5,155,146 in refunds and civil penalties. The court found on summary judgment that they published false and misleading advertisements about the efficacy and approval of stem cell injections for osteoarthritis, neuropathy and joint pain; their clinic charged up to $5,000 per injection and the customers were almost exclusively elderly and disabled people.

   US Federal Trade Commission — Stem Cell Institute Co-Founders and Companies Banned from Marketing Stem Cell Treatments and Ordered to Pay More Than $5.1 Million for Refunds and Civil Penalties. , 2025.

6. In October 2018 the FTC settled charges against a California physician and two companies that earned at least $3.31 million selling 'amniotic stem cell therapy' between 2014 and 2017 - initial injections cost $9,500 to $15,000 with booster treatments at $5,000 to $8,000 - for advertising, without evidence, that it treated Parkinson's disease, autism, macular degeneration, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and osteoarthritis.

   US Federal Trade Commission — FTC Stops Deceptive Health Claims by a Stem Cell Therapy Clinic. , 2018.

7. 21 CFR 1271.10(a) sets the four criteria a human cell or tissue product must meet to be regulated SOLELY under section 361 of the Public Health Service Act: it must be minimally manipulated; intended for homologous use only, as reflected by labeling and advertising; not combined with another article beyond water, crystalloids or a preserving agent; and either have no systemic effect and not depend on the metabolic activity of living cells, or else be for autologous use, use in a close blood relative, or reproductive use.

   US Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21 — 21 CFR 1271.10 - Are my HCT/P's regulated solely under section 361 of the PHS Act. , 2004.

8. In 96 patients, concentrated bone marrow aspirate contained a mean of 26.3 million nucleated cells per mL but only about 1,422 colony-forming units of connective tissue progenitors, and the nucleated cell count had negligible predictive value for how many progenitor cells were actually present (r-squared 0.28).

   Muench LN, et al. — Nucleated Cell Count Has Negligible Predictive Value for the Number of Colony-Forming Units for Connective Tissue Progenitor Cells (Stem Cells) in Bone Marrow Aspirate Harvested From the Proximal Humerus During Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair. Arthroscopy, 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.arthro.2021.01.064.