Frequently asked questions

The price of therapy can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on your condition and the number of injections needed. During your consultation, Dr. Kim will develop a treatment plan and go over your specific costs with you.

Richard Kim Medicine is a Direct Pay Practice. Although PRP and stem cell therapy are not covered by any insurance plans at this point. They are still considered investigational by the insurance industry. 

Our initial consultation is 95 USD and do offer financing options, like Care Credit. Please call 518-871-9900 to find out more about practice policies.

We accept both cash and all major credit and debit cards for these treatments. In addition, if you have a health savings account (HSA) or flexible spending account (FSA) through your employer, you may be able to set aside funds in this pre-tax account in order to pay for these treatments.

You may also wish to look into Care Credit, which is a credit card specifically for medical charges, copays, elective procedures and similar out-of-pocket costs. It allows you to pay these costs with zero interest over a set number of months.

Absolutely. There are a few ways we can help.

First, we can request your prior physician, therapy and procedure notes, and your images and imaging reports, from your other healthcare providers. After reviewing them, we can conduct your initial consultation using Skype or similar technology.

Next, we can help you plan your trip to Saratoga Springs for treatment. We have partnerships with car service companies around town and to/from the Albany County Airport and the Rensselaer, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs Amtrak stations. We also work with well-appointed hotels where you can complete your first few days of recovery. We provide pre-procedure massage, nutritionist-developed meals specifically for you, access to a 24-hour on-call nurse and entertainment suggestions for your companion(s).

Finally, we typically see our patients four weeks after a PRP injection and both four and 12 weeks after stem cell therapy. If you are not able to come to the office for one or both of these visits, we’ll help make other arrangements for you to ensure your recovery stays on track.

Most people we see who have the types of injuries best treated with PRP or stem cell injections have been in chronic pain for an extended period of time. Compared to that, the pain from these therapeutic injections is acute, but short-lived.

During the extraction and injection portions of the procedure, you’ll benefit from a strong, short-acting local anesthetic that may not eliminate all sensation from the affected sites, but will deliver a bearable level of discomfort.

However, when that anesthetic wears off, you can expect two to four days of gradually improving pain. Dr. Kim will prescribe a pain reliever for you to fill on the way home from your procedure to help you through these first few days of rest and recovery.

The exterior recovery from the extraction and injection takes two weeks, concluding when the skin heals and the minimal bandages wear off. The interior recovery from these procedures takes about four weeks for PRP and about 16 weeks for stem cell therapy (with additional injections at four and 12 weeks).

Yes—or rather, there are some conditions that cannot be treated only with PRP and stem cells. Injuries to the bone often require surgery, as do some kinds of tendon and ligament damage. Often, though, even if soft tissue injuries require surgical intervention, PRP or stem cell therapy can facilitate healing.

What we find more often is that people may benefit from addressing underlying conditions that cause inflammation throughout the body before having PRP or stem cell therapy. This may help you achieve a better outcome from these procedures. We’ve offered additional information about this on the Specialties page and Dr. Kim will discuss specific recommendations during your consultation.