About Us
Centre Chiropractic was established in May of 2006 to serve the health care needs of our neighbors in central Pennsylvania. Our office hours are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9–12 and 2–6, and Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays by appointment. We do all we can to work with your schedule.
At this time, our office accepts cash patients whom we encourage to join PCD, a national discount plan that involves a low annual membership fee for significant discounts on all services, just like a Sam’s Club membership. In addition, our office is credentialed with the most popular insurance plans in the area:
- Aetna
- American Specialty Health Network (ASHN)
- Amerihealth
- BC/BS Highmark
- Capital Blue Cross
- Cigna
- Coventry Health
- Devon
- Federal Blue Cross
- Health America/Health Assurance
- Intergroup/Beech Creek
- Keystone HMO
- Medical Assistance (Access Plus)
- Medicare (HGS/Medicare)
- OptumHealth
- PEBTF
- Preferred Healthcare System
- UPMC
If your insurance is not listed above, please contact our office for more information.
Dr. Matthew
Dr. Matthew grew up in New England and Doylestown, PA, but graduated from a performing arts high school in California before attending UCLA in 1988. While he had strong interests in physics and marine biology, his freshman year he spent so much time working on projects in the film department that he decided to follow his passion there. While he continued his studies in quantum physics and biology, he graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in theater, film and television with an emphasis in design in 1992. In his junior year he formed a band with other students and spent five years touring the Americas as a professional musician and worked in the entertainment industry when not on tour. He left the band to settle with family, expand his design business and to start studying consciousness, religion and the healing arts. Over nine years he managed various aspects of a $7 million a year design and production company, developing shows and events for some of the largest companies in the world while building his own design and fine art business.
Although he had already started a life coaching practice and become a minister, in 2000 Dr. Matthew began to weigh his professional success in entertainment against his deep desire to commit his life to service. After looking at his own frustrating lifelong experience with traditional health care, his positive experience with chiropractic, and his deep love of working with people, and after much meditation and prayer for guidance, chiropractic was the clear choice.
He began attending Cleveland Chiropractic College Los Angeles in 2002 and started studying Gonstead Chiropractic in his first trimester. In his first year, he joined four campus clubs, became an officer of two, won the Alumni Association’s Student of the Year Award and Scholarship, produced a Children’s Health and Wellness Expo on campus, attended the International Chiropractic Pediatrics Association (ICPA) seminar series and numerous Gonstead seminars, and visited over one hundred DCs in their practices to help him in designing his own practice. In his second year, he continued his involvement on campus and also began a two-year Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology with emphasis in Consciousness, Health and Healing at the University of Santa Monica, which he completed in August 2005. In his third year he was elected to student council, where he worked to better the school—the place where the health of a profession truly originates—continued his club involvement, began his internship, and traveled to Washington D.C. to lobby for pro-chiropractic legislation.
Dr. Matthew was chosen from over eighty interns to participate in the highly competitive “intern exchange program” with USC Medical School, where he saw patients while interacting with USC staff and medical interns, who are now required to do a chiropractic rotation prior to graduation. He graduated as the class salutatorian, cum laude, in December 2005.
He has attended over 25 seminars, primarily ICPA and Gonstead oriented, in order to better serve his patients. While he has incorporated elements of symptom-based doctoring, rehab, exercise, nutrition, extremities adjusting, and addressing the mind-body connection in practice, his philosophy is primarily a straight one—he looks for nerve interference and removes it by hand, while encouraging his clients to success and happiness in every area of their lives.
Dr. Matthew now lives in Boalsburg with his wife, Lauren, and his daughter, Audrey, and tries to balance work, family, ministry and service. In addition to involvement in many organizations such as Rotary and Toastmasters, he volunteers as a Harris Township Commissioner, as a lecturer in the Penn State Kinesiology Department, and for USM as ̴adjunct faculty,” in addition to writing about health and wellness for the Centre Daily Times and hosting spiritual cinema screenings at his office several times each year.
Dr. Matthew has embraced a long and productive chiropractic career, filled with the blessings of serving people and their health by adjusting, educating, and facilitating them in managing their own physical and emotional health. It is also his intention to affect chiropractic’s place in the media, to facilitate a modernization of our schools’ curriculum and to work vigorously to unite and inspire chiropractors by focusing on similarities and strengths and bringing them together in service to the awesome power of the adjustment.
Speaking and Community Service
Dr. Matthew Hertert is also an international speaker, with several dozen prepared talks (available as a download) and can also design custom presentations. Dr. Matthew was a Safety Officer and OSHA Compliance Specialist for GGDA for four years, and will come to your place of business for no charge to address groups of ten or more employees on matters of workplace safety, ergonomics, preventative health and wellness.
Dr. Christopher
Independent Contractor
Dr. Christopher Schmidt was born and raised near Albany, New York. Early in his schooling career he realized how much he enjoyed helping people and working with his hands. This led to a six month project involving research as well as extended observation periods with several chiropractors in the area. Following this experience, his desire and love for the profession grew; he knew that a career in Chiropractic was the right choice for him. Dr. Christopher continued to increase his knowledge of Chiropractic outside of school by borrowing books from his chiropractor and reading them in his spare time. While still in high school, he became involved in health presentations throughout his hometown. These included a presentation to elementary school students about the importance of proper health and general information about spinal health.
After an undergraduate program Dr. Christopher was accepted into New York Chiropractic College located in Seneca Falls, New York. It was there that he received his Bachelors degree in Professional Studies as well as his Doctorate of Chiropractic degree. Throughout school he tutored his classmates in the challenging Anatomy and Radiology courses. Dr. Christopher also became engaged in Sports Club at school, ultimately taking a course specializing in the treatment and management of sports related injuries. It was through this course that he learned how to properly diagnose and treat elite athletes; this also helped him to refine his diagnostic and treatment skills for patients from all walks of life. Dr. Christopher believes in treating the person as a whole and hopes to help all people have the ability to enjoy a life free of pain.
Dr. Christopher has many strengths, including his ability to listen to the patient. He takes his time to truly understand the patient's pain and how it affects them throughout the day. Dr. Christopher has been trained in several different techniques which he can apply to each case specifically. Some of the techniques he is able to perform in the office are Diversified technique, Nimmo, and Activator technique. A diversified technique is manipulative procedure in which segments that are not functioning correctly are corrected manually. Typically an audible sound can be heard. Patients often notice an immediate relief as well as improved range of motion. Nimmo is a type of soft tissue technique that focuses on the surrounding muscles of the joints - if the muscles are not functioning properly then the vertebral segments cannot move properly. It is not uncommon to combine this technique with the diversified technique to achieve maximal benefits. Activator is a tool-assisted adjustment. The activator is best for patients who do not like the sound of the adjustment or if they have been diagnosed with osteoporosis. The activator itself makes a slight noise that can often cover up the audible release. An audible release is not required to get the benefits of chiropractic care. Simply inducing movement to segments that are not functioning properly is beneficial in helping to restore proper function.
About Gonstead Chiropractic
The Gonstead technique of adjusting the spine and extremities was originated by Clarence Gonstead in the middle of the twentieth century. Dr. Gonstead was a young man suffering from rheumatoid arthritis when he encountered his first chiropractor as a part of his search for relief after medicine proved useless to him. He was greatly helped and inspired by the results, and went to the Palmer School of Chiropractic on the G.I. Bill.
Dr. Gonstead fully dedicated himself to the science and art of correcting the subluxation, and in addition to his studies at Palmer, he gained rights to dissect many hundreds of cadavers in his dedication to understand anatomy and biomechanics as fully as possible. His practice grew quickly, and within a few years DCs in neighboring states noticed that some of their patients were disappearing—traveling long distances to see Dr. Gonstead. As time went on, Clarence’s reputation and practice grew such that he had to build an airplane landing strip and a hotel next to his eight thousand square foot clinic in order to house people coming from overseas and the west coast to get his help. Dr. Gonstead saw over a million patients in his lifetime and profoundly changed not just their lives, but the the chiropractic profession and anatomists’ understanding of the spine and biomechanics; Dr. Gonstead was responsible for Gray’s Anatomy reclassifying the sacroiliac joints as movable joints, among other contributions.
There are a few foci of Gonstead chiropractic that distinguish it from other applications of the adjustment. One is a focus on the balance of sympathetic versus parasympathetic nervous systems in pathology and visceral complaints. A second difference is the emphasis on patient management in the application of few adjustments: many chiropractors will mobilize the entire spine where a Gonstead practitioner will adjust as few segments as is possible, since specificity is a hallmark of both scientific methods and good clinical care. A third difference is the focus on biomechanics; a Gonstead doctor is trying to adjust the vertebrae back into it’s correct position on the disk, versus adjusting the two facets at the back of the bone. What this means to you as a patient is that you will not have your neck rotated or your spine twisted during an adjustment. The single most common identifier of a Gonstead adjustment is the seated cervical (neck) adjustment. Most techniques address facet problems, while Gonstead practitioners look to biomechanics, which demonstrate the primacy of the disk in subluxation.
Dr. Matthew pursued the study of Gonstead chiropractic in school because in the first weeks of the curriculum it was clear that there were clinical and ethical protocols that made it a superior technique for adjusting the spine. He attended dozens of (expensive) seminars on Gonstead outside of and in addition to his campus education, and he practices this because he believes it to be the best thing for you—but if he ever finds something better he will learn that, too.
Gonstead Clinical Studies Society (outside link)
