The regenerative medicine space has attracted a lot of providers, with wildly different levels of rigor. Ads promising that stem cells will fix basically anything have made smart, skeptical people wary of the whole category — and honestly, more people should be asking hard questions.
So here is a genuinely useful filter.
The one-question test Is the provider making a specific, imaging-based case for why this treatment fits your specific injury? Or are they offering you the same treatment regardless of what is actually wrong?
The first is medicine. The second is a product.
What legitimate care looks like: A real evaluation includes a history, an examination, and imaging — often ultrasound performed in the room, so the tendon or joint can be seen directly. The recommendation that follows should name your specific diagnosis, the severity of it, and why this particular treatment matches it. It should also include what the treatment cannot do, and what the alternatives are — including doing nothing, and including surgery.
Red flags Promises to treat every condition with the same injection. No imaging, or imaging that is never shown to you. Pressure to decide the same day. Claims that a treatment regrows cartilage in bone-on-bone joints, or that it replaces surgery in every case. No discussion of who is not a candidate.
The underlying science of orthobiologics is real and growing — particularly for tendon injuries and early-to-moderate arthritis. The variable that matters most is not the treatment. It is the judgment behind it.