Bee~ Journal of then...

[lorihadams]

Do you have a local YMCA or gym anywhere near you that you could talk up the owners and see if you could offer services there? When I went for my massage therapy when I was pregnant with Tyler the MT's office was inside of a gym(American Family Fitness). They were always getting "drop ins" during the day when people overdid it working out. That's how my rheumatologist knew about them cause he used them one day after he worked out at the gym and now he refers all his patients to them.

 

[freemotion]

That is actually a great idea.....the environment is generally not the best, noisy and all, but a great source of clients and sometimes they will only charge you rent by the hour that you are actually there. Be sure to keep your own client files and make your own appointments. Use the independent contractor vs employee rules to make sure this happens. Then you have more control.

A massage out in the country (at your house, if you want to invite certain clients out there) would be a big draw for me! Some may balk at first, but when they experience the difference the right environment makes, they will love it.

Be sure to get Sandy Bodkin's book, Lower Your Taxes Bigtime, for ideas on how having a home-based business can save you thousands against your other job, too.

 

[keljonma]

How could she not have heard of trigger points? Did she go to school? Continuing education? Does she read any of the journals? Does she have liability insurance? IS SHE LICENSED?????

free, my daughter is LMT in Ohio, but when she lived in other states, she found that there was no licensing requirement for MT. Each state is different. She was glad to have passed the Ohio State Boards with flying colors, as it gave her an idea of what other state tests were like.

When she had her business in PA, dd contacted the local fire and police depts to find out how to get approved for alternate therapy coverage with their insurance provider. A number of her clients were fire, police workers with work-related injuries. The insurance company covered a percentage of the therapy session. Just a thought......

 

[freemotion]

Keljonma, how long ago was that? Is it still the case?

This is not directed at you, but I feel a rant coming on! Duck!

Almost every state in the US requires licensing now. MA was one of the last hold-outs, amazingly. But, like most other things, MT licensing is a revenue source and does not protect the consumer. There is no agency that has funding to follow up on unlicensed "massage" and the only ones who get slapped are the real therapists who may have missed a paperwork detail. I know this, as I was CT licensed, and we moved and my renewal did not get forwarded in a timely fashion. It got to them one day late. They demanded that I re-apply, going through all the steps, even though I pointed out to them that they had a file with all my requirements in it already and that I would be sending them the exact same stuff.....diploma copies, National Certification paperwork, etc. Buncha idjots. I dropped the CT licensing and just worked in MA after that.

I'm glad that some therapist were able to get insurance reimbursement at one time, but that is rarely the case now. They will pay pennies on the dollar, and you cannot have a cash price and an insurance price, that is insurance fraud! So you are forced to accept $20 for your $60 fee. I can't afford to do that. Some chiro's I've talked to have received $0.03 checks from insurance companies!!! Unbelievable!

That is why you will be hardpressed to find a MD who is in private practice anymore. They can't afford it. It is worse for OB's. In my consulting work (setting up wellness programs in health care practices.....the ones that recognize a need for cash-based revenue and also who recognize that their patients WANT knowledgeable guidance in staying well!) I hear all the horror stories and the bottom line is that they are not doing as well as the public thinks they are! And it is getting worse as the boomers get older and more unhealthy, and the younger kids now have lifestyle disease markers by age 6-7, things that we used to think of as middle-age diseases.

And the insurance companies will often dictate where the therapist can work. For example, if someone determines the patient has low back pain, you can only work in that area. What if it is from an imbalance in the foot? A trigger point in the soleus (a deep calf muscle for the non-LMT's!)? I could not work under those restrictions.

OK, I'm gonna stop now, it just irritates me that skilled people are hard-pressed to make a decent living and good people can't afford to help people! Like Bee!

 

[Beekissed]

Lori, honey, you are thinking way too big on the YMCA or gym.....there is one 50 miles away in the next state!

I didn't have any trouble drumming up business in my old place of residence...here? These folks are very backwards! I could still do it and it would take a while to get the word around. Alas, due to licensing fees and CEU prices, I let my license lapse. I, too, was educated and tested in OH, so I'm actually licensed there as well as WV. In WV there is no boards exam, can you imagine? Just have to have 500 hours of instruction and pass the course.

Free is right, they don't crack down on the people doing prostitution and calling it massage, but they can sure milk an honest MTs last dime!

If I massage now it will be strictly on a donations only, ministry type deal. Until I clear out a room that is conducive to massage in my house, that plan is in the future. I also need to update some of my equipment. I'm big on quiet, soothing atmosphere and with my anatomy and trigger point charts on the wall.

One day, maybe......

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Wow Bee, think you'd ever consider moving back to Ohio???

 

[keljonma]

Keljonma, how long ago was that? Is it still the case?

PA did not require MT licensing as of Jan 2007, when dd moved out of that state.

free, I did not feel the rant - I agree! So does dd!

ETA: We are very lucky to have a couple medicals in town that are in private practice.

edited for typo

 

[freemotion]

Oh, Bee, I didn't know you weren't licensed now. Poopie. One day.....maybe.....or you could use those great hands to milk your sheep!

 

[Beekissed]

Quail, some parts of OH are pretty still, where I lived was kind of pretty....when you could see through the haze of pollution! I like to breath air that you don't have to slice, so I'll stay right here!

Free, there are ways around the licensing thing, if one wants to do so. I became frustrated with license renewals when the cheapest CEUs I could find were $500-$1200 and you had to travel to the seminar and pay for your own hotel, etc. etc. Then they came out with correspondence CEUs that you could buy, but they were $50-$120 for just a few CEUs. My nursing CEUs(24) cost me a total of $15-$30 each year! Also the licensing fees are more than my nursing ones.

I called the MT board and complained about this. Why in the world do the CEUs costs so much to do body work, and nursing, where one has other's lives in ones hands, cost a mere fraction of the MT courses? They didn't really have an answer for me. Nursing changes on a daily basis, MT knowledge base has a very slow growth and there are few variables. Why then the big cost? Why to make money off of us, of course!

Me being the frugal, no nonsense person that I am, I refused to play that game. I can turn the lack of licensing enforcement right back on these people. When I want to massage someone I don't call it massage, I call it body work or body therapy. I also don't ask for a set fee, I tell someone they are more than welcome to make a "donation". According to the laws in our state, if you do not have an MT business and do not call your work "massage" you can do just about anything you want with it. So I do.

Until they start treating it like a profession, like the rest of the medical licensures, instead of an extortion opportunity, I will do what I wish in regards to MT.

 

[freemotion]

Wow!!!! Couldn't get away with that here.....of course, go to craigslist, and you CAN get away with everything else! But as we said, licensing only slaps the good people.