Insurance Billing Manual
for Massage Therapists
Visit My other Website -
www.massagepracticebuilder.com
Learn everything you need to know about
starting and running a massage business!
The
Complete Insurance Billing Manual
for massage therapy is now online and available for purchase and completely
updated for 2012. It was offered for free from 2005-2012
until I had time to update the contents.
I also have seen so much controversy over the issues involved with insurance
billing, I feel that it is important that people begin to understand just what
is involved in these issues and how it affects the profession so that we as a
profession can work together with the insurance companies if we so choose.
Through the many years of being a massage therapist,
billing insurance has been the one consistent thing that brought in money
through all of the economic downturns (and having a good website!) There are
many challenges that you will be faced with. Each year as a contracted
provider, the insurance companies have paid massage therapists (as well as other
health care providers) less and less making it more difficult to make ends meet.
The more people that learn and understand billing, the more people we will have
when it comes time to make a political stand or challenge the insurance
companies. Here are some of the challenges:
- The integrity and responsibility issues are very confusing to work with.
Clients abuse the system thinking that their insurance company owes them
rather than taking the steps and paying for the healthcare that they need.
Insurance for the most part does not cover stress related issues.
People in pain due to stress are usually overworked, over committed and
don't take care of themselves. How does this help them?
- Insurance companies require us to "fix" and show improvement or we won't
get paid. The process of "fixing" rather than healing is getting too
stressful for me to deal with.
- Insurance companies are reducing their allowable fees, reducing policy
limits and benefits.
- Doctors, PT's, Chiropractors are opting out of the healthcare system.
- Our health care system is a mess. Do you as an individual want to
be a part of that? Do we as a profession?
- The only way to make money in insurance billing is to stick with L&I and
motor vehicle accidents where the insurance companies will pay more.
Here in WA there is already one company who has joined a network which means
your fees are discounted. It is only a matter of time before this
spreads to the rest of the auto insurance companies in my opinion.
I also feel that it is important for everyone to know how to bill insurance
companies and learn how to do it so they can then see for themselves. To
help with such a challenging situation, you will need supervision and a mentor
and when you learn enough, you can become a mentor yourself.
It is time to start defining our profession and the meaning of medical
massage - which no one seems to want to tackle. It is because most
do not understand what is at stake and what the effects of becoming a part of
the medical profession will do to our profession. Just follow the links
below!