Archive for Julie Onofrio

The history of massage

February 28, 2010 Julie Onofrio News

I love reading about the history of massage. One of my most popular pages on my website is on the history of massage.  The definitive author and expert on massage is of course the late Robert Calvert.   His book The History of Massage: An Illustrated Survey from around the World
puts our profession into perspective.   I also had the chance to talk with him a few times and take a few of his lectures at conventions on the history of massage.  He graciously pointed out to me that the page on the history of massage that I have on my website (linked above) is very inaccurate.  It is a timeline history of massage that I put together from reading various sources such as massage school textbooks and other books.  Fact is that most of it is wrong!

Whenever I read that book or start thinking about the history of massage, I wonder how we have gotten so off track and so caught up in licensing and legislation and how touch has gotten to be something we pay for rather than get within our family and social circles.

One of my favorite stories of his was about Australia Aborigines who used to teach their sons massage so that they could massage their wife during labor!  Why didn’t that catch on in other countries?

Now we need licenses to touch and training and more training.

Touch is how we first learn about ourselves as newborns and even in utero.  When we are touched we feel.  When we touch we are also touched.  It is a two way sense.  We learn more about who we are through touch – where you begin and end and where another begins and ends.  It is the basis for attunement with mother as an infant which is a big part of your self esteem that you will carry with you though life.

Touch has been a part of religious rituals, healing rituals, midwifery, nursing, exercise and sensuality.  It is the most fundamental way of showing and giving care to one another.  Touch through history has a rich cultural aspect as well as the medical aspect.

My thoughts always seem to go towards the loss of cultural touch and how that may be influencing our current societies.  Everyone is rushed, stressed, texting more than talking, working on computers more than talking with others and we are losing touch with touch!

I often wonder if the massage profession would not be so large if there was more touch in families/communities.   I do think there is still a place for therapeutic massage for injuries and diseases and such but wonder if there would be less of those if children were taught massage at an early age.

How can we preserve and teach massage to women in communities and bring touch back to were it once was – in the hands of everyone.

We could use more programs like

Touch to Teach

Touch is Great

Massage for Peace

How to start a massage group at your church.


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Screening Massage Insurance Clients

February 6, 2010 Julie Onofrio Massage Insurance Billing

Screening massage insurance clients can help you to provide better service and get paid more quickly when you bill insurance companies for massage services.   Part of the screening questions will have to come from your boundaries that you set up around taking clients that have insurance.   It is a process to learn what works best for you and you will often be learning the hard way by first finding out what doesn’t work.

Since each state, city and insurance plan is different here are some general questions to ask before deciding to take a massage client that has insurance.

  • Who is your insurance?
  • What coverage do you have?
  • Did you call to ask what massage therapy benefits are available?
  • What type of injury do you have?
  • Is it from a fall, car accident or other activity?
  • Who was at fault?
  • Is there a claim manager?
  • Do you have an attorney (if it was at work or in the car or other liability)

After you get some basic information you can then call the insurance company to verify benefits.  I also ask the client to call them to verify the benefits too and ask them to fill out a sheet with the information on it.

You will then need to call the insurance company to verify benefits and find out what you need to do to bill the company.

  • Are there massage therapy benefits available?
  • Is a prescription needed?  (Most always is.  I get one even if they say no.)
  • What information is needed from the doctor on the prescription?
  • What information do I need to provide to the insurance company to get paid?  It is usually a bill using the CMS 1500 form, the prescription and sometimes chart notes or other reports.
  • If there is a case manager they can usually give you more information.
  • Find out what benefits are available.  It is usually some number of sessions or dollar amount.  Find out how much has been used if any and what benefits are remaining.  Find out what limits are place on the massage services if any.
  • Find out how long it will take to get paid.  Make a note of it and call around that time to check on it’s progress.  You may also want to call in the beginning to check if they received the bill shortly after sending it.
  • Get your client involved in the process of making these calls so they are informed about the case and their responsibilities.

As I said before, billing insurance is a process and it will take time in developing your own boundaries (policies and procedures) around what your needs are for financial reimbursement as well as your emotional/mental and spiritual needs.

Billing insurance can help you to fill in time slots that are otherwise empty and you can even focus on creating a  business working with doctors and billing to create a niche for yourself.

I do have more information on massage insurance billing on the website.   As with anything,  this information being provided is a stepping stone to helping you figure out what you personally need to do.  Each state and company are so different – it is just a matter of learning what questions to ask.  This is just the very beginning.

See more on questions to ask clients and insurance companies.

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Defining Massage Therapy and Bodywork

January 16, 2010 Julie Onofrio Massage Politics

Defining massage therapy is a big challenge for the massage profession.   Each state already defines it for themselves.  I started a list of these definitions of massage a long time ago and I am sure some have now changed and new ones were added by states who just initiated massage licensing.

There is also a group of massage therapists who have joined together to try to create a unified definition of massage called the Body of Knowledge.  Here is the first draft of their definitions of massage.

Here is the AMTA’s Definition of massage from their website..

MASSAGE THERAPY is a profession in which the practitioner applies manual techniques, and may apply adjunctive therapies, with the intention of positively affecting the health and well-being of the client.

MASSAGE is manual soft tissue manipulation, and includes holding, causing movement, and/or applying pressure to the body.

THERAPY is a series of actions aimed at achieving or increasing health and wellness.

MANUAL means by use of hand or body.

The historic definitions of massage as outlined by Robert Calvert in this article on Massage Magazine’s Website continues to show the problems in defining massage.

Then there is the word bodywork that makes the whole situation even more confusing.  There seems to be some groups who represent different techniques who want to be referred to as bodyworkers and not massage therapists, making it even more confusing for the general public to be able to figure out what people are doing when they do massage or bodywork.

I also think one of the biggest things is -do people who are receiving massage really even care what it is called!

When you look at all of the different types of massage and bodywork, it continues to grow even more confusing.  I still have people asking me about the different types of massage and what they do.  I say that it really has little to do with they type of massage as they all can achieve results.  It is more about finding a person that you can work with who understands your situation and has a similar philosophy of healing and health so you can work together to create better situations.

Is cranial sacral work massage or bodywork?  Is Hellerwork massage or bodywork?  Is reflexology massage or bodywork?

As Bevis Nathan points out in his book Touch and Emotion in Manual Therapy
:

From the patient’s point of view, the touch has it’s roots in non-verbal communication or communication.  She does not experience the touch as merely a technique or procedure on her body tissues, it involves her self. She is being held, cradled, stroked, caressed, valued, cared-for, healed.  This patient’s experience is above all a phsychological and existential one.

So how should massage be defined?  How should bodywork be defined?  With keeping in mind what most people can understand or comprehend or make sense of?  What do we need to do to come to a consensus or is it even possible?

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Ideal Massage Client

January 11, 2010 Julie Onofrio Start Your Massage Business

Who is your ideal massage client?

The first step in marketing your massage business is finding out just who your ideal massage client is.  Most massage therapist start out just thinking that they will work on everyone and anyone who calls or shows up on their table.  In some ways you might actually have to work that way to begin really knowing what you like and don’t like as far as working on people.

After awhile when you work on everyone including people who you find to be draining, it will take it’s toll on you for sure.  I truly believe that this is one of the biggest causes of burnout in the massage profession as well as the cause of most massage therapists struggles.  When you are constantly running around trying to get everyone to be your client your marketing efforts are often scattered and uneffective.  Knowing who your ideal client is can help you in creating a very targeted marketing plan and get the people you want on your table.

You start first with general demographics – location and consider things like age and sex but it is taking it even farther and finding clients who will appreciate you and who value their health enough to be willing to pay for regular weekly massage (or even once a month).

You can also choose a specialty like pregnancy massage, injury work or working with a more specific disease and condition such as fibromyalgia, herniated discs or carpal tunnel.

When you have a clear image of your ideal client you can use it in your marketing campaigns but also in your policies and procedures.  You can also apply it to your everyday interactions with people and clients.  When you are clear about what you want, it makes room for you to have it.

When you work on people who are less than your ideal client, you are giving away your energy.  You are giving up on your values.  You will lose a little part of yourself each time.  After a few years it will take its’ tool on you, I guarantee it.  When you work on people who are less than your ideal client you will end up feeling resentful which could lead to you even doing less than your best work with people.  Yes it is true.  I talked to a massage therapist once who said she actually felt like hurting someone on the table because they were receiving a significant discount from her.  Even though she was the one giving the discount she felt like she had to to keep that client.  She gave up a piece of herself and ended up with really intense feelings.

To me clients who are less than ideal are people who always cancel at the last minute or always forget their check books.  They are people who complain when I raise my rates $5.  They are people who are not injured who try to use their insurance.  (Insurance here covers massage for acute conditions and not maintenance massage.)

Michael Port in his book Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling
says this:

The first step in building your foundation is to choose your ideal clients, the individuals and businesses with whom you do your best work, the people or environments that energize and inspire you.

In the book Attracting Perfect Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity
by Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez uses these questions to hone in on the ideal customer or as they call it the Perfect customer:

  • Is this person the perfect customer because he or she shows you respect and values your time?
  • Does this person come to you with realistic expectations?
  • Do they appreciate your efforts happily paying for your services and referring others to your company?
  • Does working with this person make you feel needed, appreciated, respected and understood?
  • Do they reconnect you with the passion and purpose that puts joy in your work-the very reason why you began doing massage in the first place?

In the Book The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life

.. if you try to be everything to everybody, you end up being nothing to anybody.”

These are just a few resources to help you in learning more about the concept of the “Ideal Massage Client” and helping you on your way to finding yours.

The other thing though is that this is a process.  If you have clients that you find draining it will take time and some marketing to let go of them (and also some self confidence boosting.)  If you don’t have any clients you may not know who your ideal client is.  It will come by taking action and seeing clients and seeing the contrast of how it feels to work with different people.  Having a good business coach or supervisor can also help.


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2009- The Year in Review

January 1, 2010 Julie Onofrio News

It was of course quite a year!

This website has been up since 1999 making it the oldest blog about massage I would guess.

Last year I wasn’t able to write about the new year and such with the many storms we had keeping me offline. The summer was beautiful here and I had plenty of posts to make up for my lost time.

My Yahoo Group Massage Practice Builder will be 10 years old this year. I used it at first to send out my newsletter and found my first newsletter which was sent out through my Yahoo! Group discussion group (which used to be egroups many years ago.) With over 2000 members we discuss just about anything and everything on the topic of massage business and careers.

In Feb 2009, I was writing about whether or not to start a massage business in ‘this’ economy.  The question seems to be the same for many still.  Fear is such an interesting thing.  If people wait until a better economy it won’t make much of a difference on how successful they will be.  If you are letting the economy put you in the ‘victim’ mode, then maybe a career in massage isn’t for you.  I am not saying it won’t be difficult.  Many massage therapists end up going out of business even in a good economy.

Megan Holub’s – Magic Touch : How to make $100,000 a year as a massage therapist caused quite a stir online and off.

The indeed.com forums brought out the worst of the massage profession.

The Federation of Massage State Boards keeps growing and expanding the list of states accepting the exam as licensing forcing the NCBTMB to rethink its role and offer discounts for pizza.

The Conspiracy of the Rich brought some new ways of thinking.  Creating residual income in any economy can help you to lessen the effects of any economy changes and keep your economy separate from the nations economy.  Robert Kiyosaki thinks the economy is going to get worse.  If it is true we are in for quite a ride!

The Massage Body of Knowledge Group was formed to start helping in defining the massage profession.

Sometime in the summer I released my first edition of my Ebook ‘The Massage Job Guide:  How to create or find your ideal massage job”  (or I should have called it how to find higher paying jobs)

More people are finally getting what Site Build it! is about and how to use a website to effectively market your massage business AND create residual income from your website.

What will next year bring???

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