Here in WA state we have something called the Every Category Law which tells insurance companies that they have to allow massage therapists, naturopaths and acupuncturists to be contracted providers for HMO’s and PPO’s.

As contracted providers we are very limited in having any say in such issues as what we get paid. All of the insurance companies except one in particular pays less than my going rate of $75.00 for cash clients and doesn’t even come close to my medical massage rates of $100.

This is the law.

This is some info from the insurance commissioners office.

And an article from massage today

The every category law is constantly challenged and each year we have to defend our right to be contracted providers and I am not sure it is worth it to be able to bill insurance companies who don’t pay us and respect us. They are actually in the process of creating a definition of a medical massage therapist for us because we don’t have anything defined as a profession.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 7:34 pm and is filed under Building Your Practice, Insurance Billing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.