www.thebodyworker.com

Billing insurance companies for massage therapy services can be a very lucrative way to build and grow your massage business.  There is a lot that you have to learn and do to bill correctly and make sure you get paid.  It also requires learning how to create a network of physicians and healthcare providers to  refer clients to you.   I have been billing insurance companies since I first started doing massage back in 1989.  I had 250 hours of training in massage school.  There are no technical classes required in order to bill an insurance company as many people may try to tell you especially if they are promoting classes on the topic.

I have written down most everything I know about billing insurance and created a section for it on my website.  Here is a basic outline of what you need to know:

1. Ask the insurance company that you are working with how to bill correctly.  Find out what forms and paperwork they require, what codes that they will pay and what the payment schedule is.
2. How to fill our a billing form which currently is the CMS 1500.  It is similar to the HCFA 1500 but includes space for your NPI number.
3. You will need an NPI Number.
4. You will need a HIPAA Privacy Policy Manual and forms.  Sohnen-Moe has some free forms to get you started.
5. Know what codes to use for the CPT Code – there are only two main ones so you can’t go wrong really.  97124 and 97140.  It is usually a matter of what the insurance company accepts.  There are a few here that only accept 97124 which is therapeutic massage code and some that will accept 97140 which is considered to be manual therapy.
6. Use a service like www.officeally.com to submit your bills electronically for free.
7. Create a referral network of physicians.

While most of the information is on my site I have been getting out of insurance billing so I am not up to date on everything so I also highly recommend the Massage Insurance Billing Manual by Vivian Madison Mahoney.

I’ll talk about how to create a referral network in my next post.

A successful massage business depends on the steady flow of new clients or getting repeat clients (regular clients who come every week, 2x a week, every other week or once a month.)  It involves creating relationships with potential clients and getting them to trust you enough so that they will make the call for the appointment.

Finding new clients who will become repeat clients requires that you build trust with people you talk to or with people who read your website.

Approaching doctors, companies or individuals with a sale pitch or offer is like getting an annoying phone call from a company offering home owners insurance when you are a renter or like getting a flier in the mail for childcare services when you don’t have any kids.  It is just annoying and a waste of money on the advertisers part.  Approaching people blindly – not knowing if they even like massage or believe in it can waste a lot of money.

Having people calling you because they know you are the expert at what you do is another story.

To do that you need to let people know what you know about massage and health.  The best way to do that is with a website that is filled with information about what you do and what massage can do.

If your website only is a basic calling card website with only information on your rates, locations and a list of your services, it doesn’t create much of an interest in readers.  If it is just a sales site to offer your services without really taking the time and effort to understand your readers, you are missing out on many opportunities to make readers into regular clients.

Learning to build relationships with people involves providing information to people about what you do,  what your philosophy on healing is and what your beliefs about health and massage are allows you to share your expertise, knowledge and experience with others.   In sharing you develop a relationship that “Pre-sells” the potential client.

I know most massage therapists hate that word “Sell” even if it is preceded with the word ‘pre’.   Sell brings up this fear of having to be a sales person.   All you are really doing is telling people what you do so that they can decide if you would be a match to help them solve their problem.

“Preselling” is a term that was coined by Ken Evoy of Sitesell.com.  Preselling is really just about building relationships and trust between two parties.   When you learn to presell- you won’t have to do any selling.  People will be coming directly to you for the services that you offer.   They will be calling you.  You won’t have to do a thing but be there to take the call and make the appointment.

Online people are looking for information- they aren’t looking for you. They just want to find a trustworthy someone to fill their need.  People are usually in pain, under stress, or both and are looking for help with whatever it is that is a problem for them.

Use your knowledge and experience to give them what they want by writing about what you do.  You don’t have to worry about the writing part.  What you do is just write down what you would say to people if about massage, health and healing if you already had them on your table or if you were talking to your best friend.  Use information to meet their needs.   It creates an open to buy mindset for the reader.

If you don’t have a content rich site – the other option is to advertise and for the most part advertising for massage doesn’t work since massage is such a personal experience.  Unless you have a very large advertising budget like spa’s or massage franchises do, advertising for the small massage business takes a substantial amount of money.

Most people resist sales efforts.  Preselling on the other hand creates relationships and builds credibility.

One of the first steps to preselling is getting inside your potential clients head and shoes.  Who is your ideal client?  What problem do they have that they are looking for a solution for?

Creating a website around that idea takes a little bit of time to research and develop but when you get a regular weekly client who comes for 10+ years like most of my clients do …well you can figure out the value of that kind of regular client ($price of massage x 48 weeks a year x 10 years).

You can learn more about preselling and learning to attract clients by building trust and avoiding sales you can read this free Ebook by Ken Evoy called “Make Your Content Pre-sell”

One of the weak spots for most massage therapists is writing flyers, brochures or website content with the purpose of selling their services.  Selling often conjures up this bad image.  ‘I don’t want to be pushy’.  I don’t want to do sales.   I don’t want to market my practice.  I just want to do massage. ‘Summer is always slow’.

The thing is that even people who have jobs in massage need to be sales people whether you like it or not.  Sales is just really getting your message out to those who need your services and need to know about you.

One of the first things to do is to start thinking about who your massage client is?  Why do people come to you in the first place.  Ask some of them.  You might be pleasantly surprised.  Is it because they are right down the block from you?  Is it because they love your massage?  Is it because they love the aromatherapy or hot stones that you use?

Once you find out that information start writing from that perspective and start with the words “You”.

Learning everything you can about marketing your practice and building your practice is about taking responsibility for your business.  It takes a commitment to doing whatever it takes to get the results that you want.  The first thing is knowing what you want.  If you don’t know what you want exactly you are leaving it in the hands of others, the economy and whoever else you may want to blame your lack of success on.  Wanting is not bad as you may have been taught.  It is wanting that leads you to take the actions that you need to be successful.  Actually, I could take that a step farther and say it is having desire.  Desire is a step up from wanting.  Wanting implies that you are lacking in something.  Having desire comes from your heart.  When you desire something you are also taking control of your own experiences.  You have a better chance of receiving what you desire than what you want.

Asking for what you want from people who are most likely to use your massage services is really just targeted marketing.  It is the way out of making excuses for your lack of business.