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A Week of Massage Envy

August 19, 2011 Julie Onofrio News

Everywhere I looked last week, it seemed like someone was talking about Massage Envy (ME)- some good, some not so good as discussions about ME go…

Here is what I am referring too -(These are all from discussions on Facebook or linkedin.com or from newsfeeds.)

  • ME was mentioned in a thread saying that the massage therapists at one location were doing ‘Happy Endings” and the owner was notified and didn’t want to do anything about it.
  • One of the most searched for keywords on my site www.massage-career-guides.com is ‘massage envy sex’.
  • In one area, ME is connected to many companies who offer their employees health incentives or challenges.
  • Many massage therapists feel threatened by ME and feel that they have to reduce their rates to compete with ME and that ME are putting them out of business or at least making them work harder to get clients.  ME is said to be the Walmart of the massage profession.
  • ME is also a good way for massage therapists to get experience.  One long time employee is now going out on her own!

What interests me most about ME is the fear reactions that it brings up in many including myself at times.  Hearing that ME was offering massage to companies too left me wondering what is next – where will they go next?  Will there be only ME around the country offering low cost massage (good for the general public- not so good for employees paid low wages but they get experience.)

So if the general public is also moving towards preferring low cost massage what can the massage profession learn from this and what can be done about it?

The thing is that we don’t have any actual statistics to see what is really going on and how ME (or low cost massage franchises) are affecting the massage profession.  I am not sure if there is even a way to measure that or track that as there are so many other things going on in the profession right now- the Alliance for Massage Schools, the FSTMB, the NCBTMB, more research and teaching MT and medical professionals about research, more advanced training to learn new methods to help clients more, more acceptance by the medical profession and insurance is happening a little each day, moving into hospitals and hospice settings – many things are always changing and happening in the profession.

You can look at the few instances from your own practice and think that Yes ME is having an impact on your business.  Also looking at the list that I started with, it seems like ME is everywhere and into everything.  Will they start doing insurance billing?  ( I did hear that about a year ago but not sure if it happened or not).

Sometimes I also think that the best advice for a person considering massage school is to go to take business classes in college and buy a Massage Envy!  It is half being sarcastic and half truly what I think!

What do you think of ME?  How do you think it affects your practice and what you are doing?  If you work at a ME – what do you think? (There are always such a wide range of answers to that- many love it or many don’t like it.)

 

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What’s next for this blog/site?

June 2, 2011 Julie Onofrio News

I haven’t been doing much blogging or work on this site.  I was shocked to just find that it was last Nov that I even posted something and that I hadn’t posted anything regular for awhile.  The thing with blogs is that you need to keep the content fresh for the search engines to keep coming to your site.  I have been uncertain as to what to do next with this site.  It makes me about $1000 a month in Adsense income so I don’t want to lose that but the site is done in Frontpage 2003 which is so outdated.  I don’t have time to learn new software and if the world were made of chocolate- I’d be moving it over to Site Build it! but this site is massive – over 1000 pages of content and over 500 posts here – that makes for a lot of work!  Site Build it! is so much more effective though I have to make the change sometime.  I still have tons of material to put up from my massage school notes too but massage school seems like a lifetime ago and it isn’t something that I want to spend time on right now.

My focus right now is on getting a few books together to self publish.  I have been working on my Massage Career guide which is for people who are looking to get into a career in massage. It is for sale as an Ebook but I want to get it on amazon.com and out to more people. It has sort have been my ongoing project.  I originally wrote it in I think it was 2003 when I started my first Site Build it! website – www.massagetherapycareers.com – which I sold in 2009.  I replaced that site with www.massage-career-guides.com and it took longer than I thought to get the same traffic and keyword results back to the level of that old site but it is getting there.  I made a few mistakes when rebuilding that I have course chalked up to learning.  I have thought of just moving the whole site over to that site too but not sure.  I would also like to focus more on the massage school directory with such exciting and controversial things happening in education currently in the massage profession with the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education moving forward on creating standards for massage schools.

I have also been plagued with health issues since the beginning of the year having found out that I have a type of cholesterol that likes to stick to arteries but I have been working to stay healthy and it is working.  My massage business this year has been a challenge to maintain because of this and also I am very discouraged about what is happening in the insurance billing world in WA State.  I had the best year I have ever had in my 24 years of doing massage last year mainly do to insurance billing. This year they cut their allowable fees in half meaning that to make the same amount I have to do 2x the amount of massages and at this point in my career, my body just can’t do that.  I still see my 12 clients a week or so but am making way less.  I don’t see anyone doing anything about it or not sure what we can even do about it.

So I just keep writing about it all including reviving my Insurance Billing for Massage Therapists Manual which I hope to get on amazon.com this summer.  Billing insurance has allowed me to stay in this career for this long and it has also been the biggest thorn in my side.  I do feel that it is important for every MT to learn to bill and to see what the issues are so that we can begin to join forces to be able to have a say in what goes on.  Right now the massage profession is so all over the place and divided from what I see but I might be jaded from only being on Facebook and not seeing what is really going on by going to conventions and such.  I do hope to start getting out to some to see more of what is going on.  I am also going to be doing more get togethers through Meetup.com and seeing first hand the issues people are having.  What I have already seen is that MT are struggling with physical issues as well as financial issues.  Yes it is hard to keep financially sound when dealing with physical issues – I know that first hand.  My health was one of the reasons I started this website and all of the others along with finding out I like to write!

My passion is writing and creating websites.  It is such an amazing process.  I didn’t know anything about writing and frankly I am not even really good at it.  There are many better writers than me out there in the massage profession. It is really a personal growth process and spiritual process for me – sharing my thoughts and insights.  It was and is a process to find my voice and keep clear of things that get in the way like viscous verbal assaults that often happen online because of not being able to hear people’s voices.   I get caught up in it every once in awhile still because I feel protective of the massage profession.

I also wonder about things like where is this all going – the massage profession itself.  There is so much going on right now with like creating standards, doing more research and becoming more evidence based but sometimes it seems like the fight between the Evidence people and the energy workers is separating the profession which I guess isn’t good or bad but just sad to see really for me. It is the egos vs the crystals – which one will win?  and why does someone need to win?

I always think about the late Robert Calvert and some of the discussions I had with him about licensing and legislation.  After reading his book on the History of Massage and taking some classes from him – what has happened to touch and massage in our society and world? What has happened to touch being a part of families like passing massage onto sons so they can massage their pregnant wives or people massaging each other? I sometimes think that every MT could be teaching massage to the general public and that would do more good than anything else we do.  Teach friends how to massage friends, couples how to massage each other, parents how to massage their children and teach the children to massage each other.  I used to think there could be world peace if everyone just got a massage every day.  We are getting so far away from that in some ways in the massage profession.

Ok so I have gotten way off track but that’s OK.  I just needed to start writing again to get this blog and site going while I wait and see if I should move this site over to the new Block builder system at SBI which should be coming out soon I hope!

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Massage Advanced Certification?

October 24, 2010 Julie Onofrio Licensing and Legislation, Massage Politics, News

The NCBTMB (National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork) is currently in the process of creating an advanced certification massage exam.  I have to say I am skeptical right from the start and always have been since the inception of this organization.  It was created back in 1988 just when I was getting out of massage school. Their history is quite rocky to begin with. I was never a supporter mainly because I saw how it was created.  There was never any research done from what I could see at that time to see if it was needed.  It was supposed to be an entrance exam for the AMTA and it somehow all of a sudden just became a certification exam for the massage profession.  It was funded by AMTA for starters.  They did pay the money back to AMTA and are now independent of AMTA and in fact AMTA has disowned them and does not professionally endorse them any longer and changed their support to the Federation of Massage State Boards exam -the MBLex (AMTA Press Release).

The latest news from the NCB says in their latest news(pdf):

The credential will be the first to enable accomplished practitioners to differentiate themselves in the massage marketplace. It will also make it possible for employers and members of the conventional and integrative healthcare arenas to hire practitioners based on a certified, advanced level of experience and expertise.

Is that what is needed for a massage therapist to differentiate themselves in the marketplace?  What proof is there that an exam will help do that?  What about teaching MT to do just that by learning a specialty and learning to present themselves in a way that differentiates themselves from all of the other massage therapists out there in their neighborhood.  If everyone takes the exam – will they all be differentiated?

Those who earn the advanced credential will be nationally recognized for possessing the critical thinking skills necessary to function in complex situations. In addition, they will be relied upon for their ability to work in a team environment utilizing treatment plans based on research-informed outcomes.

How will they get that training in critical thinking skills and on research when most of the massage therapists out there have little training in research since research is really just in it’s infancy in this profession.

“NCAP practitioners will offer the advanced capabilities increasingly sought out by discerning clients, employers and healthcare providers,” said NCBTMB Chair Neal Delaporta. “The credential will open up new opportunities for therapists in conventional, integrative and clinical healthcare settings. It has the potential to take the entire profession to a new level within the medical community.

Is that what will help us be recognized as a health care profession and be able to work in the medical community billing major medical insurance companies and working with injuries and diseases?  Here in WA State we are already recognized as a health care profession and we are able to work with doctors and insurance companies.  We are able to do that because we had a very savvy insurance commissioner who also had a great massage therapist – Lori Belenski- who is now working for the WA State Chiropractors Association as a lobbyist.  Debra Senn, the insurance commissioner created a law that mandated that insurance companies must pay for massage, Naturopaths and Acupuncturists.  The WA State Legislature adopted the “every category of provider” mandate as part of the 1993, Health Care Reform Act to go into effect in 1996.  The insurance companies fought it and took it into Superior Court and held it up until 2000.  Here is the report done at the time “Issues in Coverage for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Services: Report of the Clinician Workgroup Jan. 2000.  The full report that I have a copy of lists the timeline of events leading to the passing of this law.

Does it take an exam to make massage accepted by insurance companies?  Not based on WA State since we only have the minimum of 500 hours of education required for massage professional licensing.

What will take the profession to a new level is having reciprocal licensing!  Come on already!  That’s a simple one to me anyways.

Chair-Elect Alexa Zaledonis added, “For practitioners with the NCAP credential, it means a potential for increased marketability and heightened earning power. It will help connect advanced therapists of all modalities to rewarding positions with high-level employers.”

How will it do that when the major employer in the massage profession are massage franchises.  There aren’t any higher level jobs or at least very few.  What it takes to find or create higher paying jobs is saying “NO” to low paying jobs and going out there and showing employers just what massage can do and how much you can make for an employer.  It is about having the skills to market yourself and negotiate pay – just like most other careers.  Since most massage therapists are locked in the “Noble Poverty” – “It’s not about the money” – too many Massage Therapists are not standing up for themselves and are looking for what a job can do for them rather than what they can do for a job.

The next step is a job task analysis “that will ask practitioners to determine the knowledge, skills and abilities that an “advanced practitioner” must possess, as well as the level of importance that should be placed on each.”

What makes for an advanced massage therapist?  Is it their skills and training?  Is it the amount of time they last in the field?  With over 250 different kinds of massage and bodywork out there (and that number growing everyday)- how will they come up with skills that all types of massage therapists will be able to acquire?

In 2009, the NCBTMB did a needs assessment survey to ask the profession to help define the criteria for the possible exam.  The survey looked at:

•Defining the Advanced Practitioner
•Identifying the Necessary Characteristics of Advanced Certification
•Identifying the Criteria for Advanced Certification

Personally, I find it interesting that they didn’t ask if they thought an advanced certification was needed.  They just assumed that it was and went on to ask questions about it.   Since I never saw any benefit to the regular certification exam, what will people get out of the massage advanced certification?  I have never in 23 years been asked if I was licensed or certified.  I guess I am lucky to live in an area where massage is accepted more and seems to be ahead of the game in being accepted by health care companies.

What makes for an advanced massage therapist?  Anyone who can last more than 3-5 years would qualify in my book!

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The History of Massage leads to the future

September 6, 2010 Julie Onofrio Massage Politics, Massage Research, News

The history of massage is one of the most popular pages on my website.  Interestingly enough it is also the website that is most plagiarized by others.  Many people are usually interested in the history of massage to show it’s an acceptable method of treatment or they are looking for info for a massage school project.  While the history of massage is not copyrighted – my version of it is.  For the life of me I can’t figure out why people don’t understand that but this isn’t really what I am planning on writing about.

The real story is that most of what is written on my page on the history of massage was taken from bits and pieces from massage school textbooks.  I gathered it a small piece at a time.  Many of the books said similar things on each step in the time line.  Unfortunately for the massage profession – most of it is wrong and I was corrected a long time ago by the historian for the massage profession -Robert Calvert who now has passed away.  I was able to meet Robert in person a few times and talk about the history of massage.  What is intriguing to me is how massage has been handed down through time and how we have gotten to the point of having so many laws and regulations about massage when in fact is was done for so long without.  Also when I study the various types of massage and the history of each of those I often find that most come about out of need to heal the creator’s pain or someone in their family.  They study what is known and spin it around into their own design finding what works and what doesn’t.

Last weekend I spent a whole afternoon perusing the Google Books section on the history of massage and put together an interesting collection of historical massage books on massage and the movement cure as it was once talked about.  The books were written between 1850-1920 and most had a chapter on the history of massage.  Now we don’t actually know if they actually had accurate info or were they all copying each other like we currently have in many current books.   I would love to take the time to read all of those books and also look for other books to compare what they are saying and come up with more details on the history of massage.

The reason for doing such a project would be to learn more about ourselves and where we have come.  The current trends in the profession seem to be headed toward more hours of education and more legislation.  There is talk of degree programs in massage.   Historically from what I read in the old books was that massage was once a 2-3 year training program and it was mostly done by doctors.  It seems that more hours of training is needed to become more a part of the medical profession and to be accepted by the medical profession but we don’t really know if that is true.   Here in WA State we are able to be contracted providers with insurance companies and doctors refer to us all the time.   It came about mainly because of the work of a savvy insurance commissioner, Deborah Senn, who used to get massaged regularly by one of the massage professions political spokespeople, Lori Belenski who currently works for the Chiropractic association.  We didn’t need any more than our 500 hours of training that is required for licensing.  All we needed was a good insurance commissioner who loved massage and knew what it could do.

The old books also have quite a bit of case studies and research being done.  I would love to know more about that early research because there weren’t any big influences like who is paying for them to be done – or maybe there was at that time – I guess I don’t know for sure.

So back to the history of massage and what it can do for our future.  I believe that in studying our history we can get a clearer sense of ourselves and take a better look at just what we want it to become.   How can we help more people with touch and massage?  Could it be in getting back to having massage be a family activity being taught to sons to help their wives during child birth?  As we gain more research and evidence that massage can help people be more healthy, will it be able to become an everyday event covered by insurance for preventative means?  Could we see more programs like Massage for Peace and Touch to TEACH programs to support our communities?  Does that take more education or just more money to start them?  Could we as Robert Calvert spoke about in his book “The History of Massage” be less likely to repeat our past mistakes?

First up is to make sure that everyone knows that Per Ling was not the father of Swedish Massage! (See also Google Books excerpt from the History of Massage” and also this latest article from Judi Calvert on Massage Today)

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Gore Massage Scandal

July 3, 2010 Julie Onofrio News

The latest talk on Facebook is about the recent Al Gore scandal and his latest alleged actions regarding a massage therapist in OR.

This is from a discussion on linkedin that lists some of the reports coming out about this latest scandal:

Here is the latest police report on ex-Vice President Al Gore, allegedly sexually assaulting a Licensed Massage Therapist in the Hotel Lucia, Portland, Oregon, October 24, 2006.

http://www.kgw.com/home/National-Enquirer-says-Gore-sexually-attacked-Portland-Masseuse-96995344.html
News story ‘Gore implicated in sex assault on Portland masseuse’

http://www.flashalertnewswire.net/images/news/2010-06/3056/36280/Gore_reports.pdf
Updated Interview and Police Report from January 8, 2009, released June 23, 2010 (73 pages).

Police Statement released today, June 23, 2010:
http://www.flashalertnewswire.net/images/news/2010-06/3056/36280/6-23-10_Al_Gore_allegations.pdf
‘PORTLAND POLICE ISSUE STATEMENT REGARDING
ALLEGATIONS AGAINST AL GORE’

There was a good discussion on the event on Megan Holubs Facebook page.  Meagan is the author of a book called “The Magic Touch” where she writes about how to make $100,000 a year as a massage therapist doing travel massage to upscale hotels that cater to elite clients.  She took the time to read and listen to the interview with the massage therapist.  Some of the things the massage therapist was doing just didn’t make sense.  She stayed in the room when Gore was making advancements.

Then The View came out with this little blurb on massage and getting a 3 hour massage and the general view of massage.

While I am appalled at what they said I think it is more of a wake up call for massage therapists to start educating people.   If the panelist on The View think of massage in this way what does the rest of the world think of massage?

The problems we have in the massage profession are many.  We lack a unifying body and are split up into about 3 different professional associations.   We don’t clearly have a definition of what massage is and each state defines it differently.   A long time ago I started collecting the various definitions from state board websites.

More importantly there is such a difference in the things massage therapists are taught about being a profession and acting like a professional.  With only 500 hours of training in most places it isn’t usually enough time to address the ethical challenges that we are faced with.

One of the things that was brought up on one of the FB discussions was the fact that the massage therapist stayed the whole 3 hours even when they were being treated poorly.   I personally do know that being able to handle such challenges in real life as compared to just talking about them in massage school requires ongoing attention.   That is why I think that the answer is requiring supervision to be a part of every massage therapists ongoing Continuing Education.    It also should be started in massage school.

The other thing is how massage therapists present themselves and promote themselves to the public.   There are so many websites out there that are less than ideal and are adding to the negative image.  That is just one place to start with in educating clients.

That is what I am trying to do with my many websites on massage for the massage profession.   www.massagepracticebuilder.com is my membership program to get the help you need in creating a presentation with your website and learning to educate clients through writing and how you talk about what you do.   I also have many articles on this website along with a few new websites that I am just starting - www.massagebusinessjournal.com and www.massageschoolnotes.com

See also: Rick Rosen’s White Paper – On Becoming a Profession on Massage Magazine’s website

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