Massage Therapy Licensing Issues

February 14, 2012 Julie Onofrio Licensing and Legislation

There are many massage therapy licensing issues that are challenging a massage therapists right to practice and how they practice in the US right now.

Florida State’s Bill SB 1860 (PDF)is threatening to stop massage therapists from being able to bill Personal Injury Protection insurance for people who are injured in a motor vehicle collision. The Consumer Advocates Report states that “Average charges by massage therapists saw the greatest increase, increasing from $2,887 in 2005 to $4,350 in 2010.” which is up much more than orthopedic physicians and acupuncturists. I think the bill is showing a big problem in the massage profession which is overbilling for massage services for car accidents. While I do believe we need to fight this bill, the next step would be to look into the problem that brought this bill up and see what can be done to find out if there are many massage therapists who are overbilling or is it needed in the care of injuries sustained in car accidents.

The Florida State Massage Therapy Association has a call to action and you can find out more by asking on their Facebook group page.

Tennessee is also faced with HB 2387 that is trying to move massage therapy from the health related boards to that of the commerce and insurance division–the division that regulates “trades.” The biggest thing would be that massage therapy would then be considered a “trade,” not a “profession,” and insurance companies don’t pay tradespeople. They pay professional health care workers. It would also be a step down for the profession of massage overall moving to that of a trade division.

There is a petition for the TN bill “Stop the deregulation of Massage in TN”

Each state needs to keep up to date with the laws and legislative actions that are constantly happening. The current economy is challenging the budgets of many states and they are always looking for a way to lower expenses and make more too.