The plan in question looks like a managed care plan of some sort, either HMO or PPO, just by the fact there is a crendentialing fee required.

During the first insurance billing class I ever took by Melissa Kerley who actually had a degree in Billing & Coding, I remember her being a proponent of accepting insurance for massage therapy services in general, however, she explictly stated in a humorous way, “HMO = No, No,No!”. She stated that in every case she’d ever worked on showed being a part of an HMO contract put the provider on the short end of the stick. She went on to say, “If you join an HMO, your going to end up losing, especially if you’re a massage therapist. You bascially have to pay to join, be under constant intense scrutiny, all for what? A payment check that doesn’t resemble anything from the bill you submitted. Then once you decide you can’t survive on an HMO contract, you’ll find it nearly impossible to get off that HMO’s literature as a network provider, constantly getting calls from people expecting you to accept their HMO as payment”.

Her feelings for PPO’s were similar, basically only a step up from an HMO.

Regards

Sean
http://www.a-body-for-living.com/