THE BASIC COST OF BEING A MASSAGE THERAPIST

Appeared in the AMT Journal "In Good Hands", June 2008.
© AMT 2008, © Colin Rossie 2008

So, now you are qualified. With a busy practice, you work many hours a week with clients- perhaps in a clinic with other therapists or perhaps by yourself in a clinic or from home. Perhaps you only do a few clients a week, again maybe from home: or you have retired from an active practice and do 1 or 2 people a week. These might be old clients, perhaps friends- maybe you charge them, maybe you don't. Another scenario is that you only do voluntary work: the local nursing home, community work, the local sports team- all free of charge, the pay off being pride in your work or a warm glow inside.

The income received may vary in all these scenarios, but in all of them can you really afford to be uninsured? The unequivocal answer to this is no!

If you are qualified and practicing any massage, regardless of whether you are being paid for it or not, whether you regard yourself as active or retired, you are liable for the consequences of your work. Thus you should carry insurance. Being a member of association makes insurance cheaper. If you are qualified and not in an association, insurance costs over a $1,000 more on a per annum basis.

In AMT there are 5 levels of membership. Which can get insurance?

For the sake of ease, I'll band these 5 levels into 3 categories, based on the options available for insurance.

These 3 categories are:

1. Auxiliary membership

2. Student membership

3. General and Senior Levels 1 & 2

The easiest to address is the Auxiliary category: insurance is unavailable to this category of membership.

The second category, Student members of AMT, can get insurance with OAMPS once they have completed the basic Swedish Massage section of their training. Depending on whether they are charging people or not and what amount of indemnity they want, insurance costs students between $127 - $253 per annum. Certain requirements must be met in the treatments they offer i.e. identifying their student status to clients. Given that students if they meet certain criteria can join AMT for free, this insurance cost represents a membership cost of as little $2.50 per week. This cost is only if they choose to take out insurance: otherwise, membership can cost students nothing.

Now for the third category: General, Senior level 1 & Senior Level 2 members. The following calculations represent the basic cost of membership per annum, thus the basic yearly cost of practicing Massage Therapy:

General Level membership:
Annual membership fee $150
Insurance-$1,000,000 $197
Cheapest CEU requirement (E.G) $120

TOTAL Per Annum $467

This, if you do your sums, works out to be just less than $9 a week. Though the CEU rates I quote represent the cheapest I could readily find, you could possibly fulfill your CEU requirements for less cost. (I'm not advocating "doing it on the cheap". Personally, I think you should never scrimp on the cost of good continuing education.) I have seen someone charge as little as $50 for an hour massage recently. More frequently I've seen $65 -$70 an hour as a basic, starting rate. If you are doing 8-9 hours paid massage work per annum, you can afford to cover this cost. If you accidentally do something to your client, or are sued for any reason, can you afford to have not met this cost? If you are doing 1 paid massage a week from home, you can easily afford $9 a week- and you get to keep your home if something you do makes the massage go awry.

Similarly, for Senior Level 1 the cost with $1,000,000 insurance is $9.75 a week. The sums are:

Senior Level 1
Annual membership fee $190
Insurance-$1,000,000 $197
Cheapest CEU requirement (E.G) $120

TOTAL Per Annum $507

Even with $2,000,0000 insurance, Senior Level 1 membership costs just $10.27 a week, or $534 per annum.

Lets go deluxe with Senior Level 2:

Annual membership fee $220
Insurance-$5,000,000 $264
Cheapest CEU requirement (E.G) $120

TOTAL Per Annum $604

This represents just $11.62 a week over a year for $5,000,000 insurance. For $1,000,000 insurance it would cost $10.33 a week ($537 p.a.), for $2,000,000 insurance the cost would be $10.85 a week ($564 p.a.) Of course, SL-2 members would most likely willingly pay a lot more for their CEUs.

Again, I emphasize that these are just the basic costs of your being able to practice massage therapy. Without paying these basic costs listed above you wont be able to practice as a massage therapist. Tables, oils etc, linen & rent are all in addition- none of these others matter if the basics aren't met.