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branching out
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branching out - July 16, 2000 7:14:00 PM
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Betty Smoot
Posts: 49
Joined: March 1, 2000
From: Sonoma CA
Status: offline
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[IMG]http://www.rehabedge.com/forums/confused.gif[/IMG]
Dear colleagues,
I need some advice...
As a P.T., I've always been under the employ of another...currently our local hospital. No complaints and I have a lot of autonomy and flexibility, but I'm thinking about stepping out on my own, very part time. The opportunity is there and I'd like to take advantage of it but I'm not sure which road to take. Should I or can I practice as a massage provider and limit my practice, get massage therapy malpractice insurance and a business license, and not say I'm a P.T? In CA you don't have to graduate from an accredited school of massage to practice and charge for massage...that may change someday, but as far as I know all you need now is...well, nothing, I guess. Or should I just do P.T., like a home care therapist? (I don't want an office and overhead, etc., yet) If I do the latter what do I have to do? My guess is malpractice insurance, a business license, and a taxpayer ID number. Do you all know if there's more to it? My plan is to take cash only, since I have a job, and don't want the hassle of billing insurance. But clients may want to be reimbursed by their carrier, and in that case do I need to give them invoices with ICD codes and all? This gets very complicated and I'm on the fence and may just decinde to take the path of least resistance. I'm basically lazy by nature but love what I do. Do you think it's worth it?
Any input is appreciated. Thanks, in advance, very much.
Betty
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Re: branching out - July 17, 2000 2:52:00 AM
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Dana D
Posts: 142
Joined: September 18, 1999
Status: offline
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Both ideas sound nice...I am thinking of the massage route, but here in NY you do have to go to school for it, so that's the issue holding me up for a bit...Would you do massage just as a set fee? and not deal with insurance companies?
If you do home care privately, you would have to deal with billing and codes and such. It's not that bad though... I do it, and the billing is not a hassle at all. It just takes a while to get reimbursed... Last week I just got my payment from April... so, you can't rely on the money.. But it is nice to get the checks in... I have part time insurance for malpractice and a tax ID number... also with a small business title, you get a lot of tax breaks, which is nice... from breaks on car insurance/cell phones, etc...
Good Luck!
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Re: branching out - July 17, 2000 2:40:00 PM
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charanderson
Posts: 25
Joined: December 27, 1999
From: Newbury Park, Ca, U.S.A.
Status: offline
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Betty,
I live in California as well. I was recently enlightened at a local district APTA meeting (Ventura County). As a Feldenkrais Practitioner as well as a PT, I took an interest in the discussion. It was an interesting debate about whether we could practice as something other than a PT. I think the alternative in question at the time was a personal trainer, but I think the same would apply to a M.T. Essentially the outcome of the discussion was that in a letigous society, if something were to happen, they would of course attack your PT lisence, whether you represented yourself as one or not. How do you shut that part of you off? And I am sure you wouldn't. If you didn't keep the same practice standards as you would as a PT you could be at risk. So, it seems to me that you would have to practice as a private PT, doing massage. Wouldn't that be more fun anyway? To educate as well as make them feel good.
An addtional dilemna in Ca. is that direct access (to my understanding) means that you can evaluate without a prescription, yet need a prescription to treat, even for cash pay, what a bummer! I hope that I have given you accurate helpful info, anyone else in California?
Charlene [URL=http://www.smarttiming.com]http://www.smarttiming.com[/URL]
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