May 1, 2024 • 13 mins
In this episode of "The Rubdown," your host Corey Rivera brings you the latest news and updates from the massage therapy profession spanning from January 1st to April 30th, 2024.
Topics:
- Massage Therapy Foundation Grants
- Healwell News
- FTC Non-compete ban
- Gainful employment
- Interstate compact
- National Association updates
- IJTMB Journal review
- Upcoming Live and Online events
Support Georgia joining the interstate compact
Healwell's Glossary of the Massage Therapy Profession
International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork
MTF Grants
Send us an email: podcast@healwell.org
Leave us a voice message: 703-468-1799
Check out our interview-style podcast: Interdisciplinary
You can support Healwell and the cool things we make by donating here!
Ways join in:
- Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts
- Check Healwell’s live and online classes
- Continue the conversation with a free 3-day trial of the Healwell Community
- Find a copy of Rebecca Sturgeon's book: "Oncology Massage: An Integrative Approach to Cancer Care"
Thank you to ABMP and AMTA for sponsoring us!
Healwell is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based out of the Washington DC area. Check us out at www.healwell.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to the rubdown a newsupdate about massage therapy.
I'm your host, Corey Rivera,licensed massage therapist and
correspondent. Every month, TheRub will bring you news from the
world of massage therapy.
Today's rubdown will includenews from January 1 to April 30
2024.
(00:31):
Before we get to the news, I'dlike to share with you a
resource on the Healwell blog.
There are a lot of acronyms,associations and terms that fly
around in massage therapy. Sowe've created a glossary and a
list of helpful links. If we'vemissed any please let us know by
emailing us at podcast at healwell.org And now, the news.
First up we have Healwell news.
(00:53):
The Massage Therapy Foundationhas awarded Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia a research grantto replicate and expand a study
originally conducted byChildren's National Hospital and
Healwell in 2012. The researchis about the effect of massage
therapy on sleep and pediatriconcology and stem cell
transplant patients. The abilityto replicate results is an
important step in the researchprocess and one that does not
(01:14):
happen often for massagetherapy. Healwell is thrilled to
be working on this project.
In other Healwell news, HealwellHomecoming will be September 20-
21st in Arlington, Virginia. Ifyou're looking for real world
real serious topics combinedwith camaraderie, laughter and
an all around good time, this isthe event for you. We don't shy
away from the hard topics and wedon't expect you to go it alone
(01:36):
either. Today we're featuringthe two classes that will be
taught Friday morning for fourC's each. And the first option
Sakinah Irizarry will be talkingabout complications and
pregnancies. She will discussthe racial discrimination that
leads to three times more blackwomen dying of pregnancy
complications in the UnitedStates. Sakinah will talk about
equitable access to care and howyou as a massage therapist can
(01:57):
help.
In the second option, MeganBelanger will be talking about
the lymphatic system andteaching to self manual
lymphatic drainage techniques.
Megan will discuss bothlymphedema and lipedima. She'll
talk about treatments for eachand exciting new information
about neurolymphatics andglymphatics. If those words are
totally new to you, you shoulddefinitely come to this class
because when Megan nerds out,everybody wins.
(02:26):
Up next, state and nationalnews. The Federal Trade
Commission has announced a rulethat will place a national ban
on non compete agreements. Noncompete agreements are usually
signed when an employee is hiredto prevent the employee from
working for competing companies,one in five workers in the
United States are currentlyunder non competes. Originally,
a non compete was required ofhighly paid employees in order
(02:48):
to protect trade secrets. Butthey've become so pervasive that
retail and food service workerscan be required to sign one.
The Federal Trade Commissionsays that non competes prevent
workers from seeking better jobswith higher pay, and also stops
what is known as "job churn,"the process of workers moving up
in their fields which makes roomfor new workers to be hired.
Additionally, noncompetesprevent innovation. The state of
(03:11):
California's long standingrefusal to enforce non competes
is credited with the rapiddevelopment and innovation of
Silicon Valley.
Many massage therapists arerequired to sign on competes. At
my first massage therapy job Isigned an 18 month non compete
with a 20 mile radius thatcovered every client the
business I had worked for hadever seen. The business had been
(03:32):
open for 25 years. For those ofus in income brackets that are
not six figures, noncompetesallow employers to take
advantage of their workers lackof options. Also in massage
therapy noncompetes preventcontinuation of care. We all
know how attached clients get totherapists and when a therapist
is under a non compete, theclient may be unable to follow
their therapist leading todelays in treatment and possibly
(03:54):
a decrease in treatmenteffectiveness due to the
importance of the therapeuticrelationship. The noncompete ban
will go into effect in fourmonths. However, less than 24
hours after it was passed the USChamber of Commerce along with
other business groups filed alawsuit saying that the ban is
too wide and that the FederalTrade Commission is
overstepping. We will have towait to see what happens.
(04:16):
Here's an update on the newsfrom gainful employment from
ABMP.
A bill to stop the 150% rulechanging to a 100% rule has been
introduced in the US House ofRepresentatives. The 100% rule
will affect all massage therapyschools. It means that any
school that accepts title IVfunding, which includes
education grants, cannot have aprogram longer than what is
(04:37):
legally required by their statefor licensing. Over half of
states require only 500 hoursfor a license and in an
impressive twist, title IVfunding is not available for
programs that are less than 600hours. This means that massage
schools in many states will beprevented from accepting title
IV funding full stop.
The bill to prevent the 100%rule is sponsored by
(05:00):
Pennsylvania representativeLloyd Smucker. All supporters on
the bill are Republican andsince it's an election year, it
is unlikely to go throughwithout bipartisan support.
The 100% rule goes into effectJuly 1, but the Department of
Education has realized theburden that this is placing on
schools. It has agreed to extendthe timeline but only on a case
by case basis, and it isn'tclear for how long or what
(05:22):
schools would qualify.
Several states have changed orare planning to change hours
required for a license.
Louisiana has proposed a bill tomove to 625 hours, Tennessee has
passed a bill to increase to 650hours, Florida approved an
increase to 650 hours and Nevadahas proposed a bill to 625
hours.
(05:44):
Next up the interstate compactnews from the Federation of
State massage therapy boards.
The interstate massage therapycompact or impact would increase
the portability of massagetherapy licensing between
states. The Compact is supportedby the Council of State
Governments and the Departmentof Defense. The compact
currently needs to gain supportin seven states in order to
continue the process. Thecompact would allow massage
(06:07):
therapist with a license in onestate to expedite the process of
licensing and another statesmust opt in to a compact.
Currently Nevada has acceptedit, and New York, Ohio,
Kentucky, Nebraska and Alabamaare considering it. Georgia was
considering it but it has runinto some roadblocks. If you are
a Georgia resident and wouldlike to support the compact,
please visit the link in theshow notes for more information.
(06:29):
The American Massage TherapyAssociation was previously in
support of the compact but nowopposes it stating, quote, we
are concerned with the barriersand restrictions currently in
the impact that could imposeunnecessary hurdles and exclude
many massage therapists fromimmediately participating in it
unquote.
These hurdles include the 625hour requirement, requiring
(06:50):
continuing education, requiringtherapists to pass an exam and
wording that in practice allowsonly the FSMTB mBLEX exam to
qualify as that national exam.
In other news, USOLMT and FSMTBworked together to stop the
passage of an Arizona House billthat would have dissolved
Arizona's massage therapy boardand merged it with cosmetology
(07:10):
and barbering. This bill wasstopped mid March. While we
certainly have things in commonwith those groups, massage
therapy is a complicatedprofession that needs its own
board to enable it to makeindependent decisions. Alaska
overturned an executive orderthat would have dissolved their
massage board and put massagetherapy under the Department of
Commerce, Community and EconomicDevelopment. Such a change would
(07:31):
indicate that massage therapy inAlaska is considered a
commercial matter as opposed tohealthcare or service. It would
impede legislation designed topromote effective and efficient
massage therapy in the state.
Our next segment is news fromthe massage therapy national
associations. USOLMT has addedfive new members to their board
(07:54):
of directors and are looking forseveral more. They need a
director of fundraising,marketing education and a
secretary treasurer. You canfind a board candidate
information packet on theirwebsite. AFMTE has opened their
Educator of the Year Awardnominations they will be open
until June 1. The MassageTherapy foundation is accepting
posters for the AMTA conventionin August. Topics are original
(08:16):
research, program evaluation andclinical case presentation. The
deadline for submissions is May31. The Massage Therapy
foundation is also acceptingstudent and practitioner case
reports and schools can applyfor the Bob King legacy grant
for community based work. Legacygrants are between 500 and 1500
dollars. The deadline for thecase reports and the legacy
(08:36):
grant applications is June 1.
The International Journal oftherapeutic massage and bodywork
is the academic journalpublished by the massage therapy
Foundation. They publish fourtimes a year and the first
volume has been published and isavailable for you to read free
of paywalls. It includes aneditorial by the editor in chief
(08:56):
Dr. Amanda Baskwill. This is thefirst of three editorials
designed to quote inspireresearchers, practitioners and
educators to share their workwith the IJ TMB community
unquote.
This editorial focuses onresearch and discusses some of
the challenges of massagetherapy research ethical
considerations, and suggestionsabout knowledge translation,
which is how research is shared.
The second article is bySamantha Zabel PhD candidate
(09:19):
about the massage therapypractice based research network
or PBRN, an online portal thatconnects massage therapy
clinicians with peopleresearching massage therapy, you
can find the PBRN at massagenet.org
The third article is titled Themulti system effects of long
COVID syndrome and potentialbenefits of massage therapy and
(09:40):
long COVID care. It is writtenby Elias Whiebe and others. The
article examines 17 reports oflong COVID symptoms and compares
existing research about thebenefits of massage therapy for
those specific symptoms.
The last article and my favoriteis titled What is effective in
massage therapy. Well, itdepends by
Jennifer Stewart Richardson andothers. "It depends" is one of
(10:03):
Healwell's most common answersto questions so the title made
me smile. The article discussesa series of semi structured
interviews that askedexperienced orthopedic massage
therapists what they believecontributes to the effectiveness
of massage.
My favorite quote is, "byrejecting the use of protocols
or checklists in favor ofcreating individualized
treatment plans, participantsindicated that they were not
(10:25):
only willing but believed it wasvital to sit comfortably with
uncertainty."And to wrap up this update, here
are the massage therapy eventscoming up. If you want to catch
a Healwell live class we haveoncology classes June 7 through
ninth in Indianapolis, August 23through 25th in Harrisburg,
(10:45):
Pennsylvania, and October 23through 25th in Keene New
Hampshire.
Healwell's hospital basedmassage therapy stewardship is
November 5 through eighth inWashington DC and there are two
scar classes remaining for theyear with Cathy Ryan. One is
September 21, the 22nd inFairfax, Virginia and the other
is October 26 through 27th inSanta Monica, California. And as
(11:08):
mentioned before, he willhomecoming is September 20
through 21st in Arlington,Virginia.
Other live conferences includethe AFM te educational
conference July 11 through 13thin Kansas City, Missouri, the
AMTA national conventionSeptember 12 through 14th in
Tampa, Florida, the FSMTB annualmeeting October 3 through fifth
(11:28):
in Washington DC and the BlackMassage Therapists conference
October 8 through ninth inCharlotte, North Carolina.
Tickets for the black massagetherapists conference are not
yet on sale, but you can sign upon the website to be notified
when they are available.
If you're looking to stick closeto home, the Healwell online
community is sponsoring aspecial event called How to
remember what you read on May19, which will be taught by
(11:50):
yours truly. We will also havean online book club on June 27.
We are reading Care (11:54):
The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Book clubs
happen once in a blue moon so Iencourage you to join us in the
community atcommunity.healwell.org
If you have any national orstate level news about massage
therapy that you would like toshare, please send an email with
your news and a link to yoursource to podcast@healwell.org
(12:16):
You can subscribe to our Patreonfor early episodes and full
interviews and you can alwaysjoin us in the helo community.
This has been your April newsrubdown. And thank you for
listening
Welcome to the rubdown a newsupdate about massage therapy.
I'm your host, Corey Rivera,licensed massage therapist and
correspondent. Every month, TheRub will bring you news from the
world of massage therapy.
Today's rubdown will includenews from January 1 to April 30
2024.
(00:31):
Before we get to the news, I'dlike to share with you a
resource on the Healwell blog.
There are a lot of acronyms,associations and terms that fly
around in massage therapy. Sowe've created a glossary and a
list of helpful links. If we'vemissed any please let us know by
emailing us at podcast at healwell.org And now, the news.
First up we have Healwell news.
(00:53):
The Massage Therapy Foundationhas awarded Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia a research grantto replicate and expand a study
originally conducted byChildren's National Hospital and
Healwell in 2012. The researchis about the effect of massage
therapy on sleep and pediatriconcology and stem cell
transplant patients. The abilityto replicate results is an
important step in the researchprocess and one that does not
(01:14):
happen often for massagetherapy. Healwell is thrilled to
be working on this project.
In other Healwell news, HealwellHomecoming will be September 20-
21st in Arlington, Virginia. Ifyou're looking for real world
real serious topics combinedwith camaraderie, laughter and
an all around good time, this isthe event for you. We don't shy
away from the hard topics and wedon't expect you to go it alone
(01:36):
either. Today we're featuringthe two classes that will be
taught Friday morning for fourC's each. And the first option
Sakinah Irizarry will be talkingabout complications and
pregnancies. She will discussthe racial discrimination that
leads to three times more blackwomen dying of pregnancy
complications in the UnitedStates. Sakinah will talk about
equitable access to care and howyou as a massage therapist can
(01:57):
help.
In the second option, MeganBelanger will be talking about
the lymphatic system andteaching to self manual
lymphatic drainage techniques.
Megan will discuss bothlymphedema and lipedima. She'll
talk about treatments for eachand exciting new information
about neurolymphatics andglymphatics. If those words are
totally new to you, you shoulddefinitely come to this class
because when Megan nerds out,everybody wins.
(02:26):
Up next, state and nationalnews. The Federal Trade
Commission has announced a rulethat will place a national ban
on non compete agreements. Noncompete agreements are usually
signed when an employee is hiredto prevent the employee from
working for competing companies,one in five workers in the
United States are currentlyunder non competes. Originally,
a non compete was required ofhighly paid employees in order
(02:48):
to protect trade secrets. Butthey've become so pervasive that
retail and food service workerscan be required to sign one.
The Federal Trade Commissionsays that non competes prevent
workers from seeking better jobswith higher pay, and also stops
what is known as "job churn,"the process of workers moving up
in their fields which makes roomfor new workers to be hired.
Additionally, noncompetesprevent innovation. The state of
(03:11):
California's long standingrefusal to enforce non competes
is credited with the rapiddevelopment and innovation of
Silicon Valley.
Many massage therapists arerequired to sign on competes. At
my first massage therapy job Isigned an 18 month non compete
with a 20 mile radius thatcovered every client the
business I had worked for hadever seen. The business had been
(03:32):
open for 25 years. For those ofus in income brackets that are
not six figures, noncompetesallow employers to take
advantage of their workers lackof options. Also in massage
therapy noncompetes preventcontinuation of care. We all
know how attached clients get totherapists and when a therapist
is under a non compete, theclient may be unable to follow
their therapist leading todelays in treatment and possibly
(03:54):
a decrease in treatmenteffectiveness due to the
importance of the therapeuticrelationship. The noncompete ban
will go into effect in fourmonths. However, less than 24
hours after it was passed the USChamber of Commerce along with
other business groups filed alawsuit saying that the ban is
too wide and that the FederalTrade Commission is
overstepping. We will have towait to see what happens.
(04:16):
Here's an update on the newsfrom gainful employment from
ABMP.
A bill to stop the 150% rulechanging to a 100% rule has been
introduced in the US House ofRepresentatives. The 100% rule
will affect all massage therapyschools. It means that any
school that accepts title IVfunding, which includes
education grants, cannot have aprogram longer than what is
(04:37):
legally required by their statefor licensing. Over half of
states require only 500 hoursfor a license and in an
impressive twist, title IVfunding is not available for
programs that are less than 600hours. This means that massage
schools in many states will beprevented from accepting title
IV funding full stop.
The bill to prevent the 100%rule is sponsored by
(05:00):
Pennsylvania representativeLloyd Smucker. All supporters on
the bill are Republican andsince it's an election year, it
is unlikely to go throughwithout bipartisan support.
The 100% rule goes into effectJuly 1, but the Department of
Education has realized theburden that this is placing on
schools. It has agreed to extendthe timeline but only on a case
by case basis, and it isn'tclear for how long or what
(05:22):
schools would qualify.
Several states have changed orare planning to change hours
required for a license.
Louisiana has proposed a bill tomove to 625 hours, Tennessee has
passed a bill to increase to 650hours, Florida approved an
increase to 650 hours and Nevadahas proposed a bill to 625
hours.
(05:44):
Next up the interstate compactnews from the Federation of
State massage therapy boards.
The interstate massage therapycompact or impact would increase
the portability of massagetherapy licensing between
states. The Compact is supportedby the Council of State
Governments and the Departmentof Defense. The compact
currently needs to gain supportin seven states in order to
continue the process. Thecompact would allow massage
(06:07):
therapist with a license in onestate to expedite the process of
licensing and another statesmust opt in to a compact.
Currently Nevada has acceptedit, and New York, Ohio,
Kentucky, Nebraska and Alabamaare considering it. Georgia was
considering it but it has runinto some roadblocks. If you are
a Georgia resident and wouldlike to support the compact,
please visit the link in theshow notes for more information.
(06:29):
The American Massage TherapyAssociation was previously in
support of the compact but nowopposes it stating, quote, we
are concerned with the barriersand restrictions currently in
the impact that could imposeunnecessary hurdles and exclude
many massage therapists fromimmediately participating in it
unquote.
These hurdles include the 625hour requirement, requiring
(06:50):
continuing education, requiringtherapists to pass an exam and
wording that in practice allowsonly the FSMTB mBLEX exam to
qualify as that national exam.
In other news, USOLMT and FSMTBworked together to stop the
passage of an Arizona House billthat would have dissolved
Arizona's massage therapy boardand merged it with cosmetology
(07:10):
and barbering. This bill wasstopped mid March. While we
certainly have things in commonwith those groups, massage
therapy is a complicatedprofession that needs its own
board to enable it to makeindependent decisions. Alaska
overturned an executive orderthat would have dissolved their
massage board and put massagetherapy under the Department of
Commerce, Community and EconomicDevelopment. Such a change would
(07:31):
indicate that massage therapy inAlaska is considered a
commercial matter as opposed tohealthcare or service. It would
impede legislation designed topromote effective and efficient
massage therapy in the state.
Our next segment is news fromthe massage therapy national
associations. USOLMT has addedfive new members to their board
(07:54):
of directors and are looking forseveral more. They need a
director of fundraising,marketing education and a
secretary treasurer. You canfind a board candidate
information packet on theirwebsite. AFMTE has opened their
Educator of the Year Awardnominations they will be open
until June 1. The MassageTherapy foundation is accepting
posters for the AMTA conventionin August. Topics are original
(08:16):
research, program evaluation andclinical case presentation. The
deadline for submissions is May31. The Massage Therapy
foundation is also acceptingstudent and practitioner case
reports and schools can applyfor the Bob King legacy grant
for community based work. Legacygrants are between 500 and 1500
dollars. The deadline for thecase reports and the legacy
(08:36):
grant applications is June 1.
The International Journal oftherapeutic massage and bodywork
is the academic journalpublished by the massage therapy
Foundation. They publish fourtimes a year and the first
volume has been published and isavailable for you to read free
of paywalls. It includes aneditorial by the editor in chief
(08:56):
Dr. Amanda Baskwill. This is thefirst of three editorials
designed to quote inspireresearchers, practitioners and
educators to share their workwith the IJ TMB community
unquote.
This editorial focuses onresearch and discusses some of
the challenges of massagetherapy research ethical
considerations, and suggestionsabout knowledge translation,
which is how research is shared.
The second article is bySamantha Zabel PhD candidate
(09:19):
about the massage therapypractice based research network
or PBRN, an online portal thatconnects massage therapy
clinicians with peopleresearching massage therapy, you
can find the PBRN at massagenet.org
The third article is titled Themulti system effects of long
COVID syndrome and potentialbenefits of massage therapy and
(09:40):
long COVID care. It is writtenby Elias Whiebe and others. The
article examines 17 reports oflong COVID symptoms and compares
existing research about thebenefits of massage therapy for
those specific symptoms.
The last article and my favoriteis titled What is effective in
massage therapy. Well, itdepends by
Jennifer Stewart Richardson andothers. "It depends" is one of
(10:03):
Healwell's most common answersto questions so the title made
me smile. The article discussesa series of semi structured
interviews that askedexperienced orthopedic massage
therapists what they believecontributes to the effectiveness
of massage.
My favorite quote is, "byrejecting the use of protocols
or checklists in favor ofcreating individualized
treatment plans, participantsindicated that they were not
(10:25):
only willing but believed it wasvital to sit comfortably with
uncertainty."And to wrap up this update, here
are the massage therapy eventscoming up. If you want to catch
a Healwell live class we haveoncology classes June 7 through
ninth in Indianapolis, August 23through 25th in Harrisburg,
(10:45):
Pennsylvania, and October 23through 25th in Keene New
Hampshire.
Healwell's hospital basedmassage therapy stewardship is
November 5 through eighth inWashington DC and there are two
scar classes remaining for theyear with Cathy Ryan. One is
September 21, the 22nd inFairfax, Virginia and the other
is October 26 through 27th inSanta Monica, California. And as
(11:08):
mentioned before, he willhomecoming is September 20
through 21st in Arlington,Virginia.
Other live conferences includethe AFM te educational
conference July 11 through 13thin Kansas City, Missouri, the
AMTA national conventionSeptember 12 through 14th in
Tampa, Florida, the FSMTB annualmeeting October 3 through fifth
(11:28):
in Washington DC and the BlackMassage Therapists conference
October 8 through ninth inCharlotte, North Carolina.
Tickets for the black massagetherapists conference are not
yet on sale, but you can sign upon the website to be notified
when they are available.
If you're looking to stick closeto home, the Healwell online
community is sponsoring aspecial event called How to
remember what you read on May19, which will be taught by
(11:50):
yours truly. We will also havean online book club on June 27.
We are reading Care (11:54):
The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Book clubs
happen once in a blue moon so Iencourage you to join us in the
community atcommunity.healwell.org
If you have any national orstate level news about massage
therapy that you would like toshare, please send an email with
your news and a link to yoursource to podcast@healwell.org
(12:16):
You can subscribe to our Patreonfor early episodes and full
interviews and you can alwaysjoin us in the helo community.
This has been your April newsrubdown. And thank you for
listening
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