What I know about THIS subject... I could write a book.

I was wondering if there is anyway around Medicare/Medicaid to be able to recieve the holisitic approach?  Yeah PT is great but my nerves are on fire.  I feel acupuncture and massage would also help along with the PT. 

Oh yeah, I'm in the US...LOL

Izzy -

1) For everyone -- write or call your congressman.  There is a bill that the D-Iowa Senator has put before congress that would mandate that alternative providers that are licensed with a state have to be reimbursed for their services.  And just chime in about what you want with health care.  Let them know what your diagnosis is, what services you want and why.   And I am currently asking local experts to bring me their expertise on these topics here at Lumigrate.com .... and I think I have someone really GOOD on the line, so we can hope!  

2) As of last year, when I was a clinician in a large outpatient therapy practice: if a massage therapist was working as a 'tech' under a PT, they could do massage and it would be part of your PT benefits.  But you'd need to seek out a PT clinic that had massage therapists on staff AND who wanted to take the time to 'do the supervision' on that piece.  Which means 'collaboration' and that isn't the model many clinics run on because time is money and their profit margins are so low anymore due to all the overhead.... to bill Medicare and Medicaid and all other gzillion insurances!  Collections sometimes lag 10 months! 

3)  Please read the blogs in the website -- and stay tuned to Lumigrate as we will be getting more from GOOD PTs on what to do with people with FMS.   There are blogs from late July about PTs and pain, and about how to interact with your providers -- I found many times that people were coming to me as an OTR for chronic pain and when I suggested PT services, they were like 'NO WAY' because they had been hurt by them before but instead of calling up and saying 'I want PT, and I like you, but I came away worse off than when I went, so is there some resource I can help you with to help you understand what you can do for me'.  You'll see IN THE BLOGs, that I guide people to some books about FMS, one of which is the 'bible' for anyone with FMS to give/loan to a PT or massage therapist or OT who isn't knowing what to do... "Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain, a Survival Manual" by Devin Starlanyl and Mary Ellen Copeland. 

And you know how to easily find it?  Go 'back' to the 'products' tab on this website and it'll take you right to Amazon.com! 

I'm really trying to set people up to make this easy on them....... so hopefully that helps!  Truly folks, spend a little time perusing the blogs I've posted on Lumigrate this summer.... their is a very big 'complement' of chronic pain blogs, all of which are intended to give enough info to be good, not overwhelm and then IF you want more info on that, link you to where you can get more information ......

Truly hoping we're "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for YOU ~~  Thanks for writing and reading!  

Mardy

Another option for massage is some chiropractors have in house massage therapists.   For my insurance, the massage was billed as physical therapy (all quite legal, I checked!).     However, my benefits are very limited on this aspect, I can have 10 chiro adjustments in a year.... ummm.. I can go through that in less than a month!

The other shameful thing Ohio did not too long ago was start a tax on massage as they now consider it a "leisure service".    It doesn't matter that the massage therapists are highly trained, tested and licensed.  It's still considered a leisure.... yeah right!

 That's just wrong, Aimee.  I can see the point, as where do you draw the line, as many of the people who go to spas are without any actual medical issue that MT is working on, it is for leisure.  I would hope that when they're operating under the PT or DC, and you're right, it is all totally legitimate for MT to be charged as long as it's on the care plan and supervised by the professional PT/DC, they'd exclude that from taxes.  

And apologies, I'd not seen this and commented at the time you made it, but I did now!  Wow!  Great comments, thank you!