Working for other health care providers...

[c: smiley]

Hi all,I will be starting a job soon working in a nursing home. The dilemma is this: this will be my first massage therapy job since I've gotten out of school. Also, the company I will be working for has never used massage therapists in its rehab program but are looking into ways to incorporate it into the daily rehab routine. As far as I can recall, the majority of marketing ideas that were taught in classes dealt more specifically with those who were self-employed or in the spa environment. I was just wondering if anyone out there has ever worked under another health care provider (PT's, Dr's, etc.) as a LMT, and if so what are some of the marketing strategies that you or the company used? Trying to do some extra research to impress the boss ;D.Thanks, Cece

 

[xXSmilezxX]

Cece,I don't exactly understand your question. آ What do you want to market and who do you want to market to?Do you want to market the nursing home services to the doctors?  or  Is this a nursing home job that has nothing to do with massage and you are trying to add massage to the nursing home facility plans?Sorry, maybe I missed something in reading your post. آ 

 

[WilliamJ]

Working for other health care providers...

Hi Texas,Well, you should know first off that I won't be able to work as a "massage therapist" to start off with, because until we get a massage therapy program started, the work I do can't be billed under a massage therapist's treatment plan. I will work under the title of a "rehab aid", where the treatment that I provide will actually be billed under the treatment plan of a physical therapist. (Hope that makes since.) Now the actual insurance billing won't be my problem (but if you have any ideas about that, I'll gladly listen). What I need are some actual marketing ideas, ideas that I can take back and share with my employer, on implementing a massage program into the assisted living facilities. For instance, here are some ideas I had (which may be good or bad). 1) Making informative brochures about the benefits of massage and sending them out to the families of the patients-The families, I feel, will have more reserves about new treatment plans. 2) I thought that maybe we could do a "Family massage day", where we could set up massage and offer it to the family members and the patients when family members come to visit.-I figure it could be a way to ease tension about families coming to visit relatives who have major handicaps or cognitive disabilities, and at the same time, give a demo to the family members, so that they can "feel" the importance of massage. And 3)-- Earlier I was reading through the discussions on this web site, and someone mentioned the idea of doing the "punch cards". Well, I thought this was a really neat idea. However, with geriatrics, you don't typically give hour massages. So here's the idea (and obviously I think it will work better with the patients who aren't cognitively impaired). I think the facility is going to charge massage at $1/ minute. And using the punch card idea, maybe we could offer a free 15, 20, or 30 minute massage after they have received something like 50 or 100 minutes of massage. Now, keep in mind these are some of the "rough draft" ideas that I have come up with. So, if you can add anything to these, or just think these aren't good ideas let me know. I'd love to hear your opinion. Keep in mind though, that these are really early seforum.xxxes of planning, and anything you have might be helpful.Hope this was more informative,Cece

 

[Pompal 09.]

Working for other health care providers...

OK.  That helps a lot.  I am not the end all be all, but I'll give you my 2 cents and hopefully others will too.  I guess I'll be the first to post on this topic and then more people can start to bounce ideas off mine.    

Sounds like the first thing you may want to do is see if you can get the nursing home to consider paying all or partially for you to take the Medical Massage course from this group or another like it.

http://www.lmtsuccessgroup.com/descriptions.htm

Now, the reason I suggest this is because:

• This would give you extra information on billing through insurance  (any extra info that you don't have to pay to learn is a bonus and gives you skills to take elsewhere for the future - and they show you how to bill for your fifteen minute incriments which would be more to your taste in this particular position, or so it seems)
  
• and give you a "certification" for the medical massage. (a medical massage certification is not necessarily something you need to have in order to perform your work, but the fact is, since you are actually dealing with a specialized type of facility and you have PT's to work with, they are probably going to introduce you to different docs as you move along in this field -- they are going to be happier with some sort of nifty paperwork for you to show them -- just the nature of the beast)
  
  You seem to be a real go-getter so you should be able to maneuver yourself into places where you meet and greet the important people of the facility as well as the treating and referring physicians if all goes well.  
  
  Think things like:
• "Doctors luncheons" hosted by the pharmaceutical companies, networking with some of the PT's who have part time work at other places.  (Many PT's who do this kind of work also have another job elsewhere.  Maybe they can introduce you to someone at another home who is doing what you are interested in.)
  
• "Comunity centers - (something like the "Jewish Community Center" is the first thing that comes to mind in our city) and retirement homes.  These may be another way to get information out about the massage work you will do at your facility.  (A thought would be that your facility opens up a room for the community center or retirment home "down the road" to shuttle guests to in order for you to provide massage work to more people.  This would have an added benefit to the facility for promotion of their business and for patients to meet new people.  Sometimes change or movement for this generation of folks can be a good thing, especially if they don't get out much.  It may be the spark they need to give them something to look forward to each week.  If your nursing home worked it out, they could even market to the surrounding homes who may have elderly who don't need assisted living yet, but would benefit from the service.)

I like your marketing ideas.  Definitely some food for thought there.  

A side note, if you get a client on oxygen, they seem to do better getting chair massage.  You probably already know this, bit I thought I'd add it in.

Hope this helps!