How to Get Approved to Accept Insurance for Massage Therapy
If you're a massage therapist, you may have had a client ask whether you accept insurance as payment. As massage therapy becomes more accepted as a health treatment, more massage therapists are accepting insurance payments as well as cash or credit. You can get approved with an insurance agency for billing clients if you take the following steps.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- Massage therapist license or certification
- SOAP notes
- Physician's massage-therapy prescription
- Insurance verification form
- Co-payment
- Medical billing codes
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1
Find out whether your client's insurance agency reimburses massage therapists. If it does, find out the agency's requirements for massage therapist reimbursement. For example, some agencies require massage therapists to have either licensure or certification before they reimburse them.
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2
Keep Subjective Objective Assessment Plan (SOAP) notes on all your clients. An insurance company will most likely request these notes in order to monitor your client's medical need for massage therapy.
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3
Obtain a copy of your client's physician's prescription that specifies massage therapy treatment. Follow the physician's prescription exactly. Meaning, you must perform the massage therapy on the physician-specified body part(s) for the specified duration of time in order to qualify for insurance payment.
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4
Ask to see your client's insurance verification form. Look it over and see if your client owes you a copayment. Make a copy of it to send to the insurance company with your other documents.
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5
Purchase a Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) 1500 form from your office supply store. In this form, you'll fill out all the patient information and medical codes necessary for your reimbursement.
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6
Fill out the right medical billing codes in your HCFA 1500 form. These codes specify the types of therapy your client is receiving from you, as well as the ICD-9 diagnosis code. You can find the right codes to use by looking up the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation section of the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) manual.
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7
Charge the same amount for these medical codes that you charge for cash payments. In other words, if you charge $90 for an hour-long Swedish massage, you have to list $90 for the code that applies to a Swedish massage on your insurance billing form.
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8
Mail the HCFA form to the insurance agency's claims department. Wait a period of several days to receive payment. Call the insurance agency to find out the status of your claim if you haven't received payment in more than 2 weeks.
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1
Tips & Warnings
The most common CPT codes used by massage therapists include code 97124, for "Swedish Massage," and code 97140 for "Manual Therapy Techniques." Remember, most insurance companies frown on your using both codes to apply to the same session. Insurance billing for massage therapy services is an expanding field. Constantly check on the latest billing requirements to make sure you stay informed for your practice.
