Insurance

Insurance Accepted

I am a Preferred Provider for the following insurance companies:

  • Aetna
  • Cigna
  • Corvel
  • LifeWise Health Plan of Washington
  • Premera Blue Cross

Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance claims accepted. I do not accept third party PIP claims.

Insurance billing available

I am able to bill your insurance company for you. If you would like to receive treatment and bill out of network, I can provide you with a receipt which you can submit to your insurance company.

Prescription required

All massage sessions billed to insurance require a doctor's prescription which includes injury diagnosis, frequency of treatment, number of visits, start and end dates. Note that insurance does not pay for relaxation massage.

Understand your insurance

It is important that you understand that it is your responsibility to verify and understand your insurance coverage including co-pay or co-insurance amounts. Please contact your insurance company before you schedule your massage. Some specific questions you may want to ask include: Does my insurance cover massage performed by a LMP? Does the massage have to be medically necessary or prescribed? Is a diagnosis code required to submit the bill? What are my coverage or treatment limits? Do I have a deductible, co-pay or co-insurance? Does the LMP have to be a preferred provider?

Why a prescription is always needed to bill your insurance company

Some insurance companies require a prescription for treatment and others claim that you can “self-refer”. All insurance companies require that treatment is medically necessary and request diagnosis codes in order to bill.

It is outside the scope of a massage practitioners practice to determine whether massage is medically necessary and/or diagnose conditions. Therefore, even if your plan says that you are not required to obtain a prescription and that you can self refer they will still require a physician to diagnose a condition, provide appropriate diagnosis codes and decide that massage therapy as treatment is medically necessary. This is sometimes phrased as requiring a “formal written treatment plan” (AKA: a prescription). This is not typically an issue when you visit other health care practitioners (i.e. LAc., D.C, M.D, P.T, D.O, etc.) because it is in their scope of practice to diagnose conditions and determine medical necessity.

This is a confusing aspect of insurance benefits for many massage practitioners and patients. If you have a plan that says you can self refer and you call the customer service department, most likely you will be told that you don’t need a prescription. However, they often don’t realize or know that LMP’s have to rely on other physicians for diagnoses. It is unlawful and unethical for any health care professional to practice outside of their scope and to do so could jeopardize our license and business.

I invite you to call or email to schedule a massage.