News

This information has been obtained from the 990 forms that non-profit organizations are required to submit each year to the IRS.  I accessed these reports on Guidestar.com on 3/23/2018. I am not an accountant or financial expert of any kind.

The main numbers that I find most interesting are the income from recertification, and approved provider programs:

2016

Program Service Income : $2,015,353
Recertification: $1,001,010
Examination: $281,785
Approved provider program: $226,695

2017

Program Services: $1,509,490
Recertification: $112,145
Examination: $52,620
Approved Provider Program: $61,010

Also, the CEO Steve Kirin, was compensated $154,389 in 2016 and O – (Zero) according to the report.

Laura Allen previously reported on this organization in 2014 on her blog.

During 2007, the revenue of the NCB was at an all-time high of $8,655,003. During 2012, the revenue was down to $4,616,227, a decline of over 4 million dollars in the past five years. If that isn’t the handwriting on the wall that it is past time for the NCBTMB to get out of the entry-level licensing exam business, I don’t know what is. AMTA, AFMTE, and ABMP have all supported the MBLEx as the licensing exam of choice. They just refuse to give it up.

How Long do you think they have?

Then… look at the note I found:

Part VI, Section A, Line 4:  The Bylaws were amended in the following ways – An article appointing the American Massage Therapy Association as the sole member- The amended bylaws allow for the secretary to be the only officer – The term of office for Board members was shortened from four years to two.

What does that mean exactly?  Who really knows.  I do know that the back in 2016, the AMTA announced it would be supporting the NCBTMB financially.

National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork

2016

Program Service Income : $2,015,353
Recertification: $1,001,010
Examination: $281,785
Approved provider program: $226,695

Investment Income: $31,568

Other Revenue:  $188,939

Total: $2,235,860

Salaries: $1,066,871

Steve Kirin, CEO – $154,389

(8) Board of Directors Total Compensation :$43,625

Expenses: $1,066,871

Other expenses:  $1,137,8987

Total expenses: $2,204,768
Intellicorp (testing) $161,277

GKG Law : $106,686

Revenue less expenses: $31,092

Total Assets: $1,338,085

Total Liabilities: $222,017

Net assets: $1,117,068

990 Schedule O Supplemental Information:

Part VI, Section A, Line 4:  The Bylaws were amended in the following ways – An article appointing the American Massage Therapy Association as the sole member- The amended bylaws allow for the secretary to be the only officer – The term of office for Board members was shortened from four years to two.

2017

Program Services: $1,509,490
Recertification: $112,145
Approved Provider Program: $61,010
Examination: $52,620

Investment Income: $156.00

Other Revenue: $1,540,764

Salaries, other compensation, benefits: $897,206

Steve Kirin, CEO -$0

$0 to Board Members

Other expenses: $1,031,686

Total Expenses: $1,928,892

Revenue less expenses: $-388,128

Statement of Functional Expenses:

Compensation for officers, directors: $29,740

Other Salaries and Wages: $82,286

Exam expenses- $77,662

License fees $12,667

Certificant benefits – $8,905

Dues and subscriptions – $5,004

Other expenses – $1,010

Total Functional expenses: $324,285

Reconciliation of Net assets

Total revenue – $231,489

Total expenses – $324,285

Revenue less expenses -$92,766

Net Assets – $787,907

Net unrealized gains on investments – $24,138

Net assests or fund balances $719,249

If you thought the focus of the International Massage Therapy Research Conference would be just about research, you would be missing the whole picture.  What the conference (and the Massage Therapy Foundation) is about is more than just the research.

It is about the few people who are standing up for the massage profession to move us forward into being accepted as health care providers.

Did you know that more and more hospitals are integrating massage into their treatment plans for all sorts of situations?  Pediatric care, cancer care, pain and headache clinics and more.   The Mayo Clinic even has a training program for their massage therapists to go through before they go to work in the hospital in the massage department.  where they give massage post heart surgery even.  It dawned on me later that the Mayo Clinic is in MN which is one of the last of the unlicensed states which I find very interesting.   Why were they able to implement this in a state where massage is not even recognized as anything?   It is because people like Dr. Brent Bauer (see bio on the Massage Therapy Foundation website) and Liz Dion, BCTMN, COMT are standing up for us and making this happen despite all the things holding us back as a profession like licensing.

Did you know that there is a massage therapist who has been working in the Veterans Association for over 15 years providing massage therapy for our wounded soldiers?  Allison R. Mitchenson, MPH, NCBTMB is doing just that.  (Allison is the author of Integrating massage therapy within the palliative care of veterans with advanced illnesses:  An outcome study)  How was the big question – how did she ‘sneak’ in with all the red tape required to work for the VA?  They don’t even have a job description for massage therapists which is the first big hurdle and she said they were working on it.

Did you know that there are school programs designed specifically to teach you how to work in a hospital setting?  Brent Jackson with Central Carolina Technical Institute has done just that.

Did you know that there are a group of massage therapists who are working on creating our Best Practices, Body of Knowledge and helping to create definitions for the massage profession on what we do?  (If we can’t define ourselves – how will we tell the medical profession what it is that we do?)

Best Practices refers to the best way of doing something. We need to figure out what is the best way of doing things with the patient/client in mind.

Part of our work toward getting accepted by the medical profession is working to ‘get the camels nose under the tent and the rest will follow’ as Dr Chester ‘Trip’ Buckenmaier III, exclaimed in the panel presentation on Saturday.  Once the camel gets their nose under, it will open the door further for bigger things to happen.  Once we get more massage therapists hands on people, there will be no stopping us.   ‘Trip’ also recommends that we “Stop saying Alternative.   We give permission to the establishment to ignore us.”  We want to be mainstream.

“Medicine is not a science, it is empiricism founded on a network of blunders.” ~Emmet Densmore ( 1837-1911). It’s a blunder not to have massage as a routine part of American medicine.

“To get there we also have to stop trying to destroy something that you want to be a part of” according to Brent Jackson Brent Jackson, BS, LMT, LMT and academic program manager for massage therapy at Central Carolina Technical College.  The CCTC program includes hospital based massage therapy.  “Why don’t doctors want to refer to massage therapists?  Because it is a crap shoot as to who they will get.”   Our education needs to start including more information on how to work with doctors and hospitals and Brent is leading the way for more school programs.  We need more training in healthcare laws and learn to keep quite and stop attacking the establishment in to start the revolution.

Oh and yes, there are many people working on the research part and No I still don’t understand research.  I don’t know what all the charts and data mean most of the time.  I don’t know how to analyze research even though I have taken a few classes on how to do that.  I am just not interested in it and don’t get it since it seems that everyone has their own analysis.

Was the big meta-analysis study that was sponsored by AMTA/Massage Therapy Foundation and the Samulei Institute ‘good research’?  The Facebook discussions on this are questioning this and I just try to stay out of it and don’t understand it and frankly don’t care anymore.  Here is information on the study that I haven’t read yet…but plan to.

The Impact of Massage Therapy on Function in Pain Populations—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials: Part I, Patients Experiencing Pain in the General Population
Full research database here.

Commentary and Call to Action

What is important is that The Samueli institute has opened doors for the profession to Department of Defense and National Institute of Health and our relationship with them is a beginning.

That was just from the one day – Saturday- that I attended.   My other duties kept be from being there on Friday and Sunday which I now wish I had attended.  My overall impression is that this is the association that you want to be supporting.  This is the one conference that you will want to attend if you have hope for the massage profession and want to keep moving it forward into healthcare which is one of my passions.  They are doing so much more than just research.   These researchers/leaders are moving us forward not only with their research but with what they are doing.  They are taking a stand for the massage profession to help make it great again!   The Revolution has already begun.

Yes the medical system and healthcare system are broken and dysfunctional, but massage therapy does have a place there despite that.  I see massage therapy becoming the main treatment method for what ails us – pain, stress, depression, anxiety and more.  This is the Association that will help make that so.

Thank you to ALL!

First Letter to NCBTMB (just sent a few minutes ago…awaiting response):

To NCBTMB Board of Directors
Leena Guptha, Bruce Baltz, Jill Berkana, Veronica Stern, Brenda Jeanne Baker, Teresa M. Matthews, Michael McGillicuddy

I just read your announcement on your new specialty certification on your website and I have many questions.

How does this help the profession by certifying ONE School?

Two other school owners mentioned on Facebook that they would be doing the same – I am not sure if that meant they are adopting the same program or doing a certification of their own.

Last I heard from a few leaders in the massage profession, NCBTMB was to work on specialty certifications for like a modality – sports massage, injury treatments etc. What has happened to that?

Are you planning on certifying more schools in a specific type of massage or specialty or are you going to work on a separate specialty certifications?

Right now NCBTMB has a very big image problem and your recent launch did not help since it was lacking in any clear communication about what this really is, what it means for the massage profession and WHY you are doing this. Your past track record has not been forgotten and too many massage therapists see your organization only as a way to take money from unknowing therapists (the old national certification trap).

I thought you were on the right track with creating a Board Certification and would think you have enough to do with that since the public, medical professionals, insurance companies do not know who you are or what it means and it has no meaning to anyone. But again, I was initially against it as you had not really clarified what it was about or the meaning it has. A massage school teacher later explained it to me saying that doctors, hospitals and insurance companies would recognize a Board Certification More because they are familiar with that terminology with doctors and it would give us a better standing in that arena which is what we truly need as we are getting eaten for dinner by insurance companies right now especially in WA State  where I have worked as a massage therapist for over 28 years. If that is true, you may just want to focus your efforts on building your reputation and sharing the meaning of such a certification with insurance companies and hospitals and medical professionals. You might want to focus on repairing your reputation with massage therapists too.

I hope you can explain your motives for this type of certification and why you are doing this? What meaning does it have for massage therapists? How will it help us survive and thrive as a profession? Are other schools doing this? Why? How will it help them? How will it help the profession – the massage therapists working day in and day out – who are mostly struggling to make ends meet.

Right now it just looks like your board members/staff are creating this for their own schools which would be a real conflict of interest, but I am assuming there is more to it than that and hope you can clarify.

I await your reply and hope that this gets into the hands of all the board members.

Thanks very much
Julie Onofrio
www.massagepracticebuilder.com

After writing the letter, I did get a little bit more info from asking questions and reading in a few Facebook forums.  There will be more schools applying for this certification which means creating programs and courses in their schools to fulfill the requirements – whatever they are.  I do know that the schools are also struggling to get students and the demand for graduates is higher than the number of graduates looking for jobs.  There has been continuing debate over the cause of this  – is it because the schools have fallen behind?  Is it that the pay is so low for entry level therapists that no one wants to be a massage therapist anymore?  Is it that the growth years for the massage profession has finally taken it’s toll?

The problem then is still  – what does this mean?  What will it mean to doctors and hospitals?   How will they get this info into the medical professionals hands and have it mean something?  This really has been the problem with the NCBTMB from the very beginning.

The NCBTMB started with the so called “National Certification Exam” which really was not National – it did little to help massage therapists move from state to state as far as I know.   Healthcare providers and hospitals had little knowledge of what it was or what it meant.  A few employers used to require that their employees be Nationally Certified but to me that is meaningless.

The struggles with the NCBTMB have continued through the years as they lost their footing (an the majority of their income) when the MBLEx exam was created by the Federation of Massage State Boards.

Now they are trying to recover and survive.  The Battle over CE continues also.  They have been the only organization credentialing CE providers but the Federation of Massage State Boards wants to take that over too.  The most recent announcement is that they would work together on overseeing CE.

I was also just looking to find the NCBTMB’s financial status through Guidestar (create free login to view this info) but they have not reported yet on 2015 which is normal and I could only find data from 2014 when they were still getting money from national exams.

Assets: $1,514,402

Income: $2,753,795

Expenses: $2,836,940

Liabilities: $412,466

 Exam: $1,512,547

Re-certification: $676,880

Approved Provider: $472,940

Testing : $628,757

Background checks: $210,305

Legal: $137,684

Office Space: $106,626

Lenna Guptha, Chair, compensation: $49,800

Steve Kirin, CEO, compensation: $152,709

Today AMTA National announced their selections for their annual election.  Last summer they had changed they way members vote to a YES or NO vote for the panel that AMTA National Board members select themselves.  AMTA created a commission to choose the board members that they want to work with.  This is a common practice for boards in general, but it is not common for boards of associations that say that they are ‘member driven’.  They seemed to change this quietly without much fanfare but to me it really seems like a big deal.

AMTA also stated some of the reasons why they were moving to this type of voting at their last meeting in August.  Some of the things mentioned were:

• Not enough people vote so that tells us the membership is happy with the way we do things
•  It is too expensive to hold elections, a slate would save us money
• A slate would prevent any insurgency from taking over
• A slate would prevent one State from taking over
• We want to ensure a board who gets along
• We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings which is what happens when you have an election where there are winners and losers
• If people vote down the slate we will just know what they are dissatisfied with
• We are not set up for asking what they didn’t like about the slate selected, we will just try another slate

But here is the thing you don’t know….

You don’t know who had put their application in for each position that was open and you don’t know who actually got kicked out.

Diana Thompson, author of Hands Heal, Documentation and SOAP charting expert, former President of the Massage Therapy Foundation, current AMTA-WA 2nd VP and a pillar in the massage community here in WA and across the nation for over 35 years had put her application in to run for a position and was denied.   She stands for everything about massage therapy becoming part of health care and massage therapy being accepted by health insurance and getting recognized by the medical profession.

Teri Mayo, the current AMTA-WA 1st VP, owner of Mayo Therapy Associates Medical Massage Clinic, and advocate for medical massage therapy was also running and she was denied a position.

Glyn Desmond, also of WA State, owner of Monroe Therapeutic Massage (a large multi-clinic medical massage office)  IS currently on the Board of Directors but he just got nicely fired with his term being up in 2/16 meaning he was not selected for this new slate.  In the spring of 2015, he was also appointed to a committee that dealt with creating new CPT codes after they so nicely let Susan Rosen (another leader from WA State) go after she had spent the last 9 years in the committee protecting our right to use the new CPT codes. (See article on what happened)   Now I am really concerned. Who is watching over the codes for us that are such vital part of our profession here in WA and across the nation?

These three leaders from WA State were  and the message is clear to me: AMTA National wants nothing to do with being a part of healthcare.   They don’t value the importance of the CPT codes and the future of the massage profession.

Vote NO if you are an AMTA member and demand something better.  If Diana, Teri and Glyn, don’t get back into AMTA National, there really is not much left except a great social club which is important too.

I in no way am saying that those who were selected are not deserving of recognition and deserving of these positions.  There were just much better, more powerful, more progressive thinking massage therapists who wanted to help get AMTA National back on track.  There just is truly something amiss.

Right now the massage profession is in a very big crisis.   Too many low paying jobs have made this career less appealing and the schools are struggling to find students to fill their schools.  The incredible increase in the number of franchises opening up, but they are unable to find enough massage therapists to work there.   With our profession struggling to stay afloat and all of the states are 20 years behind WA State in being accepted by health insurance – something is wrong.  (See also: Why is the massage profession so far behind in getting recognized as healthcare?)

I am not saying that every massage therapist will need to accept insurance, but for years now I have been leading a quite revolution with a closed Facebook group helping people who do want to be able to bill and get paid by health insurance.  This includes many hospital programs and massage business owners who want to see massage paid for and recognized for what it is.  Massage Therapy is medicine.  Could it one day be the number one treatment for headaches, pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel and more?  I think so.

What you can do.

If you are an AMTA Member, please vote NO.  They apparently don’t have a plan if the slate is rejected so that will be interesting in itself.   Write to Every AMTA Board Member and voice your concerns.   Tell them what you do want.

Join my closed Facebook group to work toward health care integration.

Learn to bill insurance : health insurance, car insurance and workers compensation.  I have written a book to teach you how insurance works so you can start learning the process and learning what you need to do to get paid.

Just Say NO……  HELL No….

In all clarity:  I AM NOT an AMTA member and probably will never be because of things just like this.  I was a member and did get involved in the AMTA-WA Chapter for a few years and could see that they were different than National. I personally never liked the AMTA National Politics and Positions they took ever since they started the NCBTMB which was supposed to be an entrance exam for AMTA and not this National thing which was never a true National License.

Why do I care about this as a non-member?  About 5 years ago, I went to AMTA-WA and asked every person I could find about what we could do about falling insurance reimbursement rates.  I never did get an answer except if that we could do something we would be doing it.   I did get involved for a few years and even was hired for a short time to work on their new website.  In the few short years of me volunteering, I have seen too much politics and downright BS.  I have since dropped my membership and still support what AMTA-WA is doing.

Writing an money autobiography is one of the first steps in getting out of debt and becoming more conscious of your beliefs about money. The amount of money you have or don’t have in your life currently is a reflection of your beliefs about money that were formed in the past. How your family talked about money and how they taught you about money is carried into your own life whether you are conscious of it or not.

Begin with your early childhood even if you don’t remember much.

1) What is your first memory of money?

2) Who handled the money in your family?

3) What did your parents do to earn money?

4) What do you remember about how your family made large purchases?

5) What is your earliest happiest moment around money?

6) What is your earliest unhappy memory around money?

7) How did your family communicate about money?

8) Was money ever discussed in your family?

9) Did you ever steal from your parents or siblings or other family members as a child?

10) How much money did your family have compared to your childhood friends?

11) Did you get an allowance?

12) How did your parents respond when you asked for something?

13) When did you begin saving money?

14) Did your parents trust you to go to the store to buy something?

15) At what age did you start working?

16) Did you have to start working or did you want to start working?

17) Did anyone help you decide on a career based on how much money you wanted to make?

18) What messages did you get from your parents about career, earning money and spending money?

19)Did you save and plan for college?

20) What is your view on money and dating? Who should pay for dates?

21) When did you get your first credit card? What were your feelings about it? When did you start using a credit card?

22) What kinds of things do you buy on your credit card? Do you ever by groceries or necessities? Do you make big purchases like cars, appliance or other expensive things with your credit card?

23) How do you feel about using Credit cards?

24) Do you know what interest rate you are paying and how much you owe?

25) Do you have any money secrets that you have never told anyone about?

26) Do you talk to your friends and family about money – how much you have or don’t have, how much you make or how much they have and make?

27) How much money would you like to be making? What feelings does that bring up for you?

28) What do you feel when you see someone driving a Mercedes or Bentley or living in a big mansion? What do you think about people who have a lot of money?

29) How do you feel about spending money on yourself?

30) How do you feel about your living space and how it represents you?

31) Do you know how much money you have right now? Do you know how much you owe right now?

While there are plenty more questions to ask yourself about money, I’ll stop there and let you start answering these questions. You can answer them specifically or use them to write a story about money and your life. When you can uncover some of the feelings that you have about money, you can then begin to change the feelings. Becoming aware is the key to changing anything. Once you write your money autobiography you can then begin tracking your income and expenses to get a better idea of where your money is going and start thinking more about what it is that you want to do with your money.