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"I am so thankful to be able to refer to such an accomplished LMT." Dr. LS, Naturopath, Acupuncturist (Portland) |
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Clinical Soft Tissue
Therapy You need quality, professional, consistent therapy that gets results for your patients who are recovering from soft tissue injuries. We can help. In addition to all of the benefits of medical massage/manual therapy that you already are familiar with, Oregon Clinical Massage offers some less common services to our physicians, including the following: • We will insist that your patients keep their appointments with you. They can come see us only if they are current with your plan of care. Following your recommendations is essential to your patient’s recovery, and we will do everything we can to encourage their trust in you and their compliance with your directions. • We will work only on those areas covered by your prescription. We know that there are reasons why you diagnose what you diagnose, and reasons why you might omit other areas. When you send your patients to Oregon Clinical Massage, they will receive focused outcome-based soft tissue techniques that are designed to increase range of motion and decrease pain to diagnosed areas. • We will perform a detailed evaluation at the time of the initial visit and a re-eval at the end of each subsequent prescription. We will send you these reports so that you can more easily track your patients’ progress, and fine-tune a plan of care that best fits the needs of each individual. • We are Nationally Certified
Medical Massage Therapists. Each of us has at
least 500 additional hours of training and years of professional
experience dealing with injury cases. We are
the first facility in Oregon specifically training LMTs to sit for the
Medical Massage National Certification Board exam. We provide a
professional, comfortable clinical environment and individualized help
for specific injury issues. What benefits your practice
benefits ours.
Questions commonly asked by physicians:
What types of patients do you normally see? Patients who are recovering from soft tissue injuries. We commonly see patients, including children, recovering from automobile accidents, surgeries, and sports injuries, to name just a few. We also see patients with fibromyalgia, scoliosis, adaptive myofascial shortening injuries, etc. back to physician FAQs
Is there an easy way to know if a massage therapist has the qualifications to do orthopedic/medical massage effectively? Ask your therapists about their training and experience. Make sure that your therapists have training in evaluation and assessment as well as training in advanced bodywork techniques and experience working in a clinical setting. There is a Medical Massage National Certification Board (MMNCB), which offers an examination for massage therapists with certain advanced training. Those who have passed this exam are Nationally Certified Medical Massage Therapists (NCMMTs). This is by no means the only measure of a qualified orthopedic massage therapist. But we believe it is a good one. Oregon Clinical Massage trains LMTs to become NCMMTs. Case supervisors are NCMMTs. It is a good idea to have therapists on your team who can handle all aspects of insurance billing, for the convenience of your patients. Outside of PIP claims, not many insurance companies are willing to pay for medical massage yet, but we are hoping that they will soon. We will be happy to call the patient's insurer to find out what their specific policy will cover. When you find a good medical massage team to work with, get to know them - get to know their strengths, so you can use all of their services to better benefit your patients. And let them get to know you, so they can understand better how you want your patients treated. back to physician FAQs
What should I expect for my patients from treatment at Oregon Clinical Massage? During their first session, your patient’s situation will be assessed. We will evaluate your patient's condition through a series of range of motion tests in which we are looking for passive, active, and resisted range of motion issues. We will check for contraindications to clinical massage, evaluate the patient’s phase of healing, complete a postural and palpatory assessment, and formulate a plan of care based on your diagnoses and our findings. We will send this initial evaluation and plan to you for your approval. If at any time you decide that the patient is ready for treatment of other body areas, you can download our simple form, fill it out, and fax it to us. Following the assessment, if we find no contraindications, the patient will receive treatment. Depending on your patient’s phase of healing and your prescription, this may consist of regular massage (meaning effleurage, petrissage and tapotement only), the application of heat/cold or topical pain relief preparations, trigger point therapy, assisted stretching without active resistance, neuro-muscular rehabilitation (PNF), muscle-energy techniques (MET), myofascial release, integrative manual therapy (IMT), strain-counterstrain, or other manual therapies. An intern may be present during the assessment, and may take part in it. This will depend on the training phase, and the comfort of your patient. Patients will be consulted privately at the beginning of each session regarding their comfort with the presence of an intern. Here is what will NOT happen: In most massage therapy instruction programs, there is training in offering stretches and exercises for the client to do at home, and to advise the client to drink plenty of water following their massage treatment. This is sound advice in most cases, but the medical massage model is quite different. At Oregon Clinical Massage, although we have been trained in stretches and therapeutic exercises, we will not offer any post-treatment suggestions unless specifically instructed by you, in writing, for each individual case. We will also not treat any area that does not have a soft tissue diagnosis code provided by you. If you want us to address it, please include it in your prescription. back to physician FAQs
How will Oregon Clinical Massage handle my patients' cases in general? We have already touched on the initial assessment in the answer to the previous question. At the end of each prescription, we will perform a re-evaluation and send it to you. Monthly progress reports may also be sent, depending on the length of the prescription, to help you determine your patient's progress. From time to time, we may call you to request a verbal conference regarding the patient's progress, and we will be available for you to do the same. Each patient will be assigned to a main therapist. We do this to promote ease in tracking your patients' cases, and to increase your patients' comfort. From time to time during the healing process, your patients may be assigned to different specialists within our office depending on their phase of healing and particular needs at the time. At Oregon Clinical Massage, we hold periodic peer conferences, where we discuss issues with other Medical Massage Therapists, PTs, and physicians. We brainstorm for the patients that are not progressing as rapidly as we or you would like. It is our goal to gain as much normal range of motion as possible for your patients, decrease pain as much as possible, and to do it quickly. Pain hurts, and people have lives to lead. We believe that a good reputation comes from being effective in our work, and we believe that when we are, it will also reflect well on you. back to physician FAQs
Why should I use your form instead of my regular prescription form? Some physicians will prefer to use their own prescription forms. Our prescription form saves time for us and for our prescribing physicians in the long run. It is clear and concise, and it has all of the information we need to properly handle a prescribed case. This way we don’t have to call you back multiple times and ask for clarification on diagnosis codes or procedures. Massage therapists are licensed as ancillary providers. As such, we are required to have proof of prescription, referral, and medical necessity from a primary care physician, or insurance companies may deny payment on our claims.
Could you please personalize a form for my practice? We will happily personalize our form for you, and have a stack of them bound into a prescription pad and sent to you. If you would like us to do this, please email us a request or call us at 503/891-9654. In your message, please include your name, credentials you would like printed on the form, your clinic name, your phone number and fax number, and your license or UPIN number. Please let us know if you would like a pad of 25, 50, or 100 forms. We can also create and email you a personalized PDF so that you can simply print one from your computer whenever you need it. back to physician FAQs
Why is there nowhere to specify length of treatment on your prescription form? Use of physical medicine codes is determined by the areas diagnosed by you for treatment. Therapists trained in Medical Massage should know this and treat accordingly. On each date of service, a maximum of two physical medicine CPT procedures (15 minutes each) per body area, with a maximum of four total physical medicine CPT procedures per date of service, may be billed to insurance. The three body areas that are considered industry standard for physical medicine billing are the axial skeleton, upper extremeties, and lower extremeties. Four total CPT codes (one hour treatment) would require that a minimum of two or more body areas are diagnosed to be treated. If three body areas are diagnosed for treatment, the maximum physical medicine CPT usage is still limited to four. If we are given four diagnosis codes, but all of them are in the axial skeleton, the patient is still allowed only two physical medicine procedures per date of service. This is also why it is inadvisable for the patient to see us and the Physical Therapist on the same day. back to physician FAQs
Why do you want more information than the other LMTs I send people to? An MMNCB Certified Medical Massage Therapist will know about and bill according to the industry standard described in the previous question. It is not very often that it becomes an issue, but when it does, it is a problem for the patient, the LMT, and ultimately for the general LMT and patient population. We choose to operate within the industry standards for insurance billing because we wish to set an example for others who want to be involved in the insurance billing arena. We are adjunct providers. We must meet certain requirements of medical necessity and referral. We provide one-on-one peer development and tutoring in Medical Massage. It is our goal to set the standard and raise the bar for medical massage, so that physicians like you can easily find someone who is trained and competent; not only with insurance billing, but also with safely and effectively treating injured patients. back to physician FAQs
Is it a good idea to prescribe medical massage at the same time my patients are in physical therapy? Only you can answer that question. PT often focuses on increasing strength, but a large body of evidence and scientific study shows that it is not necessarily efficient to strengthen before lengthening. This is why some physicians find that prescribing both together generates the fastest improvement for their patients. On our wish list is a research project which follows three groups of people in the first six weeks following auto accidents where they sustained cervical sprain/strain injuries. One group would receive only Medical Massage, one group would receive only standard physical therapy, and one group would receive both simultaneously. If you are interested in joining us on this project, please contact us. back to physician FAQs
Why should I send my patients to Oregon Clinical Massage? This is another question only you can answer. But here's why we think you should. At Oregon Clinical Massage, we seek to have good working relationships with our physicians, and to communicate regularly about each patient. But we also understand that your time is limited and valuable. We know that if you send us your patients, you are trusting us with someone very important. That is why we make a point of never stepping outside the bounds of your prescription. If you refer a patient for cervical sprain/strain, your patient will be treated for cervical sprain/strain. If we find that adjacent areas may have related pathologies, we will inform you of our findings, and ask if you feel that those areas are also ready to be worked. But unless we have a specific soft tissue diagnosis code from you, we will not treat an area. Period. We are also very much interested in continuing education, expanding our knowledge base, and learning all we can about soft tissue therapies. It is important to us to provide the most intelligent, educated therapy possible to help your patients recover fully and quickly. No matter what the standard for medical massage therapy becomes, know that we will not stop there. When you are passionate about something, it drives you. We love what we do, and we hope it shows. back to physician FAQs
How can medical massage affect patient compliance? Sometimes a patient will discontinue treatment because he or she feels that there is no more improvement to be had, or they don’t want to rely on pharmaceutical therapy for a protracted period of time, or they do not see the long-term benefits in your plan of care for them. Whatever the reasoning, sending those patients for medical massage can be a good way to get them interested enough that they are willing to continue with the remainder of your recommended treatment. back to physician FAQs
If you ever have any questions or comments about our clinic, or about the way we are handling your patients’ cases, please do not hesitate to call or email us. If we don't answer the phone when you call during regular business hours, it is probably because we are with patients. Your patients will enjoy the same undivided attention when they are at our clinic. Please leave us a message. We will get back to you as soon as we are able. back to physician FAQs |
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©2007 Oregon Clinical Massage