Ohio massage therapists await reopening date as unrest grows - cleveland.com

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Of all the personal services businesses set to reopen in Ohio this week, one industry in particular has been left out of the mix: Massage therapy.

Last Thursday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced a reopening date of May 15 for businesses such as hair salons, barber spas, barber shops, tanning facilities and nail salons. The announcement was the result of recommendations from Responsible RestartOhio’s Personal Services Advisory Group tasked with putting together best practices for the reopening of each of those businesses.

“Massage therapy locations” were also one of the six businesses listed as being under the Personal Services Advisory Group. Yet, while rules and guidelines for most of the personal services industry were posted during the governor’s briefing on Thursday, regulations for massage therapy locations will come from a separate order from the state medical board, which is the licensing body for massage therapists.

A visit to the State Medical Board of Ohio’s website as of early Monday morning shows massage therapists are still under a cloud of uncertainty to begin the week:

“To date, massage therapy locations are not included in the Ohio Department of Health’s Responsible RestartOhio plan,” a brief statement reads on the site. “State Medical Board of Ohio continues to follow the directives and guidance issued by the Ohio Department of Health regarding our licensees. We will continue to update our website and send updates as we receive information.”

Not surprisingly, massage therapists are frustrated.

“The governor misspoke and added massage therapy under the beauty umbrella even though we are governed by the Ohio State Medical Board, who has not yet released a date or protocols for us to re-open,” Shanna Evard, licensed massage therapist and owner of Signature Touch Massage in Akron, wrote cleveland.com in an email.

“Not just [places like gyms] are frustrated with the lack of consistency and misinformation about the ability and the policy in which they decide who and when is to receive the green light to safely resume our small business that was forced to shut down by the governor.”

Ohio has permitted “non-emergent/non-urgent” outpatient healthcare services to resume. The list included physical therapy, chiropractic services, dentistry, oral surgery and anesthesia. But massage therapy that’s not part of a patient’s plan of care, in a health care setting such as a doctor’s office, hospital or chiropractor’s office wasn’t listed.

“From the beginning we have been included in [the personal services] category, even though many of us believe we should have been categorized with chiropractic and physical therapy,” says Anthony Salem, owner of Big Creek Massotherapy in Parma. “[We] assumed that Thursday’s announcement would include us. This was not the case, however. Instead we are left out in the cold.”

The Ohio Chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association addressed the issue of being grouped with personal services rather than healthcare services in a letter to the Ohio Department of Health on April 29:

“This distinction creates an inherent, significant business impact disparity within the massage therapist community that is patently unfair and negatively impacting small business owners who had to shut down completely six weeks ago,” the letter reads. “We request that all licensed massage therapists be able to re-open their practice, consistent with the decisions made regarding veterinarians, dentists, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc.”

The majority of massage therapists are either self-employed or independent contractors, two situations that have made it difficult to gain government assistance during coronavirus. For business owners like Salem, the situation is dire.

“Many look to us for pain relief, an alternative to narcotic pain killers and a compliment to other therapies,” says Salem. “For many we provide anxiety relief, headache relief, immunity support. The list goes on. We’ve got people out of work, no unemployment available. Federal aid going to bigger companies, local business in danger of folding, and we can’t even get a date and a plan from the state.”