IMpact Updates: Empowering Mobility, Enhancing Safety

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IMpact Updates: Empowering Mobility, Enhancing Safety Webinar Transcription

Hello everyone and welcome, welcome, a very warm welcome.
Thank you for joining as well.
It's a busy, you know, new year, so we're really excited to have you guys joining today.
Let's kick off today with some community chat engagement.
For this topic, I'd love to get going and start brainstorming what you guys are wanting
to learn from this topic, whether it's something specific or it's just general knowledge.
Put in the chat what you're hoping to learn.
And with that, as you guys are popping in the chat, writing down, I wanted to extend
a warm welcome to you guys joining the Massage Magazine Insurance Plus webinar series.
That we've coined in session.
My name is Lizzie and I'm actually filling in for Shannon and Matt today.
Both have felt ill right now or felt ill.
So are resounding, stay healthy out there folks.
I'm actually the associate director of Massage Magazine Insurance Plus in addition to overseeing
some of our sister brands, which I won't get into today.
But for those who are not familiar with Massage Magazine Insurance Plus, first I want
to make sure everyone can chat.
There it is.
Okay, now you can write in your messages.
For those who are not familiar with Massage Magazine Insurance Plus, also known as MIP or
MMIP for short, we are an all-inclusive liability insurance provider for massage therapists,
bodywork professionals, Reiki professionals, or Reiki practitioners, and so, so many more
based in the U.S.
And our primary mission is to support you all with quality coverage in addition to education
and just community support, and that's why we started the webinar series.
So just a quick reminder, before we get into today's topic, it is about one hour long and
it is being recorded.
The recording will be sent out to you all between 24 to 48 hours via email.
So just keep an eye off on that if you do have to leave early.
And we encourage questions.
So utilize the chat.
There's a question feature as well.
We'll be monitoring those and we'll leave around 10 to 15 minutes at the end to get to
those.
With that, I wanted to say a warm welcome to our guest host today, Patty Glenn and Grant
Phoenix.
I'll give you guys a brief glimpse into their experience.
I'm sure they'll have much more to tell, but let's start with Patty Glenn.
She brings over 30 years of leadership and regulatory experience to her role as director
of education and professional mobility for the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards.
She is a former executive director of the Oregon Board of Massage Therapists and is also
a seasoned massage therapist, educator and former clinic owner, giving her a uniquely
comprehensive perspective on the profession.
Her dedication to advancing education and professional standards combined with the innovative
and collaborative approach has made her a stand out leader and a trusted voice in this field.
Thank you, Patty, for being here.
And our second guest host today is Grant Minix.
She is a policy analyst at the Council of State Governments, working specifically in
the National Center for Interstate Compacts.
Grant works to develop and provide enactment assistance for professional licensure compacts.
He additionally manages the National Center for Interstate Compacts database, which is
the most comprehensive database of interstate compacts available.
Prior to CSG, Grant worked for the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, the Kentucky
Legislative Research Commission, and in government affairs at Eastern Kentucky University.
Grant has earned his Master of Public Administration as well as a BA in Political Science from both
Eastern Kentucky University.
That is a mouthful, wonderful experience and we are so, so lucky to have them both here
today.
Before I'm passing it over to them, I just want to look at the chat and see if we can
kind of start thinking.
We have someone looking for general background information.
Is there an estimated timeline?
So we'll probably get into that some more.
Just really excited about industry updates.
So with that, let's pass it over to Patty and Grant.
Thank you both for being here.
Thank you, Lizzie.
I guess I'll just go ahead and get started.
Yeah, let's get into it.
We're really grateful that you took the time to be here today.
This is a really important topic for both Grant and I, and I believe also for the massage
profession.
But we know your time is valuable, especially for the lunch hour for some of you.
And so we appreciate again you being here today.
So I want to start by just telling a little bit more about a quick overview of what FSMTB
is and then I'll let Grant talk about the council of state governments and a little bit
about what their role is and then Grant's going to kick it off by going into interstate
compacts and then we'll move more into profession specific as we move through this.
Please, please, please put your comments in the chat as we go along.
We really want to try and move through this as succinctly and quickly as possible so that
we can leave as much time at the end to answer those questions.
So again, please make sure to make a note or send the stick them in the chat when you think
about them and there's no dumb questions.
So ask anything you want to ask and we'll do our best to address it.
They'll also be contact information at the end for both Grant and I.
So if something that you want to ask, you don't feel comfortable asking for some reason,
again, please feel free to utilize that and reach out to either one of us.
So I want to just share really quickly.
My role as the Director of Education and Professional Mobility with the Federation of State Massage
Therapy Boards is focused on two key areas, obviously the education side and we currently
have a education task force working on looking at the entry level analysis project and assessing
how we can more efficiently and effectively address education and massage therapy.
The other major portion of my role is the professional mobility piece and that has been a key charge
of the Federation of State Massage Therapy Board since the inception in 2005.
The Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards is made up of the regulatory community so it
is not an association for therapists or educators but rather an organization that ties regulation
together with the goal of helping to streamline and provide more efficiency and regulation
and provide resources to our state boards.
The mission specifically is to support our member boards in their work to ensure that
the practice of massage therapy is provided to the public safely and competently.
So as you're going to hear when Grant speaks about the process here shortly, FSMTB was
interested in applying for the grant and getting involved in this process because we
believe that a multi-state license is a major asset in both public safety and addressing
public safety and competency in the profession and to streamline the efficiencies of regulation
make it easier for the public to access their massage licenses in a multitude or multiple
states.
So that's a little bit about FSMTB and why we chose to get involved in this mission
and I'll let Grant take over and talk about CSG.
Thanks Patty.
My name is Grant Minix and I'm Lizzie introduced and I'm policy analyst with the Council of
State Governments.
If you haven't heard of us before, the Council of State Governments is the nation's leading
organization that works with public officials in all three branches of state government to
find mutually shared issues and collaborate with those public officials to find solutions
to those mutual issues.
We're a region based organization headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky with an office in DC
and regional offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Sacramento.
So we work really on the ground with one of public officials to see common issues among
states and work to find solutions.
On the next slide, I'll get into one of my specific focus at the Council of State Governments
within the National Center for Interstate Compact.
The National Center for Interstate Compact is the nation's only team of professionals
working to facilitate and develop interstate compacts in the United States.
There's over 270 interstate compacts in the U.S. with some of those are national compacts
and those are regional compacts, even agreements and compacts between two or three states.
They go for a wide range of issues including shared natural resources, developing shared
parks and recreation activities, managing adoptions between states and one big theme
within interstate compacts is through licensing and licensure reciprocity.
You see a good example of probably one of the most well-known interstate compacts which
a lot of you probably have in your wallet is the driver's license.
The driver's license is actually the result of an interstate compact and requirements of
a compact is a legal legislatively enacted contract between two or more states that really
work to bring cooperation amongst the states to address shared problems.
One of those is the need for driver's license reciprocity, how we manage driver's licensing
between states and on the next slide we'll go into our focus which has been at top of
mind at the National Center for Interstate Compact is occupational licensing.
We actually took the idea of the driver's license which is developed in the 70s and thought
could we take this same idea with the driver's license that allows individuals to drive between
states and still abide by the laws of the state they're driving in and say could we apply
this to occupational licensing?
In 2016 the nurse licensure compact was the first licensure compact developed and this
brought about this idea for numerous professions that they saw the benefit of facilitating
multi-state practice maintaining and improving public health and safety and preserving state
authority over professional licensing and since that worked with the nurse licensure compact
the compacts have been very popular and successful.
Fifty-two states and territories have adopted at least one of these compacts with 42 adopting
at least three, 37 adopting list six and numerous have adopted over ten.
We have developed compacts which have resulted in over 372 pieces of compact legislation
which have been enacted since 2016 and currently 18 professions have active interstate compacts
for occupational licensing one of which for massage therapy.
So the next slide we'll get into you know exactly the impetus behind this project specifically
we're working on and how we got here with the interstate massage compact.
So I mentioned the nurse licensure compact and that promulgating more licensure compacts
so specifically within the healthcare profession we joined in agreements with federal entities
like HHS and the Department of Labor as well as organizations and associations such
as the Federation for State Medical Boards or the National Council of State Boards of Nursing
the American Pastional Therapy Association Federation of State Board of Physical Therapy to develop
licensure compacts for those specific professions and really those are caught on quickly amongst
the states and got attention at the national level and one specific community which saw
great benefits from these licensure compacts and licensure reciprocity increased mobility
were military families and military spouses and that's why the Department of Defense joined
with us at CSG in a cooperative agreement in 2019 to develop ten licensure compacts for
ten different professions we through this process we set up a competitive application
process where groups like the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards were eligible
to apply for technical assistance to develop licensure compacts FSMTB applied in late 2020
early 2021 and were selected to receive that technical assistance and the first step of
that process was putting together a technical assistance group which is made up of a variety
of industry stakeholders and that group was convened to provide input and set recommendations
for a bit smaller more focused document team which created an initial draft based on our
experiences from previous compacts and the recommendations from the technical assistance
group and a great knowledge of the profession that group had and we took that initial draft
brought that out to the public received a lot of public feedback on that took that feedback back
then our working groups took that feedback made a few edits and resulted in the final model
legislation that is currently out for enactment now one big part of that process we had with
the working groups I'll get into on the next slide with the multi-state license model so
that group worked to we have a number of different models that that really how licensure
is facilitated in the compact in between the states and those working groups determined
that the best model for the massage therapy profession was the multi-state license model
so and exactly how that works it's more akin to both the nursing compact which is one of
the first compacts other ones like the cognitive compact and social work compact and these are
all modeled very closely akin to the driver license model right so you have one license
which allows you to practice in multiple states at once so exactly how this works for the
massage profession is an LMT is licensed in their home state that's a member of the compact
and then turn they apply to the commission having their losses this commission maintains
a data system a shared data system amongst the states where they can quickly access the information
that verifies an individual's eligibility to receive a multi-state license based on the requirements
in the compact which we're going to get into a little bit later that commission issues through
the home state a multi-state license which works which is that really that strong comparison
to the driver's license and every state that enacts the compact may in turn agree to allowing
an individual with a multi-state license to come in to their state and practice a huge key
aspect of this is that the LMT does have to maintain their home state license there's
kind of that key to that the multi-state license but in turn by maintaining that
license the home state license and the multi-state license they can now practice in any compact member
state through that loss and with that I'll turn it over to Patty for our next slide thank you so
much Grant it's always such a pleasure to work with you and so why this point why you heard Grant talk
about the process you've heard why it's important to the Department of Defense you've heard a little
bit about why compacts as a whole are important to this country and I know Grant talked about
fact there's a variety of different compacts I was fortunate to attend council state government's
conference in early December and as I sat back and listened there you know we don't navigate this
life without touching a compact somewhere whether it's driving across bridges between states or
the water use you know how water is going to be used like the let's use an example of the Columbia
River between Washington and Oregon so compacts you know are an important part of our life we just
don't necessarily see them this one is going to be much more visible to us as therapists and
beneficial as well to both the professional and the regulatory community so let's talk about that
really quickly the benefits to massage therapists and the professional large include things like that
ability that Grant was talking about on increased mobility we knew there was a need but as we've
continued to work this last couple of years through this process I continue to hear more stories of
need and learn more ways that the profession benefits from having something like this available to them
so following tourism and work might not seem like something that you would realize that there's a
need for if you are a sole practitioner and have been working in your clinic or your private
practice for a number of years and are not necessarily as aware of what's happening within the spa
or even the franchise environment but over the last number of years we've lost a substantial
amount of our workforce due to covid and other things and also we had some schools shut down back
about a decade ago that also slowed down entry into the field and so as a result we've had this
increasing number of need in the profession for massage therapists within the spa industry and
also the franchise industry and yet a decrease in individuals either entering or staying in the
workforce and so there's a significant need the spa industry massage therapy makes up 74 percent
of their gross revenue according to a report that I had seen at ice ball last spring and so you can
only imagine what having a deficit of massage therapists does in that environment so huge
opportunities there to have a creative maybe different career than what you envisioned coming in
the other stories that we hear on a regular basis are about supporting families needs
I actually ran into a therapist in Washington state who had a licensed in Washington an active
practice and had a daughter go on early bed rest in Florida and really needed mom there and
unfortunately mom's need to work and have a gainful employment had to take precedent over
her ability to go support her daughter in Florida and so we this is a way that we can help mitigate
some of those challenges it's not going to fix all of them and obviously it takes time to stand
up the entire compact but over time more and more states will be available to those individuals
holding multi-state licenses and the other story we hear on a regular basis is individuals who
are retiring but aren't where they thought they would be financially or desire to retire
or change their lifestyle and they want to be able to travel more and have flexibility but
still maintain an income and again with the needs in the profession and what I hear from
employers on a regular basis there are a lot of opportunities out there for therapists to come
and work for three months or six months in a spa or you know clinic environment where
they would come in do the work be employed and you know then at the end of their contractor time
period move on so another huge opportunity there as well supporting temporary relocation
is kind of an unintended benefit that came up this year in a few different circumstances the biggest
one we saw with the hurricanes coming through and especially the displacement of individuals in
the western North Carolina's in that area was the ability to temporarily relocate and go right
back to work in the event of a natural disaster or in situations such as domestic violence because
we have the multi-state license model individuals are not having to necessarily report their location
or their place of work they do not have to report their location or place of work in the states that
they're working unless there's some other stipulation in that state that requires them to do so and so
it allows them a little bit of a buffer but even more important again the ability to very quickly
get back to work or to get to work and be able to maintain an income and therefore support for
their personal and family needs a streamlined business excuse me streamlined processes with decreased
administration and financial burden we'll see this when we talk about the survey coming up shortly but
it definitely is an added benefit for the therapist to have less paperwork and to pay less in licensing
fees than to hold multiple licenses and businesses are accessing quality therapists to serve their
community and improve their bottom line and schools have the opportunity to address an emerging mobile
workforce more effectively because state lines are no longer going to be a barrier to whether or not
that education would be accepted in another state
oops sorry just move forward here and then the benefits to the state and regulatory community
are that it enhances the cooperation among the state boards helps to reduce the administrative
burden for them as well and the you know having to process or track down or gather information for
out-of-state license applicants it secures an agreement on a uniform standard it creates a shared
data system that Grant mentioned earlier called the massage therapy licensing database or Matilda
that'll and we'll talk about that again a little bit later in the presentation but that allows the
regulatory community to be able to access the information necessary and also holds the space
for the multi-state license and it expands our ability to protect public health and safety
and it also increases access to quality therapists like we talked about that it helps address the
shortages and increases revenue for the states and and again streamlines processes as Grant mentioned
for military spouses and their family members as well as the massage community at large
okay so this is one of the areas where we see a lot of confusion in the profession and that is
okay you've talked about this driver's license for massage or this license that would allow me to
be mobile and massage but does my state qualify or do I qualify and so I want to talk about that
and I want to point you to point out the fact that there are two distinctly separate sets
of requirements one for the state and one for the licensee so on the state's requirements the state
must license and regulate massage therapy so a state like the one I live in Kansas who doesn't
currently have state licensure I would not be eligible to my state would not be eligible to
join the compact because there's no mechanism to do so and I as a licensed therapist or a therapist
in the state of Kansas would not be able to obtain access to the multi-state license at this time
hopefully that will change in the future if you the state must require that licensees safely
excuse me satisfy educational requirements prior to being licensed it does not specify on the
state state side the number of hours required so whether your state has a 500 hours or a thousand
hours you would qualify the state would qualify under this requirement they must require that
licensees within the state take and pass the national licensing exam which is currently the
M-Blex that just simply means that the state must accept the M-Blex it does not mean that you have
to have taken that we'll talk about that on the state's or the licensee side in a moment
you also the state also has to have a system in place to be able to conduct and process the
background check requirement for the multi-state license again this background check requirement
is specific to the multi-state license it does not mean that if you're licensed in the state that
doesn't currently background check that you would have to then background check if you weren't
interested in obtaining a multi-state license this is a requirement for licensees but the state
has to have a mechanism in place to be able to facilitate that it must have a continued competence
requirement so a few of our states like Ohio who is enacted the compact but doesn't yet currently
have a requirement for continued competence in order to fully stand up and participate in multi-state
licensing Ohio will need to enact some form of a continued competence requirement again there is
no requirement in the legislation on how many hours or how the state chooses to do so but there must
be a continuing competence component as a requirement for renewal of licensure and as we talked about
earlier they also will have to participate in the massage therapy licensing database which again
is a secure database shared between the regulatory community that houses the information pertinent
to the multi-state license now let's talk about you because i'm guessing the majority of the
people on the webinar today are actually therapists and so i wanted to make sure we kind of set aside
misinformation because i hear people say oh my state only has 500 hours not 625 so we don't qualify
well that's not true the state does qualify and let's find out how you will as a therapist so
as a massage therapist you need to hold an active unencumbered license in your home state
and the state has to be a member of the compact in order for you to get a multi-state license
so grant we didn't talk about unencumbered earlier but unencumbered refers to things like
a probation or suspension of license and action against the license itself and if you had some sort of
a pure supervision requirement something that encumbers the license it does not mean that you
couldn't have had a minor violation for something like you made a mistake and didn't realize you were
supposed to put your license number on your advertising and this and the state sanctioned you for failing
to post your license number and you had to pay some sort of a fee it's kind of like getting a traffic
ticket versus getting your driver's license suspended if that makes sense so hopefully that helps
explain what that unencumbered word means when we're talking about it in this instance
so you must have an active and unencumbered license in your home state that is a member of the compact
you have to have completed at least 625 clock hours of massage therapy that can or we expect
it will be according to the intentions of the technical advisory group and all of the parties
involved a combination of your court education and continuing education to get to that 625
so if you graduated from a 550 hour program or a 500 hour even a 300 hour program because you've
been in the field as long as some of us have you can still apply for and qualify or will still be
able to apply for and qualify for in multi-state license through education you'll just need to
once the rules are fully enacted pull that documentation together and submit it for verification
you must have passed and accepted national licensing exam so again based on the conversations
with the tag technical assistance group and in the development process it is expected that both the
envelops and the licensing exams administered by the national certification board for therapeutic
massage and body work will be accepted that will be addressed through the rules making process
however the board certification exams or exams that were done that were not done for licensing
purposes would not qualify or count in this situation the state exams that are out there
do not qualify as a national licensing exam but we do anticipate that the commission will look
at whether or not there's an ability to establish substantial equivalents there or not
as they work through the rules making process again all of those decisions will be done by the
compact commission once it stood up to stand up the compact commission we need seven states to enact
this legislation you'll see when we get to a slide here in a moment we currently have two
and there are two states that have active legislation this session Montana and Virginia
and again we're right at the start of session so we hope we'll see several more come on board here
soon and then once those seven states have adopted or enacted that legislation those
states will become the commission and they will begin working on the rules drafting process
as they work through that rules process there will be opportunities again for public comment
and all of the feedback that I've been receiving through this process I have been also setting the
slide in a stack that's quite large now for the commission to consider on the various scenarios
or questions that you've asked as a community which is why this interaction is so important to the
development process as well okay that was a lot so hopefully I didn't confuse things more
as we talked about a moment ago you have to pass a background check the background check requirements
are spelled out very specifically in the model language so you can look at that section and see
exactly what would potentially restrict you from being able to hold a multi-state license
and then you have to pay the required fees so two things I want to talk about here one this is an
additional pathway for licensure it is not take the place of the current system so let's just say that
you live on the Washington Oregon border and you desire to work in those two states but only those
two states you can still choose to license in Washington and license in Oregon and if that's a more
efficient or effective way for you to manage that that's absolutely well that will not change that
will maintain your you will maintain the right to access licensing that way if both states join
the compact you would have another option and that would be to apply for and obtain your
multi-state license through your home state so if you lived in Washington it would be through
Washington state and then that multi-state license would allow you to practice in Washington and
Oregon the benefit to you would be that you would not have to do the licensing paperwork
or turn in CEs for both states you'd only have to do that for your home state and then pay your
requisite fees there and be able to access both states the last part part on the paid all required
fees related to the application we don't know yet because I know that question's buzzing what's it
gonna cost we do not know yet but what we know from all of the other professions who've come
before is that it's not as cheap as just one other state might be a little bit more expensive
but it's not as much typically as holding two additional licenses so again this is a business
and life decision for those of you who are interested in applying for it as to how you're
going to use it and whether it makes the most sense to have that tool available for you
but it definitely does streamline the process and it also is cheaper than holding
typically more than two more than one additional license okay hopefully that didn't also confuse
so the other question that comes up occasionally we're just going to touch very briefly on is the
discipline side of things so again you have to have an unencumbered home state license so if you are
disciplined in your home state and that creates an incumbent on your license then that would result
in the commission also nullifying your multi-state license so being able or adhering to the state
laws and rules and regulations when you're a multi-state license holder is even more emphasized I would
say by those individuals that I've talked to in other professions who hold multi-state or like
products in their profession that the importance of maintaining that right to have a multi-state
license makes them even more attentive to the rules and regulations in their state but in the event
that something happens and you are disciplined and your license becomes encumbered then your
multi-state license would also be invalid should you have something happen in the remote state
then the remote state would do that investigation they would take action reported into the database
in your home state would be informed through that process and then the home state again would take
an action against your home license which would result in the commission also nullifying your
multi-state license again if it's a simple fine and it doesn't create an encumbrance on the home
state license then it would not affect we don't anticipate it would affect your multi-state license
either but those are again some of the nuances we'll address through rule and and then we'll just
see how things go as we move forward with this but it's a pretty straightforward and seamless process
some of the states have asked well is this going to cost us more an investigation
and some of the licensees have said I don't think it's fair that we have to pay for a multi-state
license or that we have to pay for increased discipline having spoken to a number of different
compact representatives for other professions and listen to several presentations it's just not
how this plays out when it's in practice that again the individuals who utilize these licenses
are genuinely following the letter of the law to make sure that they have the right to practice
and that they can maintain that right to practice because it's an important right that they've earned
and so we don't typically or they don't typically see any increase doesn't mean there won't be one
or two here and there but not typically an increase and then for licensees who don't wish to obtain
a multi-state license the cost of multi-state licensure is borne by the multi-state license
holders not by the rest of the LMT community in that state okay just really quickly to talk
about this database because I think in this day and age we're all cautious and conscientious about
where our data is or being stored this is a highly secure database that is shared between the regulatory
community for the purpose of regulation and the this was a desire and a dream of the regulatory
community when FSMTB was founded in 2005 to help facilitate and streamline and make
licensing more efficient and effective because as many of you know and you'll see in our survey
results being able to provide education information or press uh all the T's and dot all the I's
that are necessary for each state's license can become quite challenging and sometimes the
regulations that you were required to process some procedures you were required to adhere to in
your home state you know are not in alignment with the state that maybe you're moving to or that you
desire to practice in so this database is intended to bring in your licensing and application details
along with your state information and in this case any continuing education course work that
comes through the reach or see your registry program that's administered by the states and
that creates a complete therapist profile in the system so because we have outside other entities
it will never contain all of your continuing education which would certainly make streamlining
education easier or we don't anticipate it would include all of it it could in the future but anyway
what information is accessible would be in there okay
so where are we right now for this legislative session because that's why we're here the
title of this with updates and it's January and legislative session they're kicking them off and
our legislators are are digging down and getting the work done so this map shows you just a little
bit of additional information and it will change every day the two dark blue states you'll see are
the two states that currently have enacted legislation for the massage compact the two green states as
I mentioned earlier Montana and Virginia both have pending bills and I'll show you how you can access
more information about this when we get to that portion of the website in a moment
and then this the states that are currently in dark blue or sorry that middle blue color are states
where there is heightened legislative activity so there are groups working on getting bill
sponsors where there already is a bill sponsor but we haven't seen bills introduced yet and the states
that are light blue are weather's interest but it hasn't quite solidified as you know for the
25 session so it could be 2026 we'll see but as I'm sure Grant would attest to as well
this landscape changes every day bills pop up that you didn't even know or in the works because
we it wasn't communicated directly with us I would say for any of you who are in the light blue
or dark blue states that are interesting getting more involved reach out for any of you in the
gray states if you're really interested in getting more involved please reach out and I'll show you
how you can do that here in just a moment we want to support you my job and grants job in this process
is to educate and advocate on your behalf and on behalf of this compact but we are not
lobbyists it is not our job to beat down the doors in the state capital and make sure that the
legislators get this introduced this has to come from the profession and so you're a key
component to having this multi-state license and stood up and realized by our profession
so let's talk quickly about the resources available to you on massagecompact.org you'll see um let me
see if Grant I'm going to ask a quick technical question can you see my pointer on the screen right
now or no yep okay perfect so on our website you'll notice that there's a bar across the top when
you're there that directs you to the various pages this is our home page and you'll see this lovely
little arrow at the bottom that directs you this way where you'll find the model legislation as
well as some frequently asked questions and down towards the bottom you'll get um our links for social
media as well these are some additional pages that you'll find on the website the take action
page here we're going to dive into in a lot more detail so I'm going to skip that for a moment
the compact map page here is the one that is active and if you hover over states like I did
earlier in Virginia when I took this screenshot you'll see that a box pops up and it gives you a
link directly to that house bill so you can see what's happening at any time now in addition
to current legislation like we see in Montana and Virginia if you hover over over other states like
Washington or I'm laughing because I happen to figure out where Nebraska is in my brain right now
you will see that there was or Georgia or Alabama if the state name pops up there was
previously legislation there that did not make it through the session for one reason or another
in either 23 or 24 so if you hover over a state where there's been no legislation the name of the
state doesn't even pop up now you'll have to know your geography or what state you live in and not
try and find Nebraska like I just did okay but other page that's very important especially
for those of you interested in getting more involved is this toolkit page and this is what
you'll see on the toolkit page and it includes the model legislation that we just talked about
and in fact sheet a section by section review this is very handy if you're talking to a legislator
about this for you to have more information or understanding it's also helpful for them
there is a generic letter of support that we'll talk about as well the frequently asked questions
but in a downloadable format a document that's designed to explain why 625 was the hours that
was agreed upon or decided on by tag and the document team as well as the profession in this
process and then the benefits to an interstate massage compact so there's actually a few other
documents on that page as well so really a great list of resources and information for you that
you can share through social media through your friends colleagues place of business or in
working and dealing with legislators or members of the community okay so let's talk about this
take action page we just started in december working with a group called voter voice which is
a through a group called fiscal note which tracks legislation and they are experts in what they do
and voter voice was developed and intended to give voters a voice in the legislative process
and so we are using this tool in order to make things as efficient and effective and easy for
you as licensees to get involved as possible one of the most important tools for me to understand
what the profession wants or needs is this survey tool that you'll see with a link both at the top
and also right here so you can click either on the banner or on the survey link here in order to take
that survey and the QR code in the upper right hand corner takes you directly to that page on the website
also on this page you'll see there's a link where you can share your story it's just a very simple
couple of text boxes for you to tell us why it's important to you when we talk about social
media in a moment i'll show share with you that that's where a lot of our stories have come from and
it's been very beneficial in helping the profession understand and then the last part is this letter
of support that we'll again talk about so we are getting short on time we have about 15 minutes
left and i want to make sure we get to your questions so i'm going to run through these survey
results quickly but i just wanted to show you how things are coming in so far so this is obviously
here is the therapist or the breakdown of who's responded to the survey and this just gives you a
heat map in this case a cool map on where the highest responses are coming from at this point
in time so if your state is low help get the word out on this survey so we can get that information
to help educate and inform both us and the profession and the legislative community
this is the how the responses are coming in as far as different associations professional
associations are groups so ABMP AMTA has come in with the highest number of responses so far
NCBTMB board certified individuals pretty good number there massage magazine insurance plus since
we're here look at you guys that's pretty amazing especially considering that the organization is
newer on the landscape than AMTA and ABMPA but again just helps to see how things are going
these are the things that are important here does the profession want or need this and hands
down they have said yes we want to practice in other states here's also an interesting statistic when
you put them side by side in spite of the respondents stating heavily yes they want to be able to
practice in other states the reality is the majority don't hold any other state licenses
few hold one and even less two and a few hold three nobody actually this is a zero line nobody
holds four or five or more additional licenses currently in the survey respondents so if you do
we want to hear from you because your voice matters but you'll see the disparity large number of people
that want to large number of responses that don't hold them and so why is that well in this case
the licensing or regulatory requirements appear to be making that challenging so yes no and then
not applicable so if nobody's ever tried then they would show up here and then not applicable
and you can see some of those challenges the additional cost the time consuming application
process differences in the education or testing requirements delays in being able to get that
licensing approval sometimes that comes from the state you're applying to sometimes it comes from
getting your current license validated or verified by your state and then this group probably are
same not applicable haven't yet tried to work across state lines the other thing I found
interesting just wanted to share with you today because data is fascinating to me I was expecting
therapists to respond to this who were newer in the profession because they came into that
emerging mobile profession they came into a space where they see mobility as a possibility or it's
talked about more because those of us who have been in the profession for decades didn't have all
these franchises and as many spas and opportunities and we just were more more static as a profession
or as a country but as an population we tended to stay put people worked in their jobs for a long
time now we have a much more mobile community and I thought that we would see high numbers
here but yet look at this our largest number of individuals responding to this survey have been
in the profession for more than 20 years but in spite of what we saw a moment ago where most of
the people did not hold another multi-state license the majority of people responding to
this survey said they saw themselves getting a multi-state license as soon as it was available
so it's a clear it's clearly evident that there's a huge desire and need and that some of the barriers
that this reduces are what are currently preventing or stopping people from being able to work across
state lines today consistent with some of the benefits we talked about earlier hands down everybody's
responding heavily to the benefits on this but enabling you to work across state lines without
additional licenses opens up the opportunity for new careers simplifies compliance with state
regulations okay so in case you haven't taken the survey and given you another shot there's the QR code
and again you can go to our massagecompact.org to the take action page and take this survey please
the information that survey comes to me the aggregate information like you just saw we will
make available but not your personal information and that's important because this tool requires
you to give a little bit more information than maybe most people would be comfortable with
but there's a reason so let's talk about that when you go into the survey this is the
start of it looks like when you get to the end it says enter your information remember I said this
is a tool voter voice is a tool but makes things streamlined and simple and efficient for you to
get more involved should you decide to it does require that your name email and last name are
provided and you will get a thank you email responding it also does require that you provide
your home information please use your home address we will not share sell or use this data it is
proprietary toward to us and if you choose to you can unclick these boxes that say yes send me
updates regarding the compact or don't remember me if you choose to leave it there so that it does
remember you there's a really huge benefit to this information and that is let me back up one
thing one of the questions on the survey asks about your level or interest in being involved and
if you check that you're interested in being involved when you provide this information it
allows me a mechanism to get resources to you or to notify you in the way that you've desired to be
notified without that information obviously it would just stop here so another huge reason that
that's there this is the other page that we looked at right here where it says send a message to
of support to your legislators there's a couple ways you can do that one whoops I went way back
oh sorry I'm going the wrong direction this is what happens when you're on a powerpoint sorry about
that all right so this letter that you see over here that says send a letter of support
but this information here on the page is your kind of an explanation to you on why it matters
but this section in this slightly darker box is an actual letter itself and you'll see I've put
in my information I didn't want like everybody on my door so this is my work office not my
personal so these aren't actually my senators representatives but you'll see here in the
center of the screen that by populating that information it let it populates automatically
who your current senator and representative are at the state level so it knows exactly who to
send this letter to you'll see here it says that you can edit this we've drafted one for you but you
could edit it in any way shape or form that you desire to do so and then the body of the email is
right here and this is that data expanded which you can just drag this box to see
this is the draft letter that was created for you to go to your senators and representatives but
you can go in and amend it tell your story if you know them personally add a little note whatever
that looks like I chose just to show you that there is an option to receive text alerts you can
check that box and put in your phone number if you'd like to or you don't have to and again this
information is critical here because that's how we get to this right there to help you now if you're
opposed to all this but you still want to get involved it's okay they're still away we just have
to be old school about it so on the resource tab or the toolkit tab member I told you there's a
lot of great information one of those is this letter of support template you have to click on it and
download and just because I know not everybody has the same level of technical skills when you do
download it you'll either go here on your web on your browser and click this button to open that
download or to your download file on your computer and that will pop open a word document that looks
like this you may or may not have to click an enable editing button to open it but then you can go in
and fill in this information you will need to look up your own senator and representative and then
attach it as an email or embed it in an email to your senators and representatives so you can see
how it streamlines and makes the process a lot easier to use the voter voice system but certainly
this is a tool that's available to you as well okay i'm going to leave this slide up I think um
well it'll be on the recording as well and you can also get it from us if you need to but we do
have three official pages for the impact that are building resources one on instagram one on
facebook and youtube channel currently the youtube channel just has recordings like this
so you can find them all in one location but please come like and follow these pages
I will be using these especially facebook as a way to let you know what's happening in your state
or in a particular state and to keep you abreast of that and then there's also a page i'm going to
share with you because I think it's very impactful and that is a group of therapists put together
a supporters of impact page this is not an official page of the compact but it has a lot of really
great stories and it's a way to connect with a community that is interested in getting this work
done so I want to also make sure we shared that with you and on that note we're going to go to Q&A
so i'm going to leave up the social media and lizzy i'll turn it back over to you
awesome thank you patty and grant thank you really really great information so thank you for
outlining everything just so everyone knows all of these links all of these pieces of information
that you might want to look into later will be in the email that is sent with the recording so
easy access there as well um just as it we might be over a few minutes if you need to jump totally
okay but let's there's some really great questions so I want to get to them um all right so we kind
of answered this but I don't know if I want to well we'll ask it so the question is what happens
when the state does not require license I know we kind of touched on that um do we want to jump
into that a little bit more skip to the next one maybe just a two second reader's digest um I would
say if your state does currently require licensure it needs to for a variety of reasons and I think
there's a benefit to that especially with some of the challenges we have in our profession today
and so I would reach out to your local uh to your chapter of AMTA or to ABMP and see if there's
active legislation happening in your state there's been a lot of discussion about practice
act legislation in a number of the unlicensed states in 2025 but I don't have the updates on where that is
yeah go ahead as far as the compact goes echoing you know what what Patty says about the
uh importance of licensure in your state um but as far as you know for the compact the state
would need to have licensure in effect to to uh you know any state can enact any piece of
legislation so it could certainly be enacted um but to to participate in the compact both
issue a license and then take in practitioners with a license you'd have to have uh licensure in the
state so okay and I just to act act pick back on that one more time because I think Shane is the
one that asked that question and Shane I'm in Kansas too so reach out because I do know that there
is potential legislation being introduced again this year and I'd love to chat with you more
okay go ahead Lizzie sorry yeah so just kind of speaking about timelines you know new states
we're in session right now um what is the realistic or estimated timeline on like when
more states will become involved what does that look like
Brant I'm gonna let you take it from here but assuming that we get the remaining seven states
legislative session which is the goal and desire Grant what does that process look like from that
point forward so once the uh compacts enacted in seven states that activates what's called the
we mentioned it earlier the compact commission that group is a group of regulatory leaders
uh from your state licensing agency uh one representative from each state uh that they meet
and we'll start the work to put the compact in operational to operationalize the compact
that's a big part of that setting up the data system which you know there's already some
potential avenues for that now um so that could definitely expedite the process we anticipate
by the time that happens uh one to two years process between the time that seven state
and exit and when multi-state losses can be issued probably closer to one year than two
so that's consistent with the estimate that I've been using which is hopefully by the end of
2026 so and remember more states can keep coming on while the commission is doing their work so
and that's why it's so important for each state each community to get involved just
continue that conversation um I have a question about uh the testing element so
well the license massage therapy who is therapist who has been practicing for 30 years plus
as well as instructing who has state like who has just a state license
have to take a national exam or are they would they be grandfathered in
so there's no grandfather in provision um so at this point the answer would be yes
and I was talking to um a couple of colleagues of mine who have been in as long as I have as well
and a couple have taken the envelopes recently because they wanted it for or needed it for
obtaining licensure in another state and said that it wasn't nearly as daunting as they thought
they are prepared as as they practicing therapist to be able to take the envelopes if it's necessary
to do so so I would say that's a multifaceted response yes it's possible that qualified
people who've been in the profession for years may not qualify for the multi-state license because
of the requirements there however like I mentioned there's nothing that prevents those therapists
from obtaining traditional licensure should they decide they don't want to take the envelopes
although to get a license in many of the other states they would still also have to have a
national licensing exam to qualify for licensure so it's kind of a mixed bag so I would say just
take your envelopes and reinforce what you know and then you're ready when it comes online
um next question at this time would the compact be a one-time registration or a new like states
okay sorry Lizzie can you ask that one more time yeah would the compact be you know a one-time
registration or would it be kind of a yearly thing that you have to do um or sign up to or renew
so the compact to really participate in compact you have to have the multi-state
license so and then you have your home state license and you meet the requirements the compact
you can obtain the multi-state license that multi-state license renewal period is tied to your home state
license so when you renew the home state license you will in turn you know work for new that multi-state
license the commission may set additional fees for the renewal that multi-state
license that's all to be determined by the commission but the renewal cycles will be tied together
with your home state license for your multi-state license. Gotcha thank you Grant we got there a little
bit of a couple aspect question okay so last question we'll get into is or unless other questions
come up um someone has a two-state license um she is asking would doing letters in both states
help or should I just choose one? Doing letters in any and all states help um so absolutely your
biggest audience right now was your own personal senator representative as we have bills out there
you saw that the take action page just had a very general letter of support
as we have specific bills in specific states we will have specific letters of support for those
bills as well as um maybe a generic letter or not a generic a specified letter you could send
directly to the committee so that again the tools and voter voice give us the ability to be able to
communicate so much more effectively with our legislators so to answer that question um you could
do your personal letter through the voter voice system and then you'd still need to either take
that copy and paste that language into another email but feel free to send it to the states that
you're practicing in as well the more support that the legislators get the more advocacy they hear
from their base the more they're going to be inclined to support and take action.
I think just they're resounding these questions which strikes me as a really positive is people
are wanting to get involved and to you know start that process um
if either of you are looking at the chat is there any questions that you saw that you wanted to
discuss if not we'll probably start to wrap things up. I was I was just doing a quick scroll because I
didn't pay any attention um so I know that Chandra it looks like asked about um the cost of like right
now it's already two hundred dollars to renew her license and then the multi-state license fee would
be on top of that and yes that's true and for individuals who are working fluidly across state
lines that fee is nominal compared to the benefits that they gain from having being able to do that
so again it doesn't change the current licensing process so you're not required to apply for that
multi-state license unless it's a tool that you feel makes a personal and financial sense for you
and so um and then as I mentioned generally between the cost of one and two additional state
licenses is what where we would expect the cost of that to land so again we don't have those
specific details it is a process to get there but we got to get this part done first so we can move
on to the next part and uh and then like you've also heard you know for those of us who've been
around for a long time we want it tomorrow like I would love nothing more than to hop in an RV
and travel this country working three months here in six months there and and visiting all the
places I've never seen in my lifetime but um as much as I would love to have that today I want
to make sure that someone else has that ability in the future that we aren't in a position where
state lines inhibit us from being able to go to work or practice when we need to so
remember that it yes it's about us but it's more about the future and the progress of this profession
and and having that mobility as we move forward so I really appreciate the time everybody gave us today
right and if I could I'm sorry I just want to touch one thing on that fee uh question um
with you know like you said Pat the the cost of that fee is going to you know it really
uh is much more cheaper much more affordable than maintaining licensure in multiple states
as well as um uh the fact that that the multi-state license is not going to have any impact on your
regular licensure cost right it's just if you want to have that option to maintain the multi-state
license you can choose to do so um but this will have no impact on uh anything to do with your
single-state home state license right not at all amazing I made it all the way through without
my cold showing up until I know I'm well I'm sorry we're all getting sick take your vitamins um
okay so thank you both so much for being here this is a pleasure and so much great information
again to everyone the recording will be sent out with all of these links um you know the survey
links all that start to get involved this process is it's it's now but it's for the future um and as
Kirby said earlier five more in 25 hashtag five more in 25 thank you everyone for being here um and
with that we will see you guys at the next one all right bye