Massage for Veterans: How Zeel Brings This VA Benefit Home

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Massage for Veterans: How Zeel Brings this VA Benefit Home Webinar Transcription

Hi everyone, I'm Matt from Massage magazine insurance plus we're so excited to
have the zeal team with us today to present on the topic of massage for
veterans how zeal brings this VA benefit.
Our plan is to have a Q&A portion at the end of this presentation so please
drop your questions in the chat then.
I'd like to introduce you to Amy Wagel with over a decade of experience in the
spa, wellness and healthcare fields.
Amy is a season leader and advocate for massage therapy.
As zeal's director of government relations, Amy has played a pivotal role in
developing zeal's massage therapy program for veterans, introducing it to
dozens of VA medical centers and helping create this rewarding opportunity for
MTs and the zeal provider network.
As the proud wife of an army veteran, this program is close to home and
heart for Amy.
I'd also like to introduce you to Dr. John Gallagher.
John has over 20 years experience in physical therapy, orthopedics and
sports rehabilitation.
In addition to being a doctor of physical therapy, John is a certified
ergonomic assessment specialist and certified running gate analyst with
additional certifications from the Titleist Performance Institute and
functional movement systems.
He's also served as official physical therapists for multiple professional
athletes and a professional sports team.
At zeal, he serves as the director of musculoskeletal health, overseeing
zeal's clinical massage therapy program and helping massage therapists
strive for better health outcomes for their patients.
And with that, zeal team, please take it away.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for that intro, Matt.
It's a pleasure to be here with you all today.
Thank you for joining everyone that is there that we can't see, but we know
you're there.
I'm Amy Waggle.
I'm joined, as Matt said, by the amazing Dr. Gallagher who leads our
clinical team here at zeal.
And then Samantha Murley is our guest host from our communications
team who's going to be helping answer some of the questions that come
in.
So we are very excited to share this wonderful program that we at zeal
have been working so hard on.
And without further ado, let's dive right in.
There's John and I.
So first off, it's really important to share that zeal has been
providing nationwide in-home massage for over a decade now.
Within that time, we've expanded into corporate wellness, which is
providing onsite onsite chair massage for companies, as well as
hospitality staffing with zeal's spa.
And then, unless you were living under a rock, you probably heard about
this little pandemic that happened.
And honestly, it completely shifted everything within zeal.
We shifted our organizational mission and our vision.
And we started focusing on shifting more into a medical practice,
but still keeping our in-home focus.
It was about this time that zeal discovered that the Veterans
Health Administration, or also known as the BHA, is one of the only
health insurers in America that covers massage therapy as a pain
intervention.
So this is actually where our VA partnership began, believe it
or not, during a global pandemic.
Medical massage is a completely covered benefit for veterans with
an active referral from a VA doctor, meaning that if the
Veteran qualifies, there's absolutely no out-of-pocket expense
for them, which is amazing.
There was no scheduling system, though, in place, or providers
prepared to deliver on-site massage in Veterans Home until
zeal.
Zeal became the first provider within the VA's community care network
with a national footprint and full-tech integration designed to
ingest the unique parameters of the VA referrals and then also
deliver clinically prescribed massage on location.
I'm really proud of this.
In this way, we're actually helping move the VA forward
technologically, which is also something we're extremely proud of.
And then it's also allowing us to expand into areas that
previously weren't necessarily a good fit for us.
So instead of focusing on some of the major cities, mostly on the
coast that we were, we're now able to provide opportunities for
our massage therapists in places like Manchester, New Hampshire
or Wall Hall.
I'm probably butchering that.
South Carolina that just came on recently.
This program has truly helped crystallize Zeal's entire mission.
We're leveraging the strengths of our tech and our amazing network
of massage therapists to treat pain in an incredibly deserving
population, I'm sure you would agree, of U.S. military veterans.
This is my favorite part to share.
Zeal's been providing in-home medical massage for honestly just
about two years now, which I say only two years now because the
statistics are pretty amazing.
We initially piloted our in-home program with only three VA medical
centers and quickly exceeded the VA's expectations, mainly with
our timeliness and tech capabilities.
As word began to spread and still does spread, VA medical
centers are still continually reaching out to us to learn more
about how they can begin using Zeal to treat their veterans.
And to date, as you can see on the screen here, I'm really proud
to share with you that we've actually provided roughly 50,000
medical massage treatments for veterans at over 50 medical
centers across the country.
Alright, thank you, Amy.
My name is John Gallagher.
I'm the Director of Musculoskeletal Health, Health Air
and Seal.
And today I want to provide you with an overview of the VA program
and what it actually means to be a Zeal medical
massage provider.
First of all, I just want to say it's really been one of the most
truly rewarding programs that have been a part of and happy to
be leading this clinical team.
The big question we always get is from people is what's the biggest
difference between medical massage and regular massage?
How do the two differ?
And the first difference is that massage therapists wishing to
provide medical massage must first obtain an MPI number.
If you aren't familiar with this, it stands for the National
Provider Identifier.
Essentially, it is a unique identification number for
healthcare providers for the purpose of submitting insurance
claims.
It's completely free.
If you don't have one and you need our help, our team can help you
point you in the right direction and obtaining one.
It's a pretty simple process.
Another difference is that a medical provider, as a medical
provider, we can submit and bill insurance companies as opposed to
just having a cash-based model.
And for the VA, as Amy said previously, it's a completely
covered benefit.
They have no out-of-pocket expenses, no co-pays, no current
co-insurances, so it's a really tremendous benefit that the
VA provides.
Clinically, the main difference is the goal of treatment.
Whereas a Swedish massage or a spa massage, you might see the
patient or the client one to two times a year, a few times a
year, where the goal may simply be relaxation or stress
reduction.
A medical massage comes with a physician referral.
It's based on a specific diagnosis course.
You're actually treating to a specific diagnosis and you're
setting individual recovery goals for your patient.
So you and the veteran or patient will formulate these goals and
you'll work over the course of a whole referral.
In this case for the VA, it's usually 12 sessions, so you'll have 12
sessions to achieve your goals.
The biggest thing that I tell providers is in medicine, we want
to make goals that are measurable and functional.
We want to show that what we're doing is working, right?
It's not enough just to say that we want massage.
We have to set measurable and functional goals that we wish to
achieve.
But that in mind, though, the massage techniques that you guys have
learned in school and throughout your career is with continuing
education are really no different.
The only difference is that you're going to be applying and
towards a specific diagnosis.
So yeah, you know, really no reason to think that it's
different with regards to your skill set.
It's just a different process.
A final requirement for medical massage is the need for clinical
documentation.
This is the part that most providers in all forms of medicine
really love, but it really is a necessary evil.
That being said, Zeel's provider app makes it very simple.
We built an easy and guided process for therapists to follow
right in the app, right on their phone.
It takes you through all portions of your treatment.
So really, really great resource and something that we
continue to improve upon every day as we learn more.
So then why is clinical documentation so important?
The first thing it provides a road map of the patient's
clinical journey.
Are they progressing, right, is what we're doing working for
this patient?
Are they making these objective and measurable improvements?
You know, it's really just it's one of the most important things
to show is that what we're doing is making both mental
and measurable and functional improvements in a patient's life
towards a specific diagnosis.
It helps to ensure that insurance companies will reimburse us
for what we do, right?
It's not enough just to do the treatment.
We need to provide the clinical documentation to support that.
And that really helps to cover us, the clinicians, right,
to prove what we've done on a given day and show the clinical
outcomes of what we're doing.
But that being said, don't panic or get frustrated.
Everyone gets a little nervous.
I've never documented clinically before.
So just know that if you haven't documented since back when you
were in massage school or if you've never documented clinically
at all, you know, our clinical team is really here to help and
support you.
So don't be intimidated if it's your first time documenting
clinically.
Finally, I want to talk about another avenue that we're
working on.
So here is, here is very, we find clinical outcomes data very
important and we're collecting post-treatment surveys for the
VA in order to provide this data to prove the efficacy of
medical massage, not just for the VA, but in the medical
community at large.
We want to show how medical massage can be an adjunct or
alternative treatment for acute and chronic pain, you know,
for everybody, not just for our veterans.
And it's amazing, you know, back in the day, you know,
whether it was chiropractors or acupuncturists, you know,
it wasn't necessarily recognizing the medical community or a
covered benefit by insurance companies, but today, their
household, you know, treatment model.
So we want medical massage to be that, to be exactly that, you
know, something that when, when medical doctors prescribe
something for pain relief, massage therapy is one of the first
things they choose.
And the data we're collecting to data is really truly
remarkable, you know, even even by my standards.
But just to give you a little idea, I think we've had over
3,500 post-treatment surveys and 90% of our patients are
reporting some reduction in pain following treatment with
25% reporting significant improvements in their pain.
That's a pretty high number for people with chronic pain.
We're seeing 50% a 50% reduction or elimination in
pain medications, both over the counter and prescription pain
medication.
You know, another huge goal of zeal is to reduce pain
medication, specifically opioids, right?
So really tremendous the early data there.
And, you know, another 80 to 90% are reporting improvements in
their sleep, in their mood, their stress, and their
ability to increase their activity level.
So really great findings and something we're looking to expand
upon.
Yeah, this work is so rewarding too.
We get calls and emails from massage therapists all the time.
They're telling us that this work has changed their massage
practice and honestly even their lives.
The gratitude of the veterans and the families is also
pretty overwhelming.
The work is constant, consistent, and steady.
One referral or prescription is going to come in a series of
12 massages for the veteran.
And then additional massage sessions outside of the initial 12
can be requested by our massage professionals if it's
clinically justified.
Similar to our consumer in-home massage therapy, zeal
handles a lot of the administrative task for our
massage therapists.
And if you know anything about insurance covered work,
you know that the claim submission and payment process can be
daunting to say the least.
A lot of times they're still faxing.
I know.
And it takes months to receive payment.
Not with the although.
We actually handle all of the billing and claims and our
massage therapists are still paid weekly.
Overwhelmingly massage therapists tell us that they're called to
the meaningful work that this is.
Massage therapists become a true part of their patients' continuum
of care.
Unlike spa style massage, these appointments allow the
provider to really collaborate with their patient and treat
them from a truly holistic vantage point that puts focus on
restoration of the patient's health and quality of life.
Yeah.
So I just wanted to follow up then on what we spoke about before.
You know, I just really want you to know and understand that,
you know, our team is here to support you in any way you can.
We said we designed a great system within the app to provide
clinical documentation.
We have resources within the app on on clinical documentation,
on requirements for medical massage therapists.
So there's tons of resources that we have available for you.
But most importantly, just know that me and my clinical team
are here to support you in any way.
You know, I'm on the phone oftentimes with providers who just
have clinical questions or difficulty with documentation.
And, you know, they find that very helpful.
So yeah, don't be intimidated by the word medical.
Like I said, we have a great team here who's just happy to
support you.
And then something else that we're really proud of is that at
ZL, we have a trust and safety department.
And this trust and safety department is devoted entirely to
the safety of our patients as well as our provider network.
So a member of this trust and safety team is going to be
working anytime that there's any ZL equipment taking place in
any time zone across the country.
So with that said, and over two million in-home treatments
completed by ZL, we feel very confident that our providers
and our veterans are in very good hands.
We get flooded with heartwarming stories of how medical
massage and specifically in-home massage is changing
these veterans' lives.
Our network of massage therapists are the heartbeat of this
program and they truly embody this mission and ZL's passion.
Take a look at some of these wonderful quotes.
I'm not, I'm a spare you from reading from the screen,
but this is just a small snapshot of all of the amazing
feedback that we get all the time from providers as well as
veterans.
With that said, I just want to say thank you so much for
spending part of your day with us to learn how ZL is helping
transform treatment for veterans.
And if you're a massage therapist who's interested in
learning more about ZL and how you could be a part of the
program, we are going to talk about the
program that we have done.
Email providers at diel.com.
They're on the screen for you on the slide.
And our team is happy to get you started.
Answer questions.
And then of course we're happy to take some questions that
you may have for us right now.
Again, thank you so much.
I'll chime in to just get going on some of the questions.
David has a question in the Q&A asking how
provider payment is determined and does the pay vary by
Amy, if you want to talk to that.
Yeah, so the pay is going to vary by region,
just as it does with our consumer in-home massage.
So if you have a specific area of question,
I would reach out to our team.
But we certainly share all of that information
during the starting process of the application,
if you're brand new, and then, of course,
through the medical credentialing process
that John talked about a little bit.
But we're happy to help you answer more specifically
if you reach out to us.
I can expand upon that as well, Amy.
Just know, though, sometimes we know in medicine,
sometimes claims are denied and we don't get paid, right?
That being said, the way Zio works is,
if you complete the treatment
and you complete your clinical documentation,
you will get paid regardless.
It doesn't matter if the insurance companies
deny the claim for whatever reason.
So you will always be paid if you do the appointment
and complete your clinical documentation.
And I think we can also add, just from a really,
in the weeds perspective, that payments for these appointments
is determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
So that's the reimbursement rate that is applied,
which may be a little bit different region to region
than what one might be paid for a standard
in a home appointment or a spa appointment.
But by and large, the Zio appointment payment
is quite consistent for the medical appointments
as it is with other in-home appointments.
This is a good one.
Monique asks, do you need a specific certificate
for medical massage?
And John, I believe you spoke about that a little bit earlier,
but we can reconfirm what the requirements are
for providing these treatments.
Yep, so yeah, you need to be a licensed medical,
licensed massage therapist in your state, right?
Some states have different requirements,
but yeah, the requirement is a licensed massage therapist.
The requirements are that you have an MPI number
and then that you just go through our credentialing process,
you know, the typical things that you would do
in a job background check and things like that.
Really follow state guidelines as to what each state
requires from their massage therapist.
Paul asks how to find VA medical centers that offer this.
He is a veteran and is the old practitioner.
Thank you, Paul, for the work that you do.
Amy, do you wanna talk about how the different VAMCs
have been prescribing this and how this is kind of spreading
VAMC to VAMC across the nation?
Yeah, it's a great question.
In theory, we are an approved provider nationwide.
So in theory, we can provide a VA medical massage
to an NE VA medical center.
The actual answer to that is the VA medical center
has to kind of, I hate saying buy into it,
but they have to, of course, be wanting to have this program,
which is a little different being
that we're in-home program.
So that requires really my role,
which is to educate each individual VA medical center.
So in order to find out specifically if an area is or is not,
you can reach out to us and we're happy to provide you
with who is now and who isn't.
But in theory, we hope to be everywhere.
And that's my goal.
So I'm really just pushing out there.
We've got massage therapists in areas where we're not yet at
and they're sharing, hey, did you hear about this?
And then the veterans are going to their VA center.
So it's the way that we're coming to be,
it's happening kind of differently,
depending on where you're at across the country.
But it's a great question.
More specifically, we're at roughly 50,
I wanna say it's 51 or 52 VA medical centers currently.
And by at, I mean, they're actually sending us referrals.
And then John and I have a call even tomorrow
with another VA medical center.
So it's happening all the time that we're doing these presentations,
sharing this amazing information that we just shared with you all
with the VA medical centers in hopes to get,
I think there's 231 across the country.
So we still have a little work to do.
But then the struggle has been great with helping push that.
Yeah, I think a lot of it's education, right?
I think there is VA centers who actively prescribe medical massage
for the VA that doesn't know as you'll exist.
So we're educating them on that.
And then there's other VA centers,
don't even realize that medical massage is an option for veterans,
for treatment of their care.
So that's why gathering this clinical outcomes data
and sharing it with these VA medical centers
is so important and vital.
It is, yeah.
And to John's point, medical massage.
So Zile has been doing this for two years.
But medical massage in general is also a brand new offering for the VA.
I want to say we only missed that by maybe six months.
I mean, it really wasn't that long before we started
that this was even really being offered widely.
I think it was, I think it's been a few years,
like right before the pandemic when they approved it.
But yeah, so I mean, it's just all, and like John said,
some VA medical centers still are not even utilizing in it.
And it's approved now.
So it's all education.
It is all education.
Great question.
And speaking of education, somebody who clearly knows their stuff,
Michelle asks, last time I looked at the provider contract,
the VA said they wouldn't contract with those doing home visits.
How are you able to do home visits?
Which speaks to the unique nature of our relationship
with the VA Community Care Network,
and how we're able to provide this service.
Amy, would you like to answer that?
Yeah, so the VA contracts with two insurance companies
across the country.
This is a lot of information, but it's important.
And they are called Optum and TriWest.
So they divide the country.
One side, which is the East Coast, is Optum.
East Coast in most of the middle parts of the country.
And then TriWest takes most of that West Coast area.
And with that said, we partner with those folks
in what they call the Community Care Network.
So essentially what happens is, if a VA is unable to fulfill
a massage in-house, which a lot of times they cannot,
because they either don't have a massage therapist themselves,
or they don't have a budget for a massage therapy,
or whatever, they'll kick it into what they call the community.
And that's where we come in, we're in the community.
So massage is essentially provided
through Optum and TriWest for us, through the hands
of these VA medical centers.
So if a VA medical center is saying that they don't provide
in-home care, and I guess I would ask you more specifically,
was it massage, or just in general massage care
that you can answer the questions,
because it didn't sound like it was massage even specifically.
A lot of times they aren't.
And like we said in the slide, in kind of the beginning
of this presentation, we are on a national scale,
the only one that provides in-home medical massage.
In a lot of cases, we're the only in-home massage
game at all that exists.
So it's a long-winded way to answer your question
and just say that it comes back to that education piece.
I've been told multiple times by VA medical centers
that this is not authorized, and I smile, and I say,
but it is, but let me explain, and let me just share
with you, and here's our statistics, and we're doing this.
So it's a lot of times, I hate to say that,
but a lot of times it's just getting in front
of the right people, and sometimes sadly,
a lot of the people don't have the right information.
So I hope that answers the question.
And Samantha or John, feel free to add anything
that you think is important, but that's the fastest version
I can give you.
It's very complicated.
Yeah, it is.
I mean, zeal is, for what it's worth,
and I think Amy covered this, zeal is the only national provider
in the VA's Community Care Network that
is able to provide in-home services.
So the answer to that is that we made it happen,
and we appreciate providers coming along on this journey
with us to make that happen, to bring that care to homes,
because it is a unique service that we provide.
Peggy asks if therapists can do only work with veterans
without participating in the consumer side of the business.
That is the case, right, Amy?
Yeah.
Of course, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
You can do either or, right?
You can do a combination of both consumer and medical.
You can just do medical, or you can just do consumer.
So yeah, there's no restrictions there,
what we're happy to have you in any capacity.
And we respect to the fact that I've
worked with massage therapists for, I want to say,
almost 15 years now in my career.
So I certainly respect the fact that there
are some massage therapists, Kate's
in point my best friend, who is a spa massage therapist, right?
He never has any desire to do anything medically,
and that's OK.
The same maybe for somebody that's
more into the therapeutic or clinical type of massage,
you can certainly specify that that's
where you'd like to be for us and will help you get just there
if that's all you want to do.
Or if you're well-rounded and you want to do it all,
we certainly welcome that as well.
Someone else who clearly knows their stuff, Paula,
has asked what code we're using from the VA fee schedule.
John, I have a feeling you know that off the top of your head.
Yeah, yeah.
No, don't quote me again.
Blue's 9-7-1-2-4, which is just a massage therapy code.
That's what's allowed by what the VA's quote unquote
what they call their standard episode of Cara Siakas
and it's 9-7-1-2-4, which is a massage there.
It's just a basic CPT code for massage therapy.
And Monique, I was there for that question.
I was like, I don't know if I know that answer.
John does.
To the clinical side.
And actually, I think both of you can perhaps
speak to this question.
Monique asks, how safe is this for women?
And I assume what she's referring to
is the security concerns around an in-home service,
whether it's for the patient or for the provider.
And perhaps we can speak a little bit about
our trust and safety protocols
and how that also integrates with our clinical protocols
around safety and security.
Yeah, I'll start.
And then I'm sure John can add a lot more to this.
But I will just say that we, in our consumer in-home,
line of business, our spotlight of business,
this trust and safety team that works behind the scenes
is really there for you.
We know where you're at at all times
when you're working for Zeal, right?
So there's a check-in feature on the app.
We know that you've arrived there, somebody's always there
really for your safety.
With that in mind, and I always share this
because I think this is so important.
We trust you as the massage therapist, right?
So you are the professional here.
If you feel uncomfortable in any way, shape or form,
whether it's a spa appointment,
whether it is a just regular in-home appointment
with Zeal or a medical appointment.
If you feel uncomfortable, you leave.
Get to safety, inform us,
and our team will take it from there with you
or without you, whatever we need to do.
There should never be an opportunity ever
in this industry where you as the massage therapist
feel uncomfortable, right?
So we are very passionate about this.
This trust and safety team is 100% in your corner
in terms of any type of feeling that you get
upon arrival, before arrival, anything.
So with that said, I'm sure John can speak
to some of the actual, like,
clinical stuff behind the scenes,
but I just wanna make sure that if you are
a massage therapist on this webinar right now,
that you understand that we feel very passionately
about your safety.
So yes, it is safe for women.
It's my long-ended answer.
Right, it's always a tough question
and understandably so, right?
You're going into someone's home.
It's always scary a little bit, right?
So the biggest thing I can say is we've been doing this
since 2013 as a consumer-based business.
And as Amy said, we have a trust and safety team
that's just tremendous and remarkable.
Like I said, we were there anytime that you guys are working
or a trust and safety team is working,
so you can message us, lack us,
call us anything you need at any time.
You're able to leave the appointment.
Like I said, we've even had cases where
we'll go back and get your massage table for you
just if you ever felt uncomfortable.
That being said, it doesn't happen as often as you think, right?
You think it's a big, scary place,
but it really doesn't happen often.
It's really the exception, not the rule.
And while we can't control for everything,
like I said, we do support you.
From a medical perspective and clinically,
we do rely on the VA, right,
to hopefully send us patients who don't have a history
of anything like this.
When you are a medical provider,
you will receive their whole referral,
which will give you their background
as far as their past medical history.
So you might know if they have any other,
maybe mental health issues or if anything like that exists.
A lot of times what I will suggest
if something like that happens is that you just ask
that someone else be their family member
or somebody else in the home with them.
But like I said, we can't control for everything,
but like I said, we do have a great trust and safety team.
We have a clinical team that supports you.
We rely on the medical doctors who are referring to us.
And again, and then like I said,
it really, it just doesn't happen as often as you think.
It's just like when you think about it,
sometimes a PSCNG guy or an electric company guy
coming into your home, like there's always that potential.
But again, those people don't have a trust and safety team
standing behind them.
So yeah, it's hard.
And then from a medical perspective,
we have rules in place with regards to things like COVID
and different health restrictions should things arise.
And I will give just a quick blanket answer to those of you
who have been asking, is this available in Alaska?
Is this available in Nevada?
Is this available in Hawaii or Missouri?
The answer is kind of yes and as Amy has said,
the this service is available to veterans everywhere.
They are able to get medically prescribed massage
for pain conditions.
Primarily, and this just adds a little bit of context
on working with VA, clearly some of you
have had some experience with them.
But by and large, the VA makes every effort
to treat veterans for their various conditions
within the bounds of VA clinicians.
Once they hit an overflow point,
that's when they turn to the community care network,
which zeal is a part of.
So for situations for veterans where there is not a place
where they can go either in a VA medical center
or in their local community care system to receive massage
or they have a reason why they would need massage at home.
Perhaps they have mobility issues or they're homebound.
That's when zeal will come into play.
Again, this service is available to veterans everywhere,
but different VAMPs are, I mean,
there are certain degrees of awareness
that we unfortunately can't influence,
coming all the way from the VA
through the services like Optum and TriWest
that Amy spoke about down to each individual VAMPs.
See, we can't thoroughly influence the communication
of the fact that this service is available
to every veteran everywhere.
So we are sometimes at the mercy of really a veteran,
him or herself going to his or her clinician at the VA
and saying that they would like to be considered for massage
as an intervention for their pain condition.
That really is the best way for that information
to get up through the VAMPs or the VA medical center
in order for them to look up the options
and discover that zeal in-home massage is one of them.
So the best thing that I would tell those of you
who are wondering if the service is available
in various locations across the country,
what I would say to you,
and I think what we would all at zeal say to you
is if you know a veteran or if you're speaking
with a veteran who needs massage therapy
or who would benefit from massage for pain condition,
which is what the VA prescribes massage for,
tell them to talk to their VA clinician about it
as you often hear in pharmaceutical advertising,
talk to your doctor to find out
if massage therapy is right for you
because that's really the best way for them
to get access to this service that's available for them.
They might just not know.
Amy and John, if you want to add to that, feel free.
No, I think that's great.
I mean, it's exactly right.
It's hard for us to answer specifics on where
and I know that's probably very frustrating
because you're sitting in your house wondering,
can I do this?
And like I said, please feel free to reach out
and email us at providers at zeal.com for specifics.
And our team, our provider team will make sure
that we get back to you
and we can answer more specific information for you.
But as a blanket answer,
I think Samantha, you covered it.
That's perfect.
And a couple of people have also asked about something
that we haven't really spoken about yet,
which is in office visits
or appointments in providers, studios or facility spaces.
The answer to those of you who have asked about that is yes,
this is an option.
Amy and John, would you like to talk about
the in office program or the in office part of this program?
Yeah, so, funny enough,
you know, this in-home was that's our bread and butter, right?
That's what we've been doing as John said since 2013.
So we came into this with, that was the plan.
And what was funny is as we started to develop this thing
in other places across the country,
VA medical centers were telling us, listen, we have nobody.
Not only do we not have any other in-home providers,
we don't even have office locations
for our veterans to go to.
Or they were telling us, hey, we've got a lot of veterans,
we don't have anybody else,
but they're saying in-home's not a good fit for them, right?
When we know that, all of us know that.
So it's not gonna be for everybody.
So we started thinking, could we do this?
Let's see, you know, so we tiptoed into this
and I say this with a caveat with the word piloted
because we're still kind of piloting this idea.
Mainly because it's very manual for our team.
So we have to credential an actual location
versus or in addition to the provider, right?
So it's your location, your address,
the all the things that are required
to make your location get the seal of approval.
And that's a very manual process at this stage with seal.
But with that said, we have rostered
and credentialed so many office,
we're applying them office locations.
It could be your studio location,
it could be, you know, you rent a whatever.
Same thing across the board,
we just call it office based massage.
And we've credentialed a lot of offices
and they are just, it's taken off like wildfire.
So that's definitely something that if you're interested in,
again, reach out to our team
and we'll get you started with that process.
And that's great because there are a lot of folks
that just for one reason or another,
maybe in-home isn't a good fit for them.
So, hey, we can also do this, which is great.
Well, John, you're muted.
No, yeah, I heard my kids coming in from school
so I'm muted.
So yeah, so no, just like what we said with consumer
and medical massage, right?
Can you do one and not the other?
Same thing, you can be both an office based provider
and still provide in-home and vice versa.
So you can actually do both as well.
It just depends on the need of the specific area.
Yeah.
And one thing that a lot of people are messaging
and talking about frustration they've had
trying to work directly with the VA
and differences of information that they've received
from various VA medical centers
relative to the information that we have
and certainly to say that there's a lot of red tape
would be an understatement.
Overall, what I would, and I think what we would all recommend
is to apply to join the ZEAL provider network
if you're not already a member
and we're very happy to see a lot of members here
on this webinar today.
But if you're not already a member of the ZEAL provider network,
we would encourage you to apply to join
because it will give you more streamlined access
to these appointments minus a lot of the red tape
and the lack of clear information
that one finds when they might be trying
to work directly with Optum or TriWest or the VA itself.
Amy, do you want to talk about some of the benefits
of working through ZEAL to take these medical
and veteran appointments
as opposed to contracting directly with the TPA's?
Yeah, sure.
In my role, I am often across the country
at different conferences,
so I get the opportunity to speak to a lot of our massage therapists
and again, if you're a massage therapist, just thank you.
And if you're a massage therapist in our network,
thank you, thank you, thank you.
We really couldn't do any of this without you, right?
And I don't know that that's said enough, so here it is.
But the best part about speaking to the massage therapist
on the field is getting some of this feedback
because we just don't know
and you don't know what you don't know, right?
And so I have collected a lot of feedback
and I am gathering a lot of what Samantha said
you were saying in the chat,
which is it is not easy to be just a direct VA massage provider.
And there are a lot of nuances that I would say fully
that ZEAL really makes this process so much easier for you.
One of them is the Billings and Claims.
So I met a massage therapist up in Buffalo, New York
who was still waiting to be paid from three months prior
and she had to go to the library to fax the claims,
billing and claims stuff.
And then when that didn't work, she had to go back
and fax again because something was wonky with the paper.
And I lead with that because again,
as long as you are upholding your end of the deal, right?
Which is like we said, like John specified there,
it's the clinical documentation justifying this, the treatment,
you're keeping track of all this,
which again is all in the app, it's so easy for you.
As long as you're doing that, you're gonna get paid weekly.
It's so easy, it's so easy.
So none of this waiting three months to be paid
for a massage that you deliver back in August or whatever.
So that's number one.
Number two is a lot of the administration
that as a massage therapist, especially if you own your own practice,
you're in the middle of a massage in your phone rings
or you're in the middle of your massage
and you can't get back to a text message or whatever, right?
So we really, with this medical massage side of our business,
we're really empowering our massage therapists
truly to take kind of the reins with this
when it comes to scheduling once you've got your patient,
once you've got your veteran,
scheduling the subsequent appointments and all of that.
We put that on you and we want you to do that.
But initially, when you receive the veteran,
we are happy to take care of some of that daunting
administrative stuff that happens in the beginning,
which is just really finding out, scheduling,
what's scheduling in a perfect world I'm available this day.
And then the veteran says,
in a perfect world, right, we do all of that for you.
So there's none of this back and forth.
We essentially just give you the work
and then we ask you to, again, do the parts that we ask
on John's side clinically with the documentation
and then just scheduling those follow ups
with your veteran directly, which is so awesome
because you and the veteran might have Tuesdays every single week
that are available at three.
And you can just go ahead and schedule those subsequent
appointments, which is great.
There's a lot of benefit, I think, to that,
again, the trust and safety thing.
If I were a provider, I would think
that was a huge benefit for me,
that someone knew where I was when I was providing
in-home treatment at someone else's house,
which as John said, can be scary.
It doesn't happen as much as you would think,
like he said, where there's issues or things that happen.
But just the fact of knowing that someone knows where I'm at
and has a team behind them that's going to take care
of something if something does happen in a treatment,
that would be a big benefit for me
as a massage therapist as well.
I'm probably missing some things, Sam.
Who's sure? I mean, they have me.
They have me as clinical support.
Who has clinical support out there when they're on their own?
No, no, that's true.
Very, very well said.
I think the scheduling is a big part of it, right?
We do have a whole team who will help you
with your scheduling, zeal sends out reminders
so there's not a lot of cancellations, things like that.
I think the biggest part, like you said,
is the claims submission and not have to deal
with the insurance companies and us handling all that
on your behalf is probably the number one thing I would say
anyone who works in medicine knows how challenging that could be.
So yeah, no, I think you hit quite a few of them, but yeah,
it's definitely, it's a much more streamlined approach
and we take care of a lot of the red tape for you.
And I think we're gonna begin to wrap up here.
I'm sorry that we weren't able to get to everybody's questions,
but we do encourage you, again,
you're welcome to reach out to providers at zeal.com
to ask any questions that you might like to know
about joining the zeal provider network
and of course you can find out more
about joining the network and what the benefits are
at zeal.com slash providers.
If there's anything that we'd like to just get to finally,
Matt and Hannah, I'll kick it back to you.
Oh, we didn't really have any more.
So I hope everyone has a great day
and a great week in general.
Thank you guys so much for hosting us in this webinar.
We are big fans of Massage Magazine
and Massage Magazine Insurance Plus.
Great, great, great friend of zeal.
So thank you for everything that you guys do
and that you do for the community.
Thank you for representing.
It was an amazing presentation
and I learned a lot during it.
I hope everyone else did too.
Thanks everyone.
Thank you all.
Have a great day.
Bye.