Body Mechanics Orthopedic Massage

Body Mechanics Orthopedic Massage
Manual experts for your body. Life is too short for limits.

Monday, November 11, 2013

The whole process is supposed to happen in 15 minutes.

The whole process is supposed to happen in 15 minutes.
What do I mean by that? I mean that in a lot of spas a fifteen minute turnover is standard practice.  In other words, most spas, if they are busy, are booking therapists with clients hourly with a fifteen minute break in between.  At the end of a treatment the therapist has 15 minutes to:
  1. Inform your client how to get up
  2. Exit the room
  3. Wait for the client to come out
  4. Walk the client out
  5. Cover homecare/client questions
  6. Run back to clean the room and change the sheets
  7. Greet your new client
  8. Assess them
  9. Give them informed consent and give them instructions to get on the table
  10. Wait for them to change
  11. And finally begin the treatment.
This does not cover any bathroom breaks, late clients, unforeseen circumstances or any water breaks. The average shift being 5 clients long, a therapist often goes for 6 hours without stopping. By no means is this ALL clinics, but it is standard practice for many.
On one hand, as a business owner, I understand the need for efficiency, and for structure. After all, in the end, it is a business and the end goal is to make money, however, as a health care worker, I also feel that it is not possible to meet the needs of my patient with such a schedule.
On the other hand, this is often not the case in private clinics, as private clinicians schedule themselves and are able to take a larger cut of the profit, so obviously their concern is putting out a quality product in a healthy amount of time. There is less pressure to make money fast when there is no one to split the total with.  However, when health care becomes monetized into units of time that must be cut into smaller splits, the pressure is on! Compound that with the fact that many spas and gyms are not run/owned by actual therapist, but are managed by business owners, the end result is likely something that does not meet any standard of client health care. Obviously it is not deliberate, however, health care goals and financial ones sometimes do not align. The situation further degrades as therapists, on long shifts with only 15 minute breaks, are likely at higher risk for burn out and mistakes as the therapists become essentially an assembly line of massage.
So the question becomes, are massage therapists health care, or are we a product? Massage therapy often finds itself straddling this issue as it rides a thin grey line between a luxury item and heath care.  My clinic runs on a 30 minute schedule. It works for me; it allows me enough time with clients to pay the bills and invest in their care. I don’t expect that this schedule will work for everyone, some will need more and some will need less, but in the interest of raising the standards for work environments and for lifting client care, we should work together as professionals to raise awareness for what IS and what IS NOT possible in 15 minutes.
For more information on Massage in NYC find us at our website!
by Beret Kirkeby

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