As a practising Holistic Therapist I am a member of a Therapist Association that I need to reapply for each year and fulfill certain criteria to maintain member ship. I need to show that I am practising and continuing to learn throughout my career keeping me up to date on all things in my field. I am due to renew my membership with my chosen Therapist association this month and something new has come up that hasn't really before. Ireland is in the midst of a, dare I say the "R word"? recession and people are on the look out for value for money. More and more people are coming to me and asking if my Therapies are covered by their Health Insurers. In the past I have written receipts for the few who ask and some have reported back that they managed to get their health insurer to cover. I thought this is great. However, the insurance companies seem to have stopped this and are only covering those who receive therapies from members of associations on their specific list. This maybe because more and more people are claiming and limiting the covered associations may limit the amount of claims they may actually have to pay out, I dont know! I have discovered that my particular Association does not make their lists even though it is one of the largest in the UK and Ireland. I have approached my particular association about this and asked them to look into it and see if they can form some sort of an alliance with the Health Insurance Companies of Ireland so that their members will be able to advertise their Therapies as being covered by clients Health Insurance.
I felt I needed to write this down in the hope that it reaches someone and helps someone. When I was in college, they recommended the Association I am a member of to us. There was never any issue of whether our clients could claim back for our Therapies on their Health Insurance as perhaps it wasn't even possible at all then. It is possible now and so I recommend that when looking for an Association to become a member of take this into consideration. You want to give the client the best service you can and if they receive excellent Therapy and then hear that they can in fact claim back some/all of the cost on their Health Insurance they will be even happier and there is more chance of you seeing them again.
