Does massage insurance cover Covid-19?
No, BUT as explained by Joe Fagan of Massage Magazine Insurance Plus in a recent interview, getting sued for Covid-19 transmission is way unlikely and there are ways to further mitigate risks. Interview is below. Who has the cheapest massage insurance here.
Stay as safe and as healthy as you can as you re-enter the workplace.
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Did you give up? Or are you still seeking financial relief?
If you’re in the United States, it’s obvious that the Fed and the States’ systems can’t handle the new needs of the unemployed during this pandemic.
So, we have to be patient and persistent. But that’s not all we have to be.
We also have to be aware of what we’re eligible for in terms of financial relief.
I thought I knew, but it turns out I didn’t.
So today, let’s turn over every U.S. financial relief stone to see if there is some assistance underneath it.
I’m going to start with the most well-known financial relief stone—the stimulus check.
You qualify for a stimulus check of $1200 if you’re “a single US resident and have an adjusted gross income less than $99,000, if you file as the head of a household and under $146,500, or if you file jointly without children and earn less than $198,000.” (Snippet from here.)
If you qualify and haven’t received your check yet, have you tried the direct deposit portal?
Here it is: Direct Deposit Portal
If you’ve tried to set up direct deposit and it just didn’t work out (as you know, there’s no one available at the IRS to talk to help you figure it out) then this an estimate of when your check should arrive:
(Information from Forbes.)
And if you want to go granular, this article explains how you can track your check in the mail.
The Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) can provide up to $2 million of financial assistance…but you know what, I’m going to stop there cuz the big girls and boys drained this puppy already.
However, if you did file for a loan earlier during the first round and haven’t heard anything back, there’s still hope.
Check your email box for this email address: Small Business Administration <news@updates.sba.gov>
You might have an email that says this:
Dear Applicant,
We understand the challenges your business is facing due to the massive disruption caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. You are receiving this message as a notification that your Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) application is currently being processed in the order it was received. You will receive an email notification when there is a change to your application status.
Without question, COVID-19 has caused an extraordinary impact on our nation’s small businesses, and the demand for emergency working capital provided by the EIDL program is at historic levels. The SBA is processing applications from small businesses and private non-profit organizations across the country as quickly as possible. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to assist as many applicants as possible.
Additional information on available resources to assist your business during the effects of COVID-19 may be found online at www.sba.gov/coronavirus.
The Cares Act allows states to provide unemployment benefits to “independent contractors and other workers who are ordinarily ineligible for unemployment benefits.” (Source: US Department of Labor)
The official title for unemployment benefits for “individuals who are self-employed, seeking part-time employment, or who otherwise would not qualify for regular unemployment compensation”—that would be us—is PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance).
Who’s paying out PUA?
State governments and the Federal government.
Here’s the states piece:
State unemployment benefits for the pandemic unemployed are available for 39 weeks from January 27, 2020, and ending on or before December 31, 2020.
The amount you receive per week is determined by each state’s metrics.
Here’s the Federal government’s piece:
The Federal government is providing an additional $600/week to the state’s unemployment benefits beginning after the date when the state entered the agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor and will end on or before July 31, 2020.
So, the Federal government is adding on an additional $600 a week to what the state is providing up until July 31, 2020 (depending if you continue to qualify).
Do you have to go to the state and the Federal government to get both the state and Federal benefits?
No. The administration of all (state and Fed) unemployment benefits for us will happen through the state.
So, if you haven’t filed for unemployment, go here where you can search and find your state’s website.
PPP stands for Paycheck Protection Program.
Here is the official definition of PPP: “The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll. SBA will forgive loans if all employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities.” (Source: SBA)
Right, it looks you’re out unless you have employees—BUT you’re not since you’ve been affected by Covid-19.
Now you just need to meet these requirements to file (Source: C-Net).
If you follow the instructions of the loan, you won’t have to pay it back.
Here is where you apply for PPP and can read about loan forgiveness: SBA Gov Funding.
So, can self-employed get paid sick leave during this pandemic? Well, sort of, yeah. It’s in the form of a tax credit.
The credit is available for sick leave from April 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020. The credit must be claimed on your 2020 tax return.
This can help if you’re paying quarterly taxes because you can reduce your payment by the “leave taken”.
Do you qualify?
If you’ve been ordered to stay at home, then yes. The order could come from local, state, federal government or health care provider.
Total credit is up to 10 days.
Also, if you have a child and her school is closed or the child care provider is not available because of the pandemic, then you can take a paid care-giving leave credit.
To understand the ins and outs of credits, go here.
Getting a state loan is a long shot because we are deep in the loan game; however, some loan programs could be getting a second shot of funding, so it might be worth checking out.
Here’s an article that lists business loan opportunities state by state.
If you’re unable to work because of the Covid-19 pandemic then getting financial relief is your full-time job. Accepting that it’s going to take some digging, patience and persistence is just part of the deal.
If I can help you in anyway, let me know:-)
Stay safe and healthy, and if you want to get my latest information, just sign up for my email group below. It’s free.
The question just won’t go away: Should I go back to work when I’m allowed to go back to work?
In the US, eight states have lifted stay-at-home orders and 8 states never had them.
Stunningly, Georgia sent massage therapists back to work last week. (Less people the state has to pay to stay home.)
Speaking of financial relief, where is it?
On paper it exists—in pockets not so much.
Massage therapists are between a rock and hard place—and for some that rock and hard place are inching towards each other.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that no matter what phase you’re entering back into the workforce, let’s just be as safe as we can.
To that end, I made this video about what I’m doing to/in my massage room to make it as Covid-19 safe as possible. (This video just pertains to safety measures within the massage room. More videos about Covid-19 operations safety to come.)
(Restaurant Analysis: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article)
By the way, if you haven’t joined my free, email group, please do.
I’ll send you my latest everything.
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So what’s the worst case scenario that could happen for us as massage therapists?
The massage industry shuts down forever. There’s a run on TheraCanes. Athletes are rolling on tennis balls (unless you’re a Cross-fitter; then you’re rolling on a lax ball). Chronic pain people are popping pills. And stressed out people are petting puppies and kitties.
Seems a little implausible, doesn’t it?
People want to be rubbed—as in you are the rub-er; they are the rub-ee. Your hands, their backs. Forever, amen. Getting rubbed is in our DNA. Period.
And the reality is that when the dust settles after this first pandemic, people are going to climb back on your table simply because they can’t rub themselves.
So, can we agree that the worst-case scenario is not the massage industry completely folding?
Good.
Let’s try this scenario: The massage industry is severely impacted by the pandemic and it takes 2 years to recover.
Okay, that has some plausibility legs, right?
Let’s run with that for a minute.
Let’s say that the pre-Covid massage world had 60 million customers and the phase-in period starts with 30 million—1/2 of the customers are not there. Okay, that’s a little frightening especially if you apply the ½ loss scenario to your business.
Let’s say that you saw 14 clients a week pre-Covid-19 and when you start back to work during the phase-in you only have ½ the normal amount—7 clients—walking through your door.
That’s a 50% drop in income.
Damn, that’s like starting over.
Or is it?
No.
Yeah, that was pretty blunt. I was going to throw some more words in to soften it a bit and say something like: I’m going to say no.
But the correct answer is unequivocally no—and admittedly that “no” is a punch, not just directed at you, but at me, too, because at this moment in time, we’re susceptible to giving up.
Granted, giving up on massage and pivoting may ultimately be the right decision for you, but you need the best and most realistic information available to make that decision—which brings me back to starting over.
Starting over from scratch means you’ve lost all of your clients.
You won’t.
Starting over from scratch means that you’ve lost every single one of your referral sources.
Not going to happen.
Starting over from scratch means that all the business connections you’ve made in your massage world are gone.
Again, not going to be the case.
In fact, “starting over” doesn’t accurately describe our position in the post-Covid-19 massage world.
What does?
Starting-back-in-a new-but-not-entirely-different-massage world-with-less-money-coming-in.
It’s a fancy term, I know (haha). But we don’t need fancy now. We need realistic information to work with so that we can make good decisions.
Here’s how we’re going to make good decisions.
First, let’s frame what’s really happening when work starts: We are not “starting over”, we’re “starting back”.
Second, we need to acknowledge the new realities of going back to work during the Covid-19 phase-in.
They are: We’re starting back to work with less money coming in, less clients and less opportunity to ramp up to normal (and beyond) until there is a Covid-19 vaccine, herd immunity, or a pharmaceutical treatment.
Third, when we go back we still will have clients, referral sources and business connections, just less of them.
Fourth, if we can adapt to the Covid-19 phase-in, we’ll be in a position to be tremendously successful in the post-Covid-19 solution world.
Adaptation sounds scary. Quite frankly it is scary. But so is everything else, like getting a new job as an employee where you don’t call any of the shots.
Adaptation as a self-employed massage therapist is less scary when you’ve been through some serious times where you’ve had to make some serious changes.
If you haven’t, don’t worry—I have and though not as good as first-hand experience, I think my experiences can help you see that moving forward is possible even in the worst of times.
Years ago I had an office in a gym. The owner, Larry, was a bodybuilder and he opened this muscle-head gym so that he could work out. Needless to say, he was bankrupt in less than 3 years. But that’s not the story.
I had a deal with Larry and it was this: I rented out a room for $500 a month, which was not chump change 20 years ago. In return, my room was mine, I could prowl the floor for customers without the gym taking a cut and I had massage exclusivity, which meant that I was the only massage therapist in the gym.
Well, about a year later, Larry rented out another office to a chiropractor. The chiropractor and I acted professionally towards each other, but we don’t love each other, actually we sort of hated each other. The chiro assured me that he’s wasn’t going to offer massage and 6 months later he had two massage therapists working for him.
I was furious because now overnight I had major competition literally next door. I went to Larry; he did nothing, and now I had a choice—leave or adapt.
With a lot of coaching from my wife, Lisa, I adapted.
How?
I doubled-down with the personal trainers in the gym who were good referral resources, and I made them great referral sources by offering them massage for themselves at a discount. I coordinated care with them when sharing clients. And I referred clients to them.
I also offered discounted massage to the front desk people and I gave them a hand whenever I could, like if the phone was ringing and all the front desk people were busy, I’d answer it.
I also differentiated myself from the chiro’s massage therapists by focusing on pain-relief massage and using massage tools.
At the end of the day, my massage business grew and was better than it was before the chiro rocked my massage world.
Yay for me! Lol. Not exactly the same type of catastrophe as Covid-19. Here’s something closer.
Remember when I had said that Larry was a bodybuilder, not a business person? Well, he ended up selling the gym to a member of the gym.
Then about 3 years later that new gym owner decided to move the gym to an area that was out of my core clients radius. I decided not to move with the new owner and suddenly ½ of my clients were gone. Poof!
Not only were half my clients gone, but my advertising, word of mouth in the gym, was gone, too. It’s worse: Most of my referral sources, the trainers, went bye-byes too because they stayed with the gym.
I scrambled for a year, working out of Lisa’s office with the “½ of my clients that had stayed with me” group while trying to grow my business in another office, a room I rented from a chiropractor. This chiropractor, Heather, I liked:-)
You get where I’m going with these two stories. In both cases I was able to build my business back up because I adjusted to the realities of the situation.
We don’t know all of the realities of Covid-19 phase-in yet. But we do know this: You will still have some clients. You will still have some referral sources. You will still have some business connections.
You can build on them. In fact, you can build on referral sources and business connections now while you’re stuck at home. Click here for help with that.
Also, though there will be be less clients to win over during Phase-In, they’ll be less competition for those clients. That’s good.
When you boil it all down, going back to massage comes down to this: Do you want to go through the learning curve (adaptation phase)?
The phase-in period is when the learning curve happens. It’s where you harden yourself. You can’t skip the phase-in and jump to the Covid-19 solution world and have a thriving massage business.
It doesn’t work that way.
You have to cut your teeth (again).
You have to grind it out (again).
You have to get up (again).
Or as Rocky says: “It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
See what happens when I get all worked up.
One more thing, if you’re just starting out or have never really got your business off the ground and still want to have a massage business, you’re absolutely NOT out of the game.
Don’t get hung up on your lack of experience because if you sit out this pandemic, then you might never make it back in before the next one hits.
Work your advantages.
And yes, you have some.
One is that you haven’t been in the business so long that you have biases and are unwilling to try something.
In addition, you’ve got something to prove to yourself and/or you need the money and/or you can’t stand the thought of working for someone else. Direct that passion and energy towards the things that matter. Here’s what I think matters: How to Build a Massage Business Crash Course.
And lastly, I’m here if you need me:-)
Sign up for my free, email group below, and I’ll send you my latest info weekly.