Massage therapists are often looking for various avenues to increase their patient base and grow their practice.  Although most go thru school, graduate and then start their own business, they are unsure about their options for gaining more clients.  Many understand that they can have clients pay for their services by cash or charge, yet most do not know that insurance is also an option.  How can this be?  While it is true that massage therapist are not allowed to contract directly with any health insurance carrier thus far, they are able to contract with a few auxiliary networks that in turn work directly with the health insurance carriers.  By contracting with the auxiliary networks they are then able to advertise that, yes they do accept patients with insurance.  This capability can help them grow their business tremendously, based upon who their target market is.  In addition to accepting health insurance patients, they also have the option of working with auto injury claims and workers compensation.  Auto injury claims do not require a MT to contract with the auto insurance carriers.  Workers compensation does, and may only allow a limited number of MT into the network currently.  Before venturing into the insurance world, it is strongly suggested that any MT review what their end goal is for their business, how much they are willing to do on their own and what type of budget they are working with for marketing purposes.  While some of insurance billing can be handled by a single provider, as they grow, they should definitely look to need more help.