Alexandar Holiday Specials

This month we have some great holiday specials. Check them out on our latest newsletter.

http://gmtiny.com/yZBff via #Emailbrain

We also accept Spafinder gift cards which are on sale right now at Costco.

SOAP Charting on the iPad (for $2.99)

This week, we have posted a video on our recommended solution for SOAP charting on the iPad. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec43fsf9a44&feature=player_embedded

There are many services and products out there for medical documentation. While there are programs and online services for charting a massage session often, a massage practitioner has to use part of a system designed for other medical professionals. Pricing can be anywhere from $30.00 per month to thousands of dollars per year (most dedicated software is around ($100.00 - $150.00). Almost all of these options are poorly designed, feature-rich pieces of software. There may also be 'Legacy Issues' with software and services.

Administratively, most massage practitioners only need a way to keep a SOAP chart, do medical billing and intake paperwork. These should be HIPAA compliant (There is no such thing as 'HIPAA certified!'), easy to use and inexpensive. For medical billing, there are many medical clearinghouse services like OfficeAlly.com that will do the medical billing for little or no cost and are HIPAA compliant (OfficeAlly.com is free to use for medical billing). Intake forms are available from many different sources; I usually recommend the Sohnen-Moe resource  to my students. 

Our SOAP charting solution on the iPad will only cost you $3.00 - $6.00 (depending on the price of the Noteshelf program) and 15 minutes of your time. Your program will be HIPAA compliant as long as you use all the security measures available to you on the iPad and in the Noteshelf program itself. However, if you store the data, online you must have, a HIPAA business associates agreement with the service you use and your HIPAA office policy should have provisions related to proper use of an iPad. Once you set your system up, it is very easy to maintain and at its base it is just like handwriting a chart note. The chart can be 'tagged' to make it easy to find and can be emailed, printed or sent to online storage.

The problem of 'Legacy Issues' can happen when a piece of software become obsolete and is not replaced, a company goes out of business or you become unable to use the software or service due to a change in your internet access, hardware upgrade etc. Noteshelf has a safeguard against this because it can export your charts in standard image and/or PDF formats, which are long used, stable options for keeping documents. 

By using a combination of a services like OfficeAlly.com to do your billing, normal intake forms and electronic charting you can strike a happy medium with minimal expense or change to your routine with the added benefit of having access to and portability of your charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec43fsf9a44&feature=player_embedded

October Newsletters are out today

In our October newsletters, you will find and introduction to new products and classes at Alexandar.

Our Massage Clinic Newsletter introduces some of our new salt products.

http://gmtiny.com/r68og

In our Continuing Education newsletter we are introducing our HIPAA workshop starting in January.

http://gmtiny.com/K5ud2

Keep an eye out for more information on the HIPAA workshop and our students offerings are increasing as they complete the spa portion of our training program.

Video Update to Our Website

Our new website update is a new 'Introduction to Alexandar' video. Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen for us. Special thanks to Myke at Lexdar Media for our wonderful website and music and Yari at yourvideobiz.com for the great video. To our wonderful students faculty and staff and our clinic client, thank you so much for your help in making this happen. With out you all we would not be! Check it out at http://alexandarschoolofnatu.homestead.com

Our new Fall CE Calendar

Our new Continuing Education calendar is here! Free Ethics Training with some of our classes.

http://gmtiny.com/K5ud2

We've been busy... Interesting Articles.

The past two weeks have been filled with change making it a very exciting time here at Alexandar. Some of the changes you can see and some you will not be able to see. Some of our changes are highlighted below.

The biggest change you cannot see is that we have switched our internet provider to Comcast. This change allows us to be faster on the internet which makes for better customer service in the clinic and office. We are now working on our scheduling system and plan to upgrade our clinic music to pandora through the DMX system in the fall.

We have switched over to our new website and email addresses. http://www.alexandarmassageschool.com is our new website and info@alexandarmassageschool.com is our new email. Even more changes are coming to our site very soon. Don't worry, our old addresses still work. 

Cosmetic and infrastructure upgrades have been happening all summer and will continue through the fall. You may have noticed new fencing, painting, deck staining, carpet removal, etc. This will continue and we will keep posting pictures to our Facebook as these changes take place.

Interesting Massage Articles From The Past Week

Massage-and-CAM Researcher Appointed to Top Position at Research Institutehttp://www.massagemag.com/News/print-this.php?id=13040

Decrease pain with combined modalitieshttp://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/decrease-pain-with-combined-modalities/article_cbf68d96-50b7-5f4e-8db9-6eb777614a5c.html
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A positive image of the Massage Profession

I want to share 3 positive massage articles with you. The first two, are about massage at the Summer Olympics. The Summer Olympics are always a great vehicle for raising public awareness of  the benefits of massage. Why not the Winter Olympics too? Maybe it's too cold to think about massage.

http://www.integrative-healthcare.org/mt/archives/2012/08/sports_massage_1-print.html

http://www.chad.co.uk/news/local/hands-on-role-for-mansfield-massage-expert-at-london-2012-olympics-1-4810854


This next story is about the positive opinion on massage by students of Osteopathy. A DO is a great resource and they often have a better view of CAM than other traditional health practitioners. I wish there were more of them. If you have a choice or a looking for a primary care provider, try an Osteopath.

http://www.massagemag.com/News/print-this.php?id=12959

Confused yet? and a guide to Facebook for your business.

We have had  some questions about our Facebook pages. It is undeniable that Facebook is great for business and keeping in touch with your clients. So, here is what we have, who the pages are for and why we have four Facebook pages. 


First we should identify who we are. Alexandar School of Natural Therapeutics is a business, a school and we run a massage clinic. We have four pages, a group, a school page, a business page and a business page for our massage clinic. Soon, you will begin to notice a difference in the types of postings appearing on these pages.


Facebook Group - Our vision for our Facebook group is to have a place for Alexandar students, prospective students, staff, faculty and alumni to connect with each other and for all of us to have the ability to have discussion, ask questions and push items of interest out to the group. 


Business Page & School Page - Facebook automatically creates a page for every business listed and is searchable when checking in using the Facebook mobile applications. Additionally, schools may submit their information to Facebook to assist people in filling out the education section of the Facebook online profile. Unfortunately, since there is not a way of having one one page serve both purposes, we have one page for each section. We have gained control of both of these pages and are in the process of eliminating any duplication of these pages. We feel these pages are best used for representing us to the general public and will pretty much mirror each other. We would like to keep the traffic here focused on general information about the school, the massage therapy profession and our training program. If we happen to notice something that would be better off on another page we may repost it.


Massage Clinic Page - Most people think the school and our Massage clinic are the same business. They are actually two separate businesses. On this page we will begin to shift our focus toward the massage clients and away from the school. 


While there will be some overlap on our pages we hope to build strong community support for the pages by having a clear message on each page focusing on the people the pages are targeted to. You will also see the philosophy translate to our website(s) very soon.


For those of you running a smaller massage practice we encourage you to use these same tactics in your online business building campaign. Comment back and let us know how they are working for you...

Jessica's Job Shadow Experience

The past month we had a student from Lincoln High come to do a job shadow on Massage Therapy!  Jessica was here shadowing students, faculty and licensed massage practitioners, to scope out the massage therapy field and see what it takes to become a massage therapist.  As part of her school project she was required to write about her experience and give a presentation.  She did a wonderful job  giving a brief breakdown of the program.   See what she had to say....  View her presentation and paper:  

Job Shadow Presentation

"How can Massage Benefit You?" Paper

Summer 2012 Continuing Education

Our new Summer 2012 Continuing Education Calendar is now available. http://gmtiny.com/3hfXs via #Emailbrain

Gig Harbor Relay for Life

Great time at the Gig Harbor Relay for Life. They did pretty well for a small group, they raised $141,000 this year.






Check out our Facebook for more pics.

Relay for Life - Gig Harbor

Today we will be at the Gig Harbor Relay for Life. Our times are 5pm - 10pm tonight Friday June 15 and 8am - 12pm (or end of the relay) Saturday. Come out, support a worthy cause, say hi and have a free chair massage!


http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY12GW?pg=entry&fr_id=38160

Self-Hypnosis/Bodyspeak Class with Bill Thompson, LMP

June 19 & 26 July 10 & 17 2012 • 6:00PM – 9:00 PM 

Self - Hypnosis/Bodyspeak – 12 CE Hours with Bill Thompson, LMP $60.00

Learn how to tap in to your powerful subconscious mind using auto-relaxation techniques and scripts. Classes will be from 6pm - 9pm each evening for a total of 12 CEU Hours*.

*you must attend all 4 sessions to receive any CEU credit. Self Hypnosis Article. email alexandarmassage@me.com for more information or call 253.473.1142 to reserve your spot in this class.

Check out our Relay for Life Photos

We have created a new album of our Relay for Life photos from this last weekend. We had a great time seeing everyone out there.


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.424637600903551.100910.188905297810117&type=3

Tacoma Relay a Great Success

Thank you to all of the students who took time to support a truly worthy cause. Our students performed over 200 chair massages in support of the relay. They also gained valuable experience working on a wide variety of people.  The Mt Tahoma Relay took in over $575,000 in support of cancer research ( http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/06/09/2175130/relay-for-life-raises-575000-in.html ). What a great way to begin their clinic internships!


Check out our Facebook page for some great pictures of the event.


http://www.facebook.com/groups/136301515416/

New Banner/Relay for Life

Hi. Look for our new banner at the Relay for Life Mt Tahoma High School. We will be giving away free chair massage. See you there!

New Cards for the Clinic

Friday, is Really for Life at Mt. Tacoma High School. In preparation Aliesha and Rosi picked out new cards and a banner from Vistaprint. Check out the cards.

Changes...

Ethics

Today, we had ethics class for both, students and LMP's. This is one of the final classes before our students begin their internship program. During Internship our students begin to apply what they have learned in school by treating the public. In fact, they will debut next weekend at the Mt. Tahoma Relay for Life ( http://www.facebook.com/tacomarelay ). 


Come out and see us, have a free chair massage, look around at all the different activities and support a worthy cause. 


Aliesha and Sandra are there Friday afternoon & evening.


Kia and Aliesha will be there Saturday Morning to early afternoon.


We look forward to seeing you there. 

Hello...

Hello. We are here.


This next week we will have a proper welcome blog. Until then...


Today and tomorrow June 2 and 3 we have weekend classes, Clinic Orientation and Ethics. 


Next weekend June 8 & 9 we are at the Mt. Tahoma Relay for Life. Come out and see us. Get a free chair massage! We will post the hours in a couple days.


June 15 & 16 we will be at the Gig Harbor Relay for Life.


Have a great weekend!