On behalf of the Board of Directors and members of the Virginia Chapter, American Massage Therapy Association, I am pleased to write these comments in response to your request as part of the required regulations governing the certification of massage therapists.
We offer suggestions for changes in three sections: 18VAC90-50-10, 18VAC90-50-40, and 18VAC 90-50-75 as follow.
“Category A” and “Category B” are no longer terms used by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (NCBTMB), the approver of continuing education for massage therapists and the agency charged with certification of massage therapists. Therefore, these two categories should be removed from this section. Alternative definitions to be considered include continuing education credits and learning activities, which are consistent with current re-certification NCBTMB criteria. NCBTMB offers options as alternatives for completing NCBTMB approved continuing education courses, which include academic course work, obtaining a college degree, state and national presentations, clinical training, serving in a state or national leadership position, and self-assessment/self study.
Programmatic approval is no longer being conducted by the
Department of Education. We know that the
State Council of Higher Education for
We recommend that the numbers of continuing education hours be changed from 25 hours of continuing education or learning activities and 1 hour of professional ethics in the biennium to 24 hours with 3 continuing education hours of ethics. This requirement is consistent with national certification guidelines, which are 48 CE with 6 CE of ethics in a 4-year period.