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California Certification (CMP)

I completed the 150 hr. massage technician course at IPSB in 1996. Since that time, I've done thousands of massages, but since it was not my primary job, I did not charge a fee but only worked for tips, basically, with my own practice. There were weeks I would do two or three massages, and other weeks I'd 6 or 8--all of this for fifteen years. I was always reluctant to get licensed and go full time with my own practice because of the inconsistency and uncertainty of "freelancing," so my primary job during that time was at a restaurant, so I lumped the tips from massage in with the tips from work when I filled out my taxes. Therefore, I cannot verify with tax forms the number of hours that I've been paid for massage work. I lost my job about a year ago, and I've been pursuing massage full time. I have a bachelor's degree with a general education, and I've consistently tried to educate myself further in regards to massage therapy for the past 15 years. I maintain a website about massage, with articles that I've researched and written myself. My regular clients include 2 physical therapists and a physician. My question is this: Is there any way that I can get the new state certification for massage practitioner being short of the actual 250 hours of study and without being able to verify 1750 hours as a paid masseur via tax forms? Any help or advice would be great appreciated. Thank you....Jeff

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on October 28, 2011 at 11:28am

Not very likely since the CMP level will disappear at the end of the year and the CCMP that you could have qualified under is already gone. They allowed temporary levels the first 2.5 years to get people in who had not continued education in massage.

Here is the chart of paths to certification. https://www.camtc.org/FormDownloads/PathwaysToCertification.pdf

Best to get started taking CEUs. I have a class coming up Dec 3rd & 10th, if you are interested in Lymphatic Massage, at Hands on Healing Institute. Hands on Healing Instituteoffers the largest number of CEUs in the area. Check into a 150 hour additional course to see if you can get into one that has been made to meet the additional hours. It will boost your CEUs cheaper than short classes. But these will be ending soon so time is of the essence.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Eric Grant on October 28, 2011 at 12:34pm

Actually, that info isn't quite correct. It is the CCMP that goes away at the end of 2011, the conditional certificate that requires continuing education. The change that was made earlier this year is that the 100 hours of education had to be taken at a school that had been formerly approved by the BPPVE for such certificate programs. This was to prevent "gaming" of the provision by schools that had never previously had a 100 hour program.

As to the CMP level, acceptance of new applications for that is set to expire at the end of 2015. However, the sunset time for the CAMTC authorizing law itself was moved forward one year to the end of 2014. One never knows what will come out of the legislative process, so it's basically hard to plan past the end of 2014. The CAMTC board did, however, explicitly decide not to move back the CMP expiration date, feeling that it would set a precedent for earlier expiration of the CMP certificate. Note, however, that CMP certificates, once granted, can be renewed indefinitely as long as they don't lapse.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on October 28, 2011 at 6:26pm

Thank you for the correction Keith. I hadn't heard that the CMP could be renewed and that is important information for many people. Of course the next time around we will have to see what comes out of the new legislation that replaces the current law.

Keith Eric Grant said:

Actually, that info isn't quite correct. It is the CCMP that goes away at the end of 2011, the conditional certificate that requires continuing education. The change that was made earlier this year is that the 100 hours of education had to be taken at a school that had been formerly approved by the BPPVE for such certificate programs. This was to prevent "gaming" of the provision by schools that had never previously had a 100 hour program.

As to the CMP level, acceptance of new applications for that is set to expire at the end of 2015. However, the sunset time for the CAMTC authorizing law itself was moved forward one year to the end of 2014. One never knows what will come out of the legislative process, so it's basically hard to plan past the end of 2014. The CAMTC board did, however, explicitly decide not to move back the CMP expiration date, feeling that it would set a precedent for earlier expiration of the CMP certificate. Note, however, that CMP certificates, once granted, can be renewed indefinitely as long as they don't lapse.

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Permalink Reply by Rajam K Roose on October 28, 2011 at 8:37pm

Jeff,

You should contact the CA state board and ask them your question. https://www.camtc.org/

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on October 29, 2011 at 1:37am

Get letters of recommendation from those Medical Doctors and Physical therapists you work on. Back yourself up as much as possible..You never know.. Document your experience as much as you can. That's about all you can do. I think?