In your experience, does healthcare/medicare/insurance pay for Personal Trainers?
I offer a 1 free session with people to broaden my possible scope of clients. At the end usually the only problem is the price. Do you know if some health insurance companies cover Personal Trainers? I’m fairly certain the demand for PT’s would go up as a whole if people had the option to pay with their medical insurance.
No, insurance companies do not cover personal training. There are some organizations that may give a one time payment towards personal training. Here in Raleigh, a chapter of the MS Society will pay some money after they have approved a provider.
I believe that you are correct that the demand for personal training would go up by a lot but I am equally sure that our paperwork would do as well. Physical therapists have to put all kinds of punishment for missed sessions in their contracts because it is a real issue for them.
Hi Bryant. One of the reasons given for the movement towards, and discussion about licensing for personal trainers, and for establishing some national guidelines for our practice and industry is exactly what you’re asking about. Not only would/could this open the door for direct health insurance reimbursement for personal training but also the closely related effect of then having more physicians write prescriptions for their patients, knowing that their patient’s will receive some insurance coverage and not have to pay totally out of pocket.
In related posts here on IDEA several people answered a question regarding licensing for personal trainers stating that it’s a bad idea and should be fought. While that “may” be true (and I’m not saying that I believe that that is true), some of those same folks clamor for health insurance coverage. This is a very sticky and controversial topic and definitely not one that I want to start a lot of back and forth on. But I will say that if we as certified personal trainers and other fitness professionals truly want to see the day that our clients are covered by health insurance to see us, we MAY need to yield a bit on our position that licensing and national standards are all bad.
All other healthcare providers that I know of who are reimbursed through health insurance ARE licensed (meaning regulated by their State of residence). We certified personal trainers need to understand that the chances that we’re going to EVER get one (health care reimbursement) without the other (State licensing etc) are probably slim and none. Pike your poison…
LaRue, CSCS
www.lecfitness.com
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