Laura Allen’s Blog

Over the next few blogs, I will be posting about the financial health of massage therapy organizations that are non-profit. First up is AMTA. As non-profits are on a different schedule than taxpayers, 2023 is the last year that is currently available. Their Form 990 is labeled as such, although technically their tax year for this filing is for the time period beginning 03/01/2023 and ending 02/29/2024.  Information comes from www.guidestar.org.

AMTA is in sound financial health. Their total revenue for this filing is $22,691,933, a gain of over $1.7M from the previous year. Over $18,000,000 of that came from member dues. Their total expenses for the year were 22,523,607.

They awarded $598,997 in grants (AMTA supports the Massage Therapy Foundation as well as the Commission on Massage Therapy Accreditation and also gives scholarships).

At the time of this filing, Bill Brown was still the executive director. He received just under $450,000 in salary and other compensation. Lisa Stegink, CEO and general counsel received over $363,000 in salary and other compensation, and Jeffrey Flom, CEO, received over $325,000 in salary and other compensation. Six other department directors received a minimum of $150,000 up to $191,000 in salary and other compensation.

AMTA spent over $969,000 on lobbying for the good of the massage therapy profession.

AMTA has $46,741,102 in assets, minus $17,004,290 in liabilities, leaving them with $29,736,812 in net assets and fund balances.

Although the exact number is not given, AMTA’s website says they have over 100,000 members. AMTA was founded in 1943. In other words, they have managed their finances well, and they’re not going out of business.

The pathetic saga of CAMTC continues. The Sunset hearing is scheduled for April 29. ABMP and AMTA are both in favor of sunsetting this organization and are working towards that end through their government relations people. What you can do, as a massage therapist, is send a letter to your representative ahead of the April 29 deadline. If you don’t know who your legislators are, you can find that out here. A letter template can be accessed here. You can also ask your clients to support this and encourage them to contact legislators as well.

California massage therapists deserve true licensing instead of this voluntary certification, which was never meant to be the final outcome from the beginning. It was seen as a stopgap measure until true licensing could be achieved. One wonders why the CAMTC is so against licensing. It may be they are happy with the money their executives are hauling in. You can see their 990 filing from 2023 here. 

Regardless of the outcome of that, one can only hope that on June 2, justice will be served when the contempt of court hearing against CAMTC happens.  It is unfortunate that the contempt of court hearing is not taking place before the sunset hearing.

There are now approximately 300 graduates from A2Z Health Massage School who have their certifications in limbo. They’ve completed school, paid their money to CAMTC, and are being denied certification by CAMTC. There are two court orders telling them to certify the graduates, the last one issued by the Superior Court, but they have not been complied with. The hearing on June 2 requires that the CAMTC explain why they are violating the court orders. It will be especially interesting since during the discovery process, the owners of A2Z found that a CAMTC employee who visited the school multiple times during surprise visits gave them good reviews.

Licensing boards exist for public protection. They exist to license those who meet the qualifications, to approve education, to investigate complaints, to work against human trafficking and the association of sex in the massage profession, and to give due process to consumers and to licensees. CAMTC has failed the due process part miserably. As I quoted in my last post, the order issued by the Superior Court states:

(1) By no later than April 4, 2025, the Council shall issue provisional certifications to each Petitioner. The provisional certifications shall remain effective until the final disposition of this action, subject to the Massage Therapy Act’s provisions for renewal (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4605) and discipline (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4609-4611).
(2) The Council is enjoined from withholding certification from any applicant based upon the Council’s investigation of and/or approval revocation proceedings against A2Z.
(3) The Council is enjoined from requiring any applicant to submit to any
investigatory process as a condition of certification, including interviews,
hearings, or submission of additional information, except for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant has received the required education set forth in Business & Professions Code, § 4604, subd. (a)(2).)
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Graduates of this school who were called in for interviews stated that they were asked such questions as “Where is the school’s bathroom located?” and “What is beriberi?” Beriberi is a rather obscure disease caused by a deficiency in thiamine, that is most prevalent in indigenous populations in the Amazon, in infants in refugee camps, for example, and other places lacking adequate nutrition.¹ It is a rare occurrence in the US. As the author of a textbook on passing licensing exams that is in its 5th edition, I have never mentioned it in the pathology section.  I’d be surprised if it’s a question on the MBLEx, other state exams, or the Board Certification Exam. If knowledge of beriberi is the benchmark for the safe and effective practice of massage therapy, a lot of us are probably in trouble. 

Please act on this immediately by writing your legislators. April 29 is looming, and if this doesn’t happen now, there will not be another opportunity for four more years. It’s time to support real licensing in California.

1. Geoffrey A. Preidis, 81 – Nutrition-Associated Disease, Editor(s): Jeremy Farrar, Patricia Garcia, Peter Hotez, Thomas Junghanss, Gagandeep Kang, David Lalloo, Nicholas White. Manson’s Tropical Diseases (Twenty-Fourth Edition),Elsevier, 2024, Pages 1161-1177. ISBN 9780702079597,Geoffrey A. Preidis,
   81 – Nutrition-Associated Disease,
   Editor(s): Jeremy Farrar, Patricia Garcia, Peter Hotez, Thomas Junghanss, Gagandeep Kang, David Lalloo, Nicholas White,
   Manson’s Tropical Diseases (Twenty-Fourth Edition),
   Elsevier, 2024, Pages 1161-1177,
   ISBN 9780702079597,
   https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-7020-7959-7.00081-6.

My recent blog about CAMTC caused quite a stir. I got dozens of emails from people who have been affected by their actions and  letters of thanks from two former national presidents of AMTA. I also received an email from Joe Bob Smith, CAMTC Director of Educational Standards Division, telling me my BS meter looks like it’s a little rusty. I had given him a heads up on the forthcoming blog and CAMTC could have given their side, but chose not do so.

Today is April 4, the deadline imposed by the California Superior Court to grant petitioners who graduated from A2Z Health Massage School a provisional certification. Although the case was filed by 6 specific petitioners, the ruling from the Superior Court, dated 03/13/2025, states the following:

Petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction is granted as follows:
(1) By no later than April 4, 2025, the Council shall issue provisional certifications to each Petitioner. The provisional certifications shall remain effective until the final disposition of this action, subject to the Massage Therapy Act’s provisions for renewal (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4605) and discipline (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4609-4611).
(2) The Council is enjoined from withholding certification from any applicant based upon the Council’s investigation of and/or approval revocation proceedings against A2Z.
(3) The Council is enjoined from requiring any applicant to submit to any
investigatory process as a condition of certification, including interviews,
hearings, or submission of additional information, except for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant has received the required education set forth in Business & Professions Code, § 4604, subd. (a)(2).)
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Today, I was contacted by one of the graduates who has been waiting more than a year to receive the certification for which they meet all the qualifications, whose initial contact with me was the reason I wrote the first blog. They are one of 250 graduates of A2Z whose certifications have unlawfully and unethically been held up by CAMTC. The graduate emailed CAMTC today inquiring about the certificate and including the court order, and CAMTC’s response was “Due to ongoing litigation your application has not been processed.” Bear in mind, these 250 people have all paid the required $300 fee to apply for certification, as well as paid for fingerprints/background check, and a passport photo, as well as submitting all the required paperwork.

$300 may not seem like a lot of money, but when it’s been held up for over a year and you haven’t received anything in return for it except excuses, most people would be upset over it. These graduates are particularly upset over it, because even though certification in California is completely voluntary–in theory–there are many places that will not hire a therapist without the certification, regardless of how much education they have.

CAMTC has made it a point to state how financially solvent they are. Since non-profits are on a different filing schedule than the rest of us, the latest 990 filing that is available from them on Guidestar is for 2022. Edit: it was brought to my attention that another website, ProPublica, has the CAMTC 2023 filing available. You will have to create a free account to access it. It’s quite enlightening. Since this quasi-board is not like other state regulatory agencies, they operate quite a bit differently. You will not find another massage board anywhere in the United States where there is a CEO making over half a million dollars a year. And yet, one of the arguments they use to maintain their status quo is that actual licensing will cost massage therapists a whole lot more than $300. I call BS, regardless of what anyone thinks of my BS meter.

Other professions in California have real licensing boards. Massage therapists deserve the same. 46 states, Washington DC, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico have real licensing boards. They are not out there in left field with a “certification.”

I was on a call last night with the California Massage Schools Association with about 60 others, who are overwhelmingly supporting licensing. The keynote speaker was Laura Puryear, Government Relations representative from ABMP. She stated that ABMP and AMTA are both working towards real licensing for California. It is past time for that to happen. Puryear provided a letter template that interested parties may use to contact their legislators in California. You can download it here. 

I encourage all massage therapists, those who are currently in school seeking a career in massage therapy, and school owners to send this letter. If you don’t know who your representative is, you can find that out here. 

Furthermore, ask your massage clients to write in, too, supporting licensure for massage therapists. Time is of the essence as the next hearing on this issue happens April 29.

Those who formerly followed my blog focusing on the politics of massage know that I gave it up a long time ago. But in this case, I feel compelled to come out of blogging retirement. Hang on; this will be lengthy.

For the uninformed, up until 2008, massage in California was subject to neither licensing or certification. It was regulated by individual towns and cities, and was most often categorized as adult entertainment. A legitimate therapist who was practicing years ago told me she was required to take a test for STDs before getting a city license.

In 2008, a bill creating the CAMTC (California Massage Therapy Council) as a non-governmental, non-profit agency to offer voluntary certification for massage therapists was passed, and in 2009, they began issuing certifications. Just a few years later, city officials managed to get a change made, stating that brothels masquerading as massage businesses had proliferated since the initial bill passed. The CA Chapter of AMTA has a history of the process available for public view.

Newer legislation clarifies what cities and towns can and cannot do to interfere with health professionals, such as massage therapists, doing their job. And yet, that is exactly what CAMTC is currently doing.

On January 14, 2025, I was contacted by a graduate of A2Z Health Massage School, located in Reseda, California.  The graduate who contacted me had graduated from a 250-hour program at A2Z in Thousand Oaks in 2015, followed by obtaining another 50 hours of additional education in Deep Tissue Massage in 2016, and returned to the Reseda location for a 528-hour diploma in 2024. They tracked me down through my old blog and we had a phone call. In the meantime, they emailed me their transcripts and communications with CAMTC. The crux of the communications was that their application was denied; not because of lack of education, but because A2Z was under investigation. When I looked up the school on the CAMTC website before my call with the graduate, they were listed as an approved school. They are still listed as an approved school, but there is now a statement there that says, “As of 1/23/2025, CAMTC has placed A2Z Health.net, Inc., under investigation.” That may be so, but this graduate applied for their license over a year ago.

According to the owners of A2Z, there are approximately 250 graduates of their school who have applied to CAMTC for certification who have not received it. They are being held in limbo.

CAMTC has, in my opinion, come to the end of their usefulness. Judging by the 60+ school owners, educators, and therapists in attendance at a ZOOM meeting of CAMSA (California Massage Schools Association) that I also attended this past Wednesday, as well as last month’s meeting, the majority of are in agreement that California needs full-on licensing the same as the other regulated states.

Besides California, there are now only a few states without regulation: Minnesota, Kansas, and Wyoming; Vermont does not require a license, but requires registration. What that means is that people practicing massage in unregulated states do not have to have any training in massage therapy, nor pass any sort of exam to prove competency. California’s certification is voluntary, and while they have the requirement of 500 hours of education to be certified, they do not require anyone to pass an exam. And it is still perfectly fine to hold yourself out as a massage therapist in CA without any training or knowledge at all; you just can’t claim to be certified by CAMTC.

I ended up contacting the school owners, Dr. Ben Drillings and Lilah Drillings for some clarification. Dr. Ben has been a chiropractor since 1991 ; he and Lilah founded A2Z school in 1997. Dr. Drillings is a former Board member of CAMTC, and is the President of the California Massage Schools Association. A2Z was approved by the CAMTC in 2015, when they initially started approving schools. CAMTC’s website states: Pursuant to CAMTC’s Policies and Procedures for Approval of Schools, as of July 1, 2016, CAMTC generally only accepts education from California schools specifically approved by CAMTC. Previously, CAMTC did not approve schools. Rather, it accepted education from California schools approved by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) or other entities listed in California Business and Professions Code section 4601(a), unless the school was otherwise un-approved by CAMTC.

A2Z has been approved by the BPPE since their inception in 1998. BPPE is a division of California Department of Consumer Affairs to provide oversight of private postsecondary educational institutions operating in California. The Drillings stated to me that their school (and all others that are approved by the Bureau) gets inspected annually by the Bureau, and that if any deficiencies are found, the school is notified in writing and is given 30 days to correct any deficiencies. And herein starts the problem.

On January 4, 2023, A2Z received a corrective letter from Joe Bob Smith, the Director of Educational Standards Division at California Massage Therapy Council, who had visited the school 7 months prior. He stated that the ESL students did not understand the material.  Another employee in the Education Standards Division, Jeff Simancek, also visited; during 2022, A2Z received a total of 7 unannounced visits from CAMTC, including two in one day. From May 20, 2022 to December 8, 2022, there was an unprecedented number of unannounced visits to A2Z’s Reseda and Santa Monica locations. What Mr. Simancek observed and reported was that A2Z students appeared to understand the material that was being taught in English and participated in English.

Following the May 20, 2022 visit, Mr. Simancek wrote “Students were asking questions and participating in the lecture.” Following the June 9, 2022 visit, Mr. Simancek wrote that “class was in English.” “Students were asking questions.” “Teacher was knowledgeable”. Following the August 3, 2022 visit, Jeff Simancek wrote that the students were very interactive with students commenting and answering questions, and that the class was student driven. In the December 8, 2022 visit, Simancek stated that many students speak English very well and that the lectures are in English. In an email written by  Simancek to Joe Bob Smith dated December 9, 2022, Simancek reported that there were “no red flags. Most students spoke and responded to in English.” It should be noted that the Drillings, owners of the school, did not receive these good reports until they were provided during the discovery process of the lawsuit.

Neither students nor teachers were interviewed at the school. They were “observed.” Joe Bob Smith informed the school that CAMTC wanted a list of every ESL student who had graduated from 2020 forward. When the school responded they did not keep a separate list of ESL students because that would be discriminatory, CAMTC said they intended to interview every student. Once the interviews, which were conducted by Shanna Price, Hearing Officer of CAMTC, started, according to the Drillings, every student who was ESL (most were Asian) failed the interview. However, when students asked why they failed, they were not given a response.  When the school questioned the interview, asking about a rubric, how many questions a student needed to answer correctly to pass, etc., the response from Price was “It is based on my experience.” American students who were interviewed were asked “how they felt” about ESL students. 18% of  California’s population is Asian. 71% of Asians in California are proficient in English.

It should be noted that once the student failed the interview, they were notified they could have a hearing to appeal, 5-6 months in the future, and that there would be a fee of $180 for a written hearing, or $270 for a verbal hearing. In July 2024, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court against the California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC) for discriminating against students of Asian descent, on behalf of 6 Chinese and Thai massage therapy students. A2Z secured a court ruling  on October 10, 2024, where CAMTC was ordered to stop its investigation and issue certifications to A2Z grads…but they did not do so, apparently working on the assumption that they are above the law.

The graduate who contacted me, who is incidentally non-Asian, born in America, and English-speaking, along with the other graduates who have been waiting, received an email from A2Z last week that included a Superior Court ruling that was issued on March 13 ordering the CAMTC to issue provisional certificates no later than April 4. The pertinent part of the order is:

Petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction is granted as follows:

(1) By no later than April 4, 2025, the Council shall issue provisional certifications to each Petitioner. The provisional certifications shall remain effective until the final disposition of this action, subject to the Massage Therapy Act’s provisions for renewal (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4605) and discipline (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4609-
4611).
(2) The Council is enjoined from withholding certification from any applicant based upon the Council’s investigation of and/or approval revocation proceedings against A2Z.
(3) The Council is enjoined from requiring any applicant to submit to any
investigatory process as a condition of certification, including interviews,
hearings, or submission of additional information, except for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant has received the required education set forth in Business & Professions Code, § 4604, subd. (a)(2).)
IT IS SO ORDERED.

I had first approached Joe Bob Smith, Director of Educational Standards Division at California Massage Therapy Council, a few weeks ago to tell him I was coming out of retirement to blog about this issue, and that I would give CAMTC a chance to comment. He said they could not comment because it was currently in litigation. I contacted him again last week to let him know I had a copy of the Superior Court order telling them to issue the certifications, and asked him if they were going to comply with it. He stated he was away from the office but that he would pass it on. I have not heard anything from them. The graduate who initially contacted me emailed CAMTC on March 17, asking to have their certification in accordance with the court order, and received the following reply:

A couple of months ago, any one of us could have started a sentence with “When this is over,” and chances are, no one except your family or close friends might have known what personal problem you were referring to. Now, everyone knows what it refers to: COVID-19. For many of us, it’s personal on some level. We’ve had a friend or family member or acquaintance who was sick with it, or died from it, or maybe you’ve personally been sick with it.

At this point, no one knows when “it” will be over…”it” meaning the effects on society. There are millions of Americans out of work due to shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses. There are shortages in grocery stores…every day on my social media, I am still seeing people who can’t find a roll of toilet paper. This is Easter Sunday, and millions of Americans who would otherwise be at church are at home watching a service on television or a streaming service on the Internet.  Some churches are holding parking lot services where the congregants remain in their cars.

I’ve had a lot of private messages from massage therapists asking my opinion on when we’ll be back to work. The short answer is, I don’t know. Nobody knows. I live in NC, and the governor ordered things shut down until April 30. I personally believe it will be extended beyond that, and even if it isn’t, I will probably wait several weeks beyond the date that it is lifted to go back to work. I’m the suspicious type, as well as one who errs on the side of caution, and I fear a “back to work” decision from the government that is based on economics instead of actual safety.

We tend to think in terms of ourselves and our own occupation and our own lives. There may be no intention of being selfish or self-centered, but that’s the way things are. In reality, there are going to be a lot of businesses, of every type, that do not survive this shutdown. Your favorite restaurant, coffeehouse, or bar may be forced out of business. Your neighborhood florist, art gallery, or gym that is privately owned and not part of a big chain may be gone. While some landlords are giving rent relief, others are not. Some business owners simply cannot pay rent for several months when they don’t have money flowing into the business to cover that cost. In fairness, some landlords count on their rent money to make ends meet themselves.

For many massage therapists (and others), once the shutdown is over, this will be like starting all over at square one. While many may have faithful clients that can’t wait to come back, we have to consider that many of our self-employed clients, or those who work in businesses deemed non-essential, may be in the same boat we’re in: unemployment checks are not coming in yet, but the bills keep piling up.  A lot of people may have to choose between getting a massage or trying to catch up on their bills.

For those who are self-employed, and ICs (many of whom are misclassified, but that’s another story altogether), this situation may cause you to rethink your employment circumstances. Those who are employees have had a much easier time signing up for unemployment. While the federal government has announced the intention to extend unemployment payments to self-employed and ICs, most state unemployment websites have been waiting on instructions from the feds to get that started. NC’s website states that it is expected to be in place by April 25 for self-employed and ICs to file. If you don’t have a cash cushion, that’s a big financial strain for those who are waiting.

Anytime you choose to be self-employed, you’re taking personal risks. If you’re using independent contractors in your business, they (and you, if you have them misclassified) are also taking a personal risk. Ask yourself if you could live for 6 months without money coming in. If the answer is no, rethink your decision about your work circumstances. Go over your budget and see where you can cut expenses in order to save money. Maybe that means doing without stopping for coffee on the way to work every morning or doing without eating out. Or giving up your addiction to new shoes, or carefully tracking the mindless spending most of us do. I recently saw a meme pointing out that spending 27.35 per day adds up to $10,000 in one year. Using an app like EveryDollar can help you see where your money is actually going.

Many people are just one paycheck away from total disaster. I’ve been there myself in years gone by. This isn’t meant to be negative; it’s meant to be a reality check. We don’t know how long this is going to last, but it’s already evident that many people are in big trouble.  It’s a good idea, when the world returns to some semblance of normalcy, to treat this as an opportunity to start over with a plan to be better prepared, so the next emergency doesn’t knock you flat.

It’s also a fact that at the end of our lives, none of us are going to say “I wish I had worked more.” We’ll be wishing we had taken more time to stop and smell the roses, spent more time appreciating our families, had more quality time with our spouse, or learned to play the flute or paint or whatever you think you never have time for. If you have that time now, just do it. While you’re adding up your problems, don’t forget to add up your blessings.

In closing, I express my gratitude to all the medical personnel who are on the front lines, and the essential workers who are enabling us to still go to the grocery store, the gas station, and wherever else we NEED to go. I’ve found out in the past couple of months that I don’t need to go near as many places as I thought I did. Bless all who are sick and suffering and all those who have lost loved ones.  Bless you all and may you remain safe and well.