New exam doesn’t guarantee licensure

Massage therapists asked for, and received, a national competency examination to test their knowledge of just massage therapy. Now some are finding out that the exam doesn’t allow them to apply for a license to practice their trade.

In 2005 the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, which administers the only nationally recognized examination for massage therapists, released a new test, the National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage (NCETM). The test’s scope is focused strictly upon what a graduate of a 500-hour massage-education program should know. Unlike the organization’s other test, the National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCETMB), this new exam doesn’t require any knowledge of Eastern bodywork traditions.

But at least four states do not recognize the exam, which has already been taken by more than 6,000 therapists. Connecticut, New Hampshire, Florida and Rhode Island mandate passage of the NCETMB in order to qualify for a license to practice massage therapy.

Greg Hurd, director of Career Development and Outreach at Bancroft School of Massage Therapy in Massachusetts, discovered the problem when a former student notified him that the Rhode Island massage board would not accept the new test because the NCETMB is specified as the qualifying test in the state’s massage statute.

“We caught most of the students and grads in time so that they didn’t have a problem with the exam,” Hurd said. However, one student had to pay $100 to the national certification board in order to switch from taking the NCETM to take the NCETMB when she learned her state’s massage board would not accept the new exam.

It’s unlikely that the states that don’t accept the NCETM will change their exam criteria anytime soon: Changing a state statute is a major process, one that requires an amendment to the law.

Other states have more leeway with their exam processes, either by naming more than one exam option in their statutes, or by leaving the decision of which exams to accept up to the overseeing regulatory board. According to Sally Hacking, a legislative consultant to the national certification board, some of these states’ massage boards have already changed their rules to accept the NCETM.

Hacking said that the national certification board is aware that some states don’t accept the new exam, but can’t do anything about it. “It is not the purview of the NCBTMB to be involved in suggesting legal language of state (or local) governance of the profession,” she says.

Rhode Island Massage Therapy Board Administrator Gayle Giuliano says that it’s up to the prospective licensee to make sure she meets the criteria required by her state. “It’s clearly stated in our law and in our application packet that [NCETMB] is the exam to take,” she said.

The national certification board posted a statement on its Web site to inform exam applicants to check with their state boards to determine which exam is accepted.

— Kelle Walsh