Massage legislation? Really?

Yes, really. For those massage nerds out there, here’s some interesting info about our community.

The Virginia massage community has a bill, HB 562, in this year’s General Assembly seeking stronger licensing laws. The current law states that a person may not call themselves a Certified Massage Therapist if they have not taken the educational and practical steps to become certified in Virginia.

The proposed law would state that a person may not practice massage therapy if they have not successfully completed a licensing process.

If the bill passes, it would help protect clients of massage from untrained practitioners who may currently practice under the law. The hope is that it would also help protect victims of human trafficking, some of whom are forced into illicit work under the guise of massage therapy.

The bill has already passed the House and will cross over into the Senate this week. The next stop will be Senate committee and sub-committee hearings before a full Senate vote.

At Nimbus we support this bill because we believe it will help better protect both the public and legitimate massage practitioners. Furthermore, we would like to thank the bill’s patron, Del. Roxann Robinson, and her staff, for their work on helping us make this bill a law.