​Price Change
Our prices increased on January 1st. Pallas worked with mentors at SCORE and WeCan to finalize the pricing changes needed to get the business back on track after the pandemic. The new rates are:

• 30 min $60
• 60 min $115
• 90 min $155

A second price change will happen July 1st. We will share more details about that later on.

Business Mentoring
Oasis Massage got chosen to participate in WeCan’s GROW Program and will be implementing their recommendations over the next few months. The goal is to clearly define processes and more effectively delegate responsibilities to the admin team, which will help the business to grow smoothly while allowing Pallas more time in the treatment room working with clients.

Going Digital
Our software now allows us to create online forms. Many of our intake forms are now available by email, including the annual health history form, and can be completed entirely online. Instead of showing up early to appointments for paperwork, we can email any required forms ahead of time. 

We also upgraded our office computer to store client data on a separate, encrypted, and password-protected hard drive. Our admin team began scanning client files to this drive; paper copies get shredded once scanned. We hope to complete this process for all client files by the end of 2023.

Not Only Covid
We'd like to reset expectations for staff and clients about illnesses in general. It seems like we have collectively focused on Covid to the point of dismissing other illnesses like RSV, the flu, a common cold, or even poison ivy... "I'm on the tail end of a cold but don't worry, it's not Covid!" If you are sick or symptomatic, please reschedule. If you can spread it, stay home. This applies to clients and staff. 

If a client shows up with symptoms, they will get sent home and charged 100% of their scheduled appointment per our cancellation policy. We will enforce this policy because we don't want to get sick and we definitely don't want to pass anything on to our other clients. If staff show up with symptoms, they will get sent home and their appointments rescheduled. Clients will not get charged if their appointment gets rescheduled due to a staff member's illness.

Last year, 9-11% of the clients we saw got referred to us by the Cape Wellness Collaborative. That means they are either a cancer patient, a cancer survivor, or a caregiver for someone with cancer. The last thing they need to worry about is catching something from their massage therapist!

We Are Hiring!
We are looking for a part-time massage therapist to round out our team! Check our website for information about employment opportunities at Oasis Massage. 

​West Dennis Holiday Stroll: Saturday, Dec 10th 11am-4pm
Due to busy schedules and changes in our local businesses, we planned this event a little differently this year. We are doing a Holiday Market located within Holly's Deli. Participating businesses will have tables set up with products and promotions. Ashley will be there representing Oasis Massage and providing free chair massage from 11am-4pm!

Gift Certificate Raffle
This year, we have the following prizes to give away in our gift certificate raffle:

• Three gift certificates for $50
• Five gift bags valued at $25 each! 

How do you win one of these? Earn one raffle ticket for every $50 spent at Oasis Massage between Dec 1st and Dec 23rd. This includes services for yourself, gift certificates, and retail items. (Raffle tickets are awarded per transaction; not cumulative across multiple transactions.) Winners will be drawn and announced on Tuesday (12/27), so we don't spoil any surprise gifts.

Closed for the Holidays
We will be closed on Christmas Eve & Day (Dec 24 & 25), and New Year's Eve & Day (Dec 31 & Jan 1). Thank you for understanding that our staff need time to enjoy the holidays with their own families!

Price Changes
It took us several months of research and analysis to decide the actual amount of the planned price increases. The determining factors include the cost to provide each service and a thorough market analysis. Not only did we find that our rates are substantially below those of comparable businesses within a 25-mile radius, but our base costs are not being met at the current rate. 

As of January, our rates for a 60-min will increase from $100 to $115. This increase will affect the cost of a series and some monthly memberships but not the discount percentages. A second price increase will happen in July.

What does this mean for existing members? The language in the contract explains whether they are locked into their rate for the duration of the membership (on contracts prior to 2018), if they are locked in for 3 years (2018-2022), or if their rate changes with 60-days notice (Oct 2022-present). For questions on your specific membership, please call and we will review it with you. 

Weather Closures
Winter is coming and with it comes storms! We try very hard not to let the weather impact our business; we are hardy New Englanders after all! However, sometimes it is outside of our control. Closing due to weather is a two part decision. First, the office must have power. Second, staff and clients must be able to get there safely. Our general rule of thumb is following the DY school district closures. 

In the event of a weather closure, we notify scheduled clients as soon as we can via telephone or email. If we need to reschedule your appointment, you will not be charged a late cancellation fee or a missed appointment fee. 

Sara
Our meeting with Sara in November did not end with her returning just yet but she is optimistic that she will rejoin our team. We have a meeting with her scheduled for February to reassess the situation.

We Are Hiring!
We are looking for a part-time massage therapist to round out our team! Check our website for information about employment opportunities at Oasis Massage.

by Pallas Hutchison

We have had several incarnations of our intake form over the years. Each revision has something that surprises clients. You don't have to provide us with any information you aren't comfortable sharing. However, you won't get a massage from us without a completed intake form. 

Our current intake form has three parts: Contact & General Information, Massage Information, and Health History. I'd like to break down why we ask some of this seemingly unnecessary information.

Contact & General Information:
Name: We keep records of our clients. Records include dates/times of past visits, which massage therapist (LMT) they saw, what that LMT did, as well as billing information. We need your name to be able to find your file.

We need your phone number and/or email address to communicate with you about appointments & billing. We also use this information for marketing, which you can opt out of any time.  

Filling in your birthday allows us to send you a little something as a gift. This is usually a discount or upgrade for your next service. If we have multiple clients with the same name, the birthday allows us to select the correct client profile. (Surprisingly more common than I expected.)

Your occupation tells your LMT how you use your body. Different professions have different physical demands, all of which impact your body. If we know what you do for a living, it helps us determine what areas you might need focused work on. Consider it a hint or cheat code for us. We appreciate it. 

Odds are against us having to use your emergency contact information but we would rather have it up front that not know who you need us to call if something goes sideways. In 17+ years of business, I have had to call one emergency contact. A pregnant client went into labor & I had to call her husband. 

Telling us who Referred you allows us to thank our loyal clients for helping us to grow our business. If you were referred by a physician, we can follow up (with your written permission) to get information on your diagnosis and other documents that allow us to bill services under your insurance plan. Tracking referrals also helps us with our marketing campaigns. If we know how clients find us, we know what is working and what is a waste of our resources.

Massage Information
This section is all about making sure we provide a high-quality service tailored to you. We don't want you to be disappointed or underwhelmed with your experience. The less information you give us to go on, the harder it is for us to meet your expectations. If this is your first massage, you may not know the answers to these questions and that is 100% fine. New clients tend to have more questions or be hesitant to ask questions. Knowing this up front, the LMT can take extra time to go over the basic massage etiquette, ensure you are getting a service that meets your goals, and stays within your comfort level. 

Letting us know your preferences for types of massage, pressure, and goals/expected outcomes helps us to place you with the LMT that best suits your needs. Listing any symptoms you currently have gives us a way to screen for more serious conditions that you need to be referred out for. For example, a massage may help arm pain but if you're having other heart attack symptoms, you need to go the ER first. 

Telling us what the symptoms interfere with gives us another glimpse into your lifestyle. Your lifestyle gives the LMT more clues on what questions to ask to determine how you use your body and what areas you will need us to focus on. If you aren't sleeping well, your body isn't getting a chance to repair itself. The best massage for you at might focus on allowing you relax and catch up on sleep. Different sports use different muscle groups. Training for a marathon has a different impact than going to yoga occasionally. Having a baby is more physically demanding (picking up, carrying, etc) while having a teenager is more mentally stressful. (These statements are based on my own experiences as a parent. Feel free to disagree with me.) 

Health History
Different medical conditions affect the body differently. Some can cause mild discomfort; we would adjust timing, pressure used or positioning to reduce discomfort. Others can be dangerous. Add medications and their side effects, that's more variables for us to consider. There are a handful of specific conditions that would require us to get medical clearance prior to providing a service, no exceptions.

Here are some examples of conditions and how they impact massage:

• Clients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy may have ports that determine the optimal position for A massage. Their doctor may recommend specific timing during the treatment cycle to receive massage.
• Clients on blood thinners should not receive hot stone massage, massage with firm pressure, or cupping because it increases the chances of bruising.
• Clients with osteoporosis should not receive massage with firm pressure to avoid accidental fractures.
  
• Clients with a prosthetic may need help getting on or off the massage table. They also don't need the prosthetic worked on, which changes how the massage therapist allocates the time. 
  
• Clients with a history of blood clots need medical clearance before receiving any services. If massage increases circulation and moves a clot, the client could have a stroke.

​
There are many more conditions and I won't take the time to list all of them here. If you have a condition that you want specific information about, please give us a call. We'll give you an honest answer about if/how we modify massage to suit that specific condition.

​An Overflowing Schedule
With Sara out on leave, her clients have moved onto Pallas and Ashley's schedules. This means all clients that prefer a female massage therapist need to book at least 3-4 weeks in advance or hope for a cancellation. To get in sooner, we encourage clients to try Will, if they haven't already. He has gotten many 5-star reviews since joining us in July. 

We track which days clients request and will be making adjustments to the schedule to create availability where it is needed. Some of these schedule changes are temporary, until Sara either returns or another massage therapist gets hired.

We have a meeting scheduled with Sara to determine when she will begin accepting clients again. We also have an interview with a potential new massage therapist, in the event that Sara needs to extend her leave. 

CPT & New Services Paused
Due to the hectic pace of the schedule, we have not had time to finalize forms needed for the new services. Pallas needs to set aside time to work on these items, but that takes away available appointment times. Adding these services will wait temporarily, until the schedule can support the addition of services without displacing regular clients.

Clarification for Gift Certificates
Many people have brought in older gift certificates, purchased when our services were priced differently. There has been some negative feedback regarding price differences. To prevent any future confusion or upset moving forward, we want to clarify how we process gift certificates. This is determined entirely by how it is written. 

If the gift certificate says a specific service, we comp the price difference. Most of the time, the difference is $1-$5. An older gift certificate, sold when our rates were lower, we end up comping up to $30. This is not ideal because we actually lose money by providing the service at the lower rate; but it is the cost of doing business.

If a gift certificate says a specific amount, the client is responsible for paying the price difference. This method will be the only option for gift certificates moving forward. All gift certificates will be assigned to the recipient, meaning the funds will automatically be put on their client account. This shouldn't ruin surprises since the recipient won't receive a notification unless you choose to email the gift certificate directly to them. Gift certificates can be used towards both services and retail items. (Because we can no longer process gratuity through our software, gift certificates cannot be used for this purpose.) 

Retail Sale!
Over the years, we have experimented with various retail items. Some make sense, others don't. In an effort to overhaul our retail offerings, we will be discontinuing (and discounting!) some items. We look forward to offering new items in 2023. Discounts are only specific items only and cannot be combined with other offers.

• Mermaid Dolls: 10% off while supplies last
• Candles: 10% off while supplies last
• Essential Oils: 10% off until Dec 23rd. (Excludes accessories.)

​​Cancelling Appointments Online 
We have tweaked settings in the backend of our software to allow clients to cancel their own appointments online. The window for online cancellations is 48 hours. Our cancellation policy requires 24 hours notice to cancel. Please call to cancel with less than 48 hours notice.

Service Changes
We know that some services aren't available to book online anymore. This is temporary. We want clients to book confidently and our staff to provide quality services every time. To do that, we need to be very specific on what each service entails. The biggest confusion we are seeing is between Swedish and Deep Tissue massage. 

Swedish massage is a full body general relaxation massage. Think of this like ordering a bunch of apps at a restaurant; you get to try a little of everything. Asking your massage therapist for a full body massage but with extra time on xyz, is setting them up for failure and yourself up for disappointment. We simply do not have time to do both quality focused work AND a full body massage in only 60-minutes. The time has to come from somewhere so something will get skipped or rushed. 

Deep Tissue massage is that focused area or targeted work. Think of this like ordering an entrée at a restaurant; you get more of one thing. Targeted work means the massage therapist spends 15-30 minutes on one area. (For example, the left shoulder is one target area; the left and right shoulders are two target areas.)

A full body massage cannot be accomplished in 30-minutes therefore, we will be discontinuing 30-minute Swedish massages. However, because we recognize what clients are asking for, we will be adding a 90-min Swedish/Deep Tissue combination; this will be a full body massage with focused work on one target area.

Discount Changes 
Effective today, the discount percentages for our client loyalty programs has changed. This change is the first step of phasing out gratuities. There will be price increases in January and July 2023; after which we will no longer accept gratuities. 

• Series of 3: 5% off
• Series of 5: 10% off
• Monthly Program: 15% off (Current memberships will not change; applies to new memberships only.)

Streamlined Paperwork
Many people have expressed displeasure at all of the paperwork we require. We have streamlined all of our required paperwork into three primary forms: General Information, Massage Intake, and Health History. 

The first two forms only need to be completed once; existing clients won't need to complete them at all. The health history needs to be updated annually. To make this easier, we have added additional lines for clients to sign, indicating that they have reviewed their previous form and made any changes. 

There are two other forms that apply only to specific types of clients: Pregnancy Intake, and Minor Release. In the future, we will add a Lifestyle questionnaire that includes questions about sleep, stress, exercise, and eating habits. 
Download forms online!