Registered Massage Therapy

Massage therapy across MedRehab Group

Registered massage therapy is available at every one of our twelve clinics, from Hamilton in the west to Pickering in the east and Newmarket in the north. Thirty-one Registered Massage Therapists work across the group. Whichever clinic is closest to you, the standard is the same: assessment before treatment, a therapist regulated by the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario, and a receipt your insurer will accept.

People book massage with us for three broad reasons. The largest group has pain or tightness that has crept in over months, usually neck, shoulders or low back, and usually tied to how they sit, drive or work. The second is recovering from something specific: a sports injury, a car accident, surgery, or a flare-up of a long-standing problem. The third is maintenance, whether that is training load, pregnancy, or simply a body that stops complaining when it is looked after regularly. All three are good reasons.

Is massage the right treatment, or should you see someone else?

Honest answer: it depends on what is driving the problem, and the best person to tell you is a clinician who has assessed you. Massage is excellent at releasing soft tissue that has tightened, and at reducing the pain that comes with it. It is less effective on its own when the cause is a joint that does not move well, a weakness that keeps recreating the tension, or a nerve that is being compressed.

That is the reason our clinics run physiotherapy, chiropractic care and massage under one roof. If your massage therapist finds that your neck pain is really a shoulder joint problem, or that your back tightness comes back every week because the muscles supporting it are weak, they will say so and can hand you across without sending you to another address. Plenty of patients end up with massage as one part of a plan rather than the whole of it, and get further that way.

Your soft tissues and why they matter

Your muscles are made of many small fibres that contract on command and work together to move you. They attach to bone through tendons. Bones are held to each other by ligaments. Wrapping all of it is a sheet of connective tissue called fascia. Together these are your soft tissues, and they are what massage therapy works on.

Soft tissue gives you strength and movement, and it also protects you by limiting how far you can push before something gives. It is damaged by sudden loads and, more often, by repeated ones: the same posture for eight hours, the same swing a thousand times, the same commute every day. Massage therapy releases tissue that has shortened or tightened in response, restores the movement it was limiting, and can head off the injury that was on its way.

Types of massage therapy we offer

You do not need to choose a type when you book. Tell us what is wrong and your therapist will choose the approach after assessing you. It helps to know what the terms mean, because you will hear them.

• Deep tissue. Slow, firm pressure into the deeper muscle layers and fascia. The most requested approach across the group, and the right one for tension that has been there a long time. Firm should feel productive, never like something you have to grit your teeth through.
• Swedish. Longer, lighter strokes through the surface layers to improve circulation and calm the nervous system. A good first massage, and the right choice when an area is too sensitive for deeper work.
• Relaxation. Aimed at the nervous system rather than a specific injury. Sustained stress, poor sleep and tension you cannot consciously let go of are legitimate clinical reasons to book.
• Myofascial release. Sustained, gentle holds on the fascia rather than repeated strokes. Usually the answer when an area feels persistently stiff rather than sore.
• Sports massage. Brisker before an event to prepare tissue, slower afterwards to aid recovery and catch the small restrictions that turn into injuries. Available at every clinic, most heavily booked at Pickering and Woodbridge.
• Pre and post natal. Delivered with proper support and side lying as pregnancy progresses. Mention it when booking so we assign the right therapist and set up the room.
• Lymphatic drainage. Very light, rhythmic work for swelling and post-surgical recovery. Offered at selected clinics; ask when booking.

Deep tissue massage

Deep tissue is the approach people ask for by name, so it deserves its own explanation. It uses slow strokes and sustained, firm pressure to reach the deeper layers of muscle and the fascia around them, working along the grain of the muscle rather than across it. It is suited to tension that has been there for months, to thick muscle groups such as the glutes, hamstrings and upper back, and to people who find lighter work does not reach the problem. It is not the right choice for everyone: an acute injury, a very sensitive area, some medical conditions and some stages of pregnancy call for lighter techniques, which is why your therapist assesses before choosing.

A deep tissue session is not a test of endurance. The therapist warms the tissue first, works into the deeper layers gradually, and checks the pressure with you as they go. Firm should feel productive; if you are bracing or holding your breath, it is too much, and saying so is expected. Mild soreness for a day or two afterwards is common, similar to the day after a workout. Sessions are typically forty-five or sixty minutes, and deep tissue is billed as registered massage therapy, so your insurance treats it the same way.

Conditions massage therapy helps with

These are the problems we treat most often with massage, either on its own or alongside physiotherapy or chiropractic care.

• Neck and shoulder tension from desk work, driving and phone use
• Low back pain, particularly the kind that has become a constant background ache
• Tension headaches that begin in the neck and upper back
• Muscle strains and the stiffness that follows them
• Recovery from training, competition and manual work
• Pregnancy-related back, hip and pelvic discomfort
• Repetitive strain in the forearms, wrists and hands
• Stress-related tension and poor sleep
• Soft tissue recovery after a motor vehicle accident or a workplace injury

What massage does, and what it does not

The benefits are real and well supported: less muscle tension and pain, better range of movement, faster recovery between sessions of training, relief from tension headaches, lower stress and better sleep. For a lot of patients that is exactly what they need.

What massage will not do is permanently undo a problem your daily routine keeps recreating. If your neck tightens up because of how your desk is set up, massage will keep loosening it and your desk will keep tightening it. In that situation your therapist should be telling you what else needs to change, and at our clinics they will. Massage also does not replace a diagnosis. If something about your symptoms suggests a problem soft tissue work cannot fix, you will be pointed to the right person rather than booked for another six sessions.

What happens at your first appointment

Your first visit runs longer than the ones that follow, because it starts with a conversation and a look at how you move. Your therapist will ask what hurts, how long for, what makes it worse and what you need to be able to do again. They will assess posture, movement and where the tension actually sits, which is frequently not where the pain is felt.

Treatment happens in the same appointment. You remain draped with a sheet throughout and only the area being treated is uncovered. You control the pressure, and saying so is expected, not rude. You will leave with one or two things to do between visits and a realistic estimate of how many appointments you are likely to need. Nobody sells you a package at the door.

Who provides it

Every massage therapist at MedRehab Group is a Registered Massage Therapist. That means an accredited programme of at least two years, a provincial examination, and ongoing regulation by the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario. It is the difference between a regulated health professional and a spa treatment, and it is also what your extended health plan looks for on a receipt.

Thirty-one RMTs work across our twelve clinics, with the largest teams at Pickering, Richmond Hill, North York, Woodbridge and Brampton. Several are also registered in a second discipline, most often acupuncture, which is useful when a treatment plan benefits from both. Each clinic page below lists its own team.

Is massage therapy covered by insurance?

Usually, yes, through an extended health plan, and this is the part people most often get wrong, so it is worth spelling out: coverage, direct billing, annual limits and referral requirements are four separate questions.

Most extended health plans in Ontario include an annual allowance for registered massage therapy, commonly somewhere between three hundred and five hundred dollars per year, though the range is wide and some plans cover considerably more. Student plans, including those at York University near our North York clinic, frequently include it too. Your plan will only reimburse treatment by a Registered Massage Therapist, which every one of ours is.

We direct bill to most major insurers. In practice that means we submit the claim and you pay only whatever your plan does not cover, rather than paying in full and claiming it back yourself. Bring your policy details to your first appointment and reception will confirm what your plan allows before you are treated, not after.

Where direct billing is not possible for your particular plan, we give you a receipt showing your therapist’s registration number, which is what insurers ask for. No referral is needed to book, though a small number of plans ask for a doctor’s note before they will reimburse, so it is worth checking your own policy wording.

Treatment connected to a motor vehicle accident or a workplace injury is funded through a different route: accident benefits on your auto policy after a collision, or a WSIB program of care for a work injury. In both cases massage is covered when it is part of a treatment plan the insurer or WSIB has approved, not automatically. Tell us when you book and we handle the paperwork.

Questions we are asked most

Related services

Massage is often one part of a plan. Physiotherapy addresses the movement and strength problems that keep tension coming back. Chiropractic care treats joints that are not moving well. Acupuncture and dry needling target trigger points in ways massage sometimes cannot reach. All are available at our clinics, and your massage therapist can refer you across without a second address or a second intake. At five clinics, osteopathy offers gentler whole-body treatment for stiffness spread across several areas.