Meet Arricka Cox | Medical Massage as a billable treatment

We had the good fortune of connecting with Arricka Cox and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Arricka, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
In 2018 I just got out of the hospital after being an induced comma for 3 months. When I was able to secure an apartment from community resources I saw lots of neighbors that were also transitioning back into society from homelessness for on reason or another. I saw lots of people who were dependant on there prescription medicatio. After I got healthier and began working I was shocked at how many of my clients where actively looking for “medical massage” or massage that would intentionally provide pain management treatment. This is when I began my journey to offer medical massage to patients that were in pain as a billable treatment.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Medi-ssage Outreach collaborates with community based organizations to provide medical massage as pain management. We are out of network with most private insurance, contracted with the VA, and we are enrolled as a provider with Medicare/ Medicaide in Arizona. We have a treatment that allows us to provide intervention to help people with chronic pain before a high dosemofmperscription medication is prescribed. This treatment is crested to help flatten the curve of prescription medication dependency negative feedback cycle.

It has taken 5 years of tonasious persistancy to secure the Medicare/ Medicare enrollment. To this day that has been our greatest accomplishment.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I enjoy the lake in the spring. I would probably take them to one of my fave New Mexican restaurant and go see a move.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
After spending time in my for profit business I soon recognized that what I was doing was mission based and that it would be better recognized as a non profit. I found a wonderful organization created by Vitalyst Health called Technical Assistance Partnership of Arizona ( TAPAz) www.tapaz,org. Based on their Elements of a healthy Community wheel Media-ssage Outreach was born. We are on a mission to “Help people with chronic pain live happier and healthier lives by redefining pain management and advancing knowledge”. We are a physically sponcered 501c3 chapter of TAPaz.

Website: www.medissageoutreach.org

Instagram: Medissageoutreach

Linkedin: Medi+ssage

Facebook: Medi-ssage Outreach

Image Credits
TAPaz Team- David Martinez, Kelly Otten, Juan Slas Gateway Community College Health United Gateway Clinic- Tiffany Wimbish, and Heather Murry 2023 AMTA Conference-Angel Perea, Michael Tappscott