Running a spa or clinic
Can clients claim ozone sauna sessions from a medical aid, health insurance or an HSA?
No. No ozone sauna session is currently covered by any medical aid, medical scheme, private health insurer, health savings account or flexible spending account, in any market we sell into. Plan on clients paying in cash, and tell them so before they book rather than after.
The position, plainly. Ozone steam sauna sessions are not currently reimbursable anywhere. No scheme covers them, no procedure code applies, and no practitioner registration route changes that. If a client asks, the answer is no.
What that means for your numbers. Every figure in your session pricing and your payback model is money a client pays out of their own pocket. That is the main argument for selling the ten-session course rather than the single session, and for pricing the course at a level a client can commit to without a third party underwriting it. It also means your demand is discretionary spending, which behaves differently from reimbursed treatment in a downturn.
What to tell a client who asks. That sessions are not covered by any scheme, and that they should budget for them as they would for any other wellness treatment. Give them the plain description — a 30-minute session in a heated steam sauna with far infrared and ozone in the steam around the body, with the head outside so it is not inhaled — rather than a diagnosis or a condition.
Do not imply otherwise. Do not suggest that regular sessions will reduce a client’s medical spending, and do not structure an invoice so that a session appears to have been reimbursed.
One structural point. If you operate inside a practice where a registered practitioner bills for a consultation, the consultation and the sauna session are different things and should be invoiced as different things. Bundling them in a way that implies the session was covered creates a problem for the practitioner, not just for you.
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