The Institute of Somatic Therapy Policies

Terms of Use

Enrollment Policies

When you enroll in a course, you agree that it is for your private use only, and agree not to allow anyone else access to your account. You further warrant that all homework requirements and testing performed under your username and password will be done by you and you alone, and that no other person will take any tests for you.

You have one year from the date of enrollment to complete your online exam or the course will become inactive. If it expires, you have up to one year to reinstate, and another full year to complete it. There is a fee to reactivate expired courses. Courses can only be reinstated once, and will remain expired if not completed.  If your course has expired twice, and you wish to complete it, contact us for a discount coupon to re-enroll.

While we are happy to accept course completions up to one full year after original enrollment, it is impossible for us to guarantee that CE laws that govern CE providers and/or you as a licensed or certified massage therapists (such as state or national boards) will not change within one year. In fact, they often change, with little to no notice. Therefore, when we state that you have one full year to complete the course, we are saying that we will allow you to complete any courses you enroll in, but it is outside of our ability to guarantee that any outside agency will do the same. We encourage our students to complete courses immediately upon enrollment if they want their jurisdiction to accept the hours.

Upon completion, we highly recommend that you save a copy of your certificate on your computer. We do not guarantee access to course materials or certificates beyond the one year completion period. It is our goal to keep the access open longer, but occasionally technology updates and other website changes do not make it possible for us to guarantee lifetime access.

State Laws for Massage Therapy Continuing Education

We have provided a “State Guidelines” page as a courtesy, and do our best to keep it current, but state boards do not notify CE providers when rules change. Your state will hold you ultimately responsible for the laws that govern you, and as such, it is your responsibility to determine if these continuing education credits are valid in your jurisdiction, both at the time that you enroll, and the time that you complete the course for submission to your board.

The information we provide is not to be construed as legal advice. You agree to indemnify, defend and hold Institute of Somatic Therapy harmless against any claims or costs, including attorney's fees, arising from the use of this site.

We allow our students to take the same course more than one time, although most jurisdictions will not give CE credits if you have repeated the same course during a single licensure period. It is your responsibility to ensure that any courses you take are valid for your jurisdiction at any given time.

CE Broker Reporting Policy

When you complete an online exam, if you linked to your account with us a massage license from a state that uses CE Broker for providers to report completions, we will make one good faith attempt to report those hours on your behalf. If you provided us with an invalid, incomplete, or wrongly formatted license number that prevents us from completing the reporting, we will notify you. At that point, it will be up to you to report your course completions yourself.

If you have a license in a state that uses CE Broker but you failed to provide us with that license number prior to completion of the exam, your completion will not appear on our course completion roster that we submit to CE Broker. After that roster has been uploaded, we are no longer able to make amendments to it. Furthermore, we have no way of knowing that a student completed a course without providing a license number, so we are unable to notify you that your hours are not reported. In this instance, you will need to self-report your hours.

In either of these scenarios, if you want us to make additional manual attempts to report to CE Broker on your behalf, a service charge may be assessed in advance.

Refund and Exchange Policy

EXCHANGE POLICY: We want our students to be happy with their continuing education courses. If you have enrolled in a course that does not meet your needs, we'll gladly exchange it upon request within 30 days of purchase, as follows: 

• Any requests for exchange must be made prior to accessing the online course materials. Due to the proprietary nature of online education, it is impossible to allow students to have a preview period and then exchange it for another course once a course has been accessed. Therefore, once you have accessed the online materials, no exchanges can be given.
• Please note that there are no exchanges of any type on our volume discount package specials. All purchases of the volume discount package specials are final.

REFUND POLICY: If you enroll in a course and then change your mind for any reason within three days from your order date, you may cancel the enrollment ONLY if the course has not been accessed. We do not allow free access to the course and then give a refund. A processing fee of 15% of the tuition paid, or $5, whichever is greater, will be deducted from your refund. 

EXCEPTIONS TO REFUND AND EXCHANGE POLICY:

Special Orders: If your enrollment contained the purchase of outside online access to external content  (example: Fertility Massage course) or special order of a textbook from outside orders (we have several in this category), no refund or exchange can be given once we have processed your enrollment and purchased the external access on your behalf.

Packages are not refundable. If you made an accidental or mistaken purchase of a package (as opposed to an individual course), upon request, it can be voided the same day of enrollment provided that none of the courses have been completed, and that the request is made no later than 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, the cutoff deadline from our credit card processing company for same day voiding. Once an order has closed through the credit card processor, it is not possible to void, and our standard refund policy above will apply.

COUPON POLICY: Please also note that our coupon offers are valid only upon enrollment, and are not retroactive. We have many coupon options posted on various course description pages and on package pages. It is your responsibility to determine which coupon code is most advantageous to you. If you do not use a coupon code, or use one and then later discover one that would have been more valuable to you, there is no way to apply it later. Package offers are not retroactive. If you enroll in individual courses that are offered elsewhere as a package, no refunds or discount can be made at a later time.

CURRENCY POLICY: All tuitions, shipping amounts, fees, coupon discounts, etc, are in US Dollars. We do not accept international currency. Please convert your funds to US Dollars before submitting fees to us. Thank you.

Lost Mail

Just like you have no control over a package once you send it for mailing, neither do we. When you order something that we are shipping by mail or private carrier (such as UPS), we will send you notification of shipment by email. It is your responsibility to follow-up in a timely fashion, and notify us the moment you notice that a package is not arriving as scheduled. The longer time that lapses from the moment the package was last tracked until you notify them it is missing, the less liklihood that it will be found, so time is of the essense.

While we are sympathetic when a package is lost in the mail, as we know firsthand how frustrating that is, we appreciate your understanding that it is outside of our control. 

Certification Policy

Please note that the NCBTMB is no longer allowing CE providers to offer a certification title unless they are part of a 500-or-more hour initial massage school program. As such, we will be phasing out the certification titles and changing to their new approved wording, "Specialist" on a new website that is currently under construction. For example, previously we offered "Certified Infant Massage Therapist". This will now become "Infant Massage Specialist" when the new website launches. No estimates of when that will be are available at this time.

Students who have enrolled in a course that awards a certification title must complete the course and online test, along with all requirements of the certification process, within one year of the date of enrollment. Initital enrollment tuition covers the course materials and online test to receive CEs, but does not include the certification option. Students can complete the online test and earn their CEs without submitting the optional documentation to apply for certification. There is a certification fee as outlined in the applicable course description pages.

Even upon successful completion of a course and online test, the Institute of Somatic Therapy reserves the right, for any reason, to refuse the optional certification fee and not award a certification title. This will not affect the tuition paid and CEs earned, as that is a separate component from certification. Some examples why this might happen are a resonable suspicion that the student did not actually complete the certification practice sessions as represented on their paperwork, if they have committed an ethics violation of any type, or if in the course of dealing with us, the student has lied or behaved in a manner that could be found offensive to a reasonable person. Having our signature on a certification document is a privilege, and we reserve the right to withhold awarding that privilege when we feel that the person would not represent the values and demeanor that we attempt to uphold in our profession.

Please also note that no outside state or national massage boards or associations have a means to review or approve our awarding of certification titles. Your certificate will include a disclaimer at the bottom that states this fact. It is possible that some states or boards will not recognize the certification title, and it will only be valid as long as you are legally entitled to practice massage in your jurisdiction.

Privacy Policy

Institute of Somatic Therapy never rents, sells, or otherwise transfers your name, email address, address, phone, or any other personal information to any third party for any reason whatsoever.

Institute of Somatic Therapy will occasionally send you emails or newsletters as appropriate for our students. You are free to opt out of receiving such emails, although by doing so, you acknowledge that we will not be able to inform you about any developments that might affect you. It is your responsibility to maintain your account status, including your email address.

Managing Your Account

To avail yourself of our services, you are required to register with us. You have the ability to change or update your account information with us by logging onto your account and choosing to update registration. Institute of Somatic Therapy does not store your credit card information. Like many websites, in order to remember you, we utilize cookie technology. Upon registering an account with us, the cookie will be stored on your computer. To help prevent fraud, our system also logs your IP address, which is the electronic code that identifies the location of your computer on the Internet. Any changes you make in your account are not retroactive to completion certificates that were done before the change was made.

Notice of Copyright

Everything on this site is protected by federal copyright and intellectual property laws. Our courses are intended for the personal use of enrolled students only, and you expressly agree that you will not reproduce or distribute in any format any portion of our course materials without the advance written consent of Institute of Somatic Therapy.

General Disclaimers

The Institute of Somatic Therapy reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.

The Institute of Somatic Therapy and its employees and agents disclaim all warranties regarding the material on this site. Institute of Somatic Therapy specifically disclaims any express or implied warranties or guarantees including without limitation, warranties of fitness for a particular purpose, warranties of merchantability or warranties against infringement. Institute of Somatic Therapy and its employees and agents shall not be liable for any damages or losses arising from the use of this service. Users of this site acknowledge that the information contained in these courses is not the only opinion or treatment available.

Institute of Somatic Therapy reserves the right to change these Terms of Service at any time by posting revised Terms of Service online. By using our services after such policy changes, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. We reserve the right to modify or discontinue any portion of this website without notice or liability. Our terms of service will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Missouri, without regard to any conflicts of law provisions. Any cause of action you believe you may have with respect to this website must be filed in the federal or state courts located in Missouri, or any other jurisdiction approved by Institute of Somatic Therapy, within one year after the cause of action arises or the cause is barred by statute of limitations. These terms of use are not intended to and do not create any contractual or other legal rights in or on behalf of any party.