Yes. If you look at our older press releases, you will see that early in 2007 we discussed plans and efforts to offer financial aid for our student, and by the August we had launched the program. At this point, there are a variety of options, including loans through an arrangement with Bank of America that provides favorable interest rates and more cash upfront to our company.

Our current models are to train 40 students at one time in one class. This is a really nice balance of managing staff and students, and everything after the first 15 students is profit for the training division.

Yes, we do have plans to open Professional Training Program classes in other cities. Right now, they all operate out of our Northampton, MA headquarters. We would like to start offering a minimum of 3 training programs per year, each in a different geographic location. When we build strong business in those, we can add more training locations. Right now, people travel from all over the country (and from other countries) to attend our trainings, but opening in new cities will certainly reach many more prospective students from different areas.

A training class (meaning from matriculation to graduation) is approximately 500 hours. Currently, those hours are conducted over the course of about 24 months, divided up into 3 semesters (with time in between each semester to practice and complete some homework).

A question from a former physical therapist: One more think to think about is "crossover" from other fields, i.e. PT's, OT's, Chiropractors, sports medicine clinical personnel, etc. If THEIR reimbursement goes down (from payer sources like Medicare, HMO's, etc), then they'll be looking to alternative sources of revenue. In comes Somatics. Most likely not covered by many insurance plans (yet), but when someone's in pain, they're willing to pay whatever the cost to try to alleviate it.

Insurance companies will sometimes pay for Clinical Somatics treatments. This has been inconsistent and largely on a case-by-case basis. Our policy is for clients to pay out-of-pocket (like they do for many kinds of manual therapies), and then we provide them with what documentation they need to get reimbursed by their insurance provider. We are working to get Clinical Somatics covered by all insurance companies across the board.