How to Offer Reiki in Nursing Homes

Christian Stone | Standing Stones Healing Co.

I want to offer Reiki in nursing homes for a low price but what should I wear? And what should I charge? $40 seems reasonable since where I live it costs $4,000/month to put someone in a nursing home. I don’t want to price my services out of their range, but I don’t want to undercut other Reiki practitioners. Someone else told me I should offer the sessions for free, since it's an underserved population. What do you think?

Congratulations on wanting to offer Reiki to nursing home residents. I think you can possibly view these sessions as those with a hairstylist. Many nursing homes will have stylists come in and offer appointments, and these are typically a paid service with an out of pocket fee for the resident. They're often a lower fee than the stylist might charge outside of the nursing home, like you mention, but most often they aren't doing hair for free. You absolutely could offer sessions at no cost if you wanted to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and it could be a great service. But there's also nothing wrong with charging.

For the session length, I might consider offering shorter sessions (30 minutes instead of an hour) in this kind of setting to see how it goes. Nursing home residents are often very set in their schedules and, even if it seems like they have all of the time in the world, they often get nervous about long appointments or how it might impact other parts of their routine, especially meal times.

It may also be harder for them to hold a position for a longer period of time because of pain or need to use the restroom or etc., and they may prefer sitting to lying down, depending on their mobility. So I personally might recommend cutting the session time and price in half (so $20 for 30 minutes) and see how that works. Of course, you can do whatever you want, but it's absolutely ok to modify our usual approach for the setting.

If you haven't reached out to anyone yet, nursing homes will often have an Activities Director who can offer some insight. The Nursing Director may also be a good person to talk to. Either way, if Reiki isn't something well known in your area, be prepared to answer lots of questions from staff and to do a lot of explaining to residents. You may want to consider offering an initial talk about Reiki with a demonstration as part of their activities schedule. Otherwise, residents will most likely be very hesitant to sign up for a session without knowing what it is. Everyone in a nursing home knows what they're signing up for when they book a session with a hair stylist, but most don't know what a Reiki session is.

You may also want to consider getting on the activities schedule for your sessions. Some nursing homes have an activities budget and can pay for activities. A nursing home may be willing and able to pay you for a block of time as a scheduled activity where any resident can schedule a session or even drop-in. There are lots of possibilities.

No matter what, it can also be helpful (even essential) to have someone on the nursing home staff who advocates for your offering and can encourage residents to give it a try. You may even need to offer a free initial session to help introduce residents to Reiki. Don't be surprised if it's not easy to get any appointments at first, even with a lower price point.

And I personally would wear a polo shirt and khakis in this kind of setting.

Please feel free to join us in the Reiki Business Collective and ask your question there. You may also want to grab the free Reiki Biz Kit full of Reiki business information and inspiration. Sending blessings to your sessions!