Kathleen Bailey-Stengel, MS, BCBA, LBA
Doing the math can save your A$$: Setting pay rates in a blended rate model to sustain a quality profitable ABA company
Long gone are the days of getting paid straight hourly or session rates for the ABA services clinical staff provide. The increase in variability of insurance reimbursement for ABA services (up to 13 different billing codes) has made it more difficult to run a profitable practice and pay market value for clinical staff. Often, ABA practitioners enter into contract agreements without fully understanding how the overall book of contract rates and reimbursements will be provided. Commonly, ABA practice owners then set salary and pay rates for staff according to lowest rates. Many practices are fighting to recruit quality staff who may run down the street for a quarter more per hour as the job market is great for those of us who can run a case. Practice owners are sometimes held hostage by the concurrent contingencies of quality staff and fiscal responsibility. Failure to understand how financial metrics including reimbursement and pay rates as well as general and administrative costs has resulted in many ABA companies selling to larger entities or folding altogether. This talk will elaborate how to set attainable metrics to operationally run a small business in any state and in any reimbursement environment as well as what data to respond and intervene upon from an operations perspective to allow our ABA practices to continue to accelerate clinical practice.
Engineering conditions under which high levels of performance behavior occur in the workplace
Strategies for developing and sustaining a behavior analytic service provider will be reviewed and discussed, including: recruitment, retention, vision casting, impact, and performance management and enhancement. A service model performance- based pay system will be reviewed and discussed, troubleshooting suggestions and strategies to overcome barriers to implementation of performance-based pay systems will be discussed.
The panel discussion will be provided in an open forum designed to solicit questions from the audience regarding business development strategies. Participants are urged to ask questions and engage the panel in conversations about aspects of their own successes & failures.
Some important considerations for designing a successful ABA provider agency: Employee engagement, staff accountability & company branding guidelines…
The increase in BCBAs over the past 10+ years resulted in the creation of many behavior-health provider agencies, providing ABA services. Highly successful ABA provider agencies are more than just a conglomerate of contracted staff agreements with minimum weekly billable requirements and on-time clinical notes. Important issues related to business development will be discussed, most of these considerations are not formally addressed in traditional ABA graduate training programs. These items will be discussed in the context of the following: (a) branding guidelines, (b) employee engagement, (c) frequent feedback from all staff, (d) job satisfaction, (e) employee accountability, (f) performance scorecards as well as (g) the importance of business image, reputation, service quality, overall supervision and other aspects of business development that are often overlooked. The panel discussion will be provided in an open forum designed to solicit questions from the audience regarding business development strategies. Participants are urged to ask questions and engage the panel in conversations about aspects of their own successes & failures.