Quality clinical care in autism services isn’t optional — it’s the building blocks for better outcomes and financial success.
“[Clinical quality] is a matter of being on brand and having a reputation,” Amanda Ralston, founder and CEO of NonBinary Solutions, said at the Autism Investor Summit (AIS).
NonBinary Solutions provides specialized services for individuals living with autism. It offers customizable and scalable clinical decision support tools for autism services.
Displaying clinical excellence is crucial to developing a long-term business plan. Ralston noted that clinical quality plays a role in how investors and other stakeholders perceive an organization. Quality is also a significant factor in patient and family satisfaction. Plus, payers are now demanding to see reliable outcomes.
“Even though quality is associated with higher cost, it also, to me, is associated with standardization, streamlining and getting waste out of the system,” Jill Young, president of the California Association for Behavioral Analysis (CalABA), said at AIS. “So things that are not effective should be removed from that system and streamlined so that if you’re dealing with a lot of different BCBAs …. and with a lot of different families, you’re still taking a standardized approach.”
CalABA is an association for professionals specializing in behavior analysis, psychology, education, social work, speech-language pathology, biology, and other fields related to understanding behavior. It provides continuing education for Board Certified Behavior Analysts and other professionals in autism services.
Rick Loewenstein, CEO of TeamGame Advisors, noted that implementing quality standards can help reduce staff turnover, as employees are generally happier when following a particular protocol and are provided with proper training. Satisfied employees and clients translate to a smoother business overall.
“That’s good business when you think of the other impact that it has throughout the organization,” Loewenstein said. “It [may mean] timely reports to the payers, payers love that. That means when it’s time for you to go and ask for your reimbursement rate increase, your reports are on time and well written. …These are all really important things. When things are done right at a high quality and there is a standard that’s met it’s a much smoother system, and the money flows back.”
TeamGame Advisors is a firm that provides growth strategies tailored to ABA autism therapy, behavioral health and assistive technology organizations.
Demonstrating clinical quality and staff satisfaction can translate into better deals for practice owners.
“When a buyer is going to come in and purchase an organization, what are they going to look at?” Loewenstein said. “They’re going to look at clinical data; they’re going to look at receivables; they’re going to look at turnover, all these important metrics in their decision-making. This is important to the future and to the growth of their company.”
Top-down leadership isn’t going to cut it in the world of ABA therapy–especially when trying to ensure clinical quality. Involving clinicians in the organization’s decision-making process from the outset can lead to improved care and a more satisfied workforce.
“When I first started in this field … most of the agencies were clinician-run, and they did have a very big understanding about the clinical environment,” Young said. “So ensuring in your organization that you are bringing clinical staff into the leadership and the leadership decision making [is key]. Make sure that you’re hearing from them whether you’re doing quarterly or annual or semi-annual employee satisfaction. Take it seriously. Where are the pain points? It’s not fun to see that employees are unhappy about something or they’re not feeling like they’re getting enough training.”
