As we close another year at Instructional ABA Consultants, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the year we’ve had as a community. In looking at our year in review, the best place to start for context is the mission statement of IABA. You see, all of those years ago I crafted it knowing that foundationally why I founded the business would never change. It has always been the mission of IABA to serve the underserved. As the industry has grown over the past decade, so have the corporate entities flooding the market to take advantage of high fee schedules of insurance carriers. We’ve seen pop-up after pop-up of “clinic only” ABA centers pushing 40 hours of treatment for all children with autism under 5 years old. From the outside looking in I can see the financial gains of these businesses and how they are succeeding. That is not our story.
You see, while we believe that every child deserves access to quality ABA therapy, we also believe that your child’s insurance rates should never dictate that treatment. We also believe that every child is unique, and providing standardized care is the opposite of our single subject science. As the founder I have always wanted to provide ABA to children and disabled adults who were otherwise turned away. Remember, humanity is what we value; following the dollar is the opposite of true social science.
Our Struggle to Support Medicaid Based ABA
With that being said, we don’t often share how difficult it is to compete in the market when we predominantly serve Medicaid clients. The fee schedules we accept don’t pay enough to keep our lights on if we truly want to recommend individualized therapy hours. We are not forcing children into a 40-hours-per-week clinic; we are individually assessing and working with their parents on how many hours of ABA will truly provide them with a positive outcome. We actually have a policy that children under the age of 5, who are also in part-time preschool, cannot do more than 20 hours a week of ABA. If they did more than that, our little learners would be working over 40 hours a week. Children need time to play and have life outside of therapy. This policy provides that. We chose at IABA to put our clients above their insurance carrier and with that choice we had to be creative to continue carrying on our mission.
That brings me to this year; we’ve been in business for almost 14 years and the past four we’ve been scratching our heads on sustainability alongside integrity of treatment. My brilliant team sat around the table with me once more as we looked at all our options. You see, any time I have a challenge I can’t figure out how to solve, I know that I need to ask for help. I am lucky enough to have a leadership team (and the best lead biller of all time) that have grown up with me in the business. As we sat together last January, we pushed ourselves to get creative knowing that foundationally we needed something else in the business to support our Medicaid clients. In this meeting we talked through policy as well as ways to support our employees while thoughtfully running schedules and holiday time. We also talked about the fact we are Behavioral Health Clinics (BHCs) for the state of Illinois but only provide ABA therapy. In this meeting we asked ourselves, “What if we did more?” From there change was born.
Leaning into Serving More
As a company we were the second organization in the state of Illinois to become Behavioral Health Clinics when the ABA benefit was approved in 2021. At the time it was the only way we could accept Medicaid and so of course we learned how to panel with the state. It met our mission to become a BHC and at the time we were only looking at how to open our services to the children who didn’t have access otherwise. This year, when we looked at the BHCs, we asked ourselves perhaps if we stepped outside of only providing ABA services could we support our mission. The resounding answer after a year of incredibly hard work is yes.
I’m writing this to you because if you are a client of IABA you already know how we provide ABA services and hopefully feel a positive impact in your child’s life. For this coming year we’ve laid the groundwork to add on services through the support of Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors and Licensed Clinical Social Workers to assess “what other services will support the whole family.” As a parent with our company, if your child has Medicaid you’ll start to meet with these professionals as they ask you questions to better understand what further support you need. In developing a lens beyond ABA we also leaned into ABA and identified that we want to become better at parent training. Starting this January we’re rolling out our Senior BCBAs who will work one-on-one with each clinic’s parents to ensure a true understanding of ABA and how to generalize session goals into the home. I know that Oak Lawn is smiling at Alexa coming back and Glenview is celebrating Gillian’s promotion!
A New Path Forward
This new model is a testament to my team working together to look at our problem differently. We wanted to ensure we could serve all our clients and when truly looking at a problem, the solution was simple – serve more. That is of course what has always driven us to change and it is my deep hope that through our work together our new model of Integrative Care will service the entire family. Over the course of the winter we’ll do our best on education for our parents so they know what we’re assessing and through those assessments what additional services we’re building. We are listening; please tell us what you need.
As we close out the year, I want to personally thank our leadership team. Nicole, your brilliant mind and tenacity allow us to build our new services. Kristen, your organization keeps us honest and on track. Katlyn, you walk alongside your clinics listening and caring to ensure they have everything they need. Katie, you hustle more than I could ever ask for keeping Oak Lawn thriving. Ken, you have led the adult team through change with integrity and care. Zoe, you are leading Colorado into the future. And Toshi, you dreamed as big as I did and are guiding us through Integrative Care. We have others that supervise and manage who are not mentioned but equally responsible for our success. It is not those at the top that keep us moving, it is every employee showing up each day giving their best.
With love and appreciation,
Jessie
P.S. Ashley, for all the new talent, thank you.
