BCBAs and RBTs enter the field to create meaningful change for learners, but more and more is being dumped on their backs, draining their energy and impacting the quality of care. This burden also sucks the life out of leaders, making it harder to retain talent and maintain high standards. But what if there was a way to ease the load while enhancing outcomes?
In this episode, Michael Gao, an innovative software developer, and my authentic friend Christina Morales, CEO of Piece of the Puzzle and founder of the IQR Group, explore how cutting-edge technology is reshaping behavior analysis.
We discuss Michael's game-changing platform, successfully piloted by Christina, that uses AI tools like Alpaca Assistant to automate administrative tasks, from session notes to intakes, allowing professionals to focus on what truly matters. Christina also shares her inspiring journey as an autism mom, driving her to create inclusive organizations like Piece of the Puzzle and Believe and Achieve. Together, we highlight the challenges of scaling ABA services and emphasize the critical role of leadership, systems, and innovation in sustaining growth while embedding values like inclusion and respect.
If you're ready to see how technology can reduce workload, improve efficiency, and help behavior analysis professionals rediscover their passion, tune in—and don't forget to check out Christina’s podcast, Know Yourself to Grow Yourself, for more leadership and personal growth insights!
About the guests:
Michael Gao is the Founder and CEO of Alpaca Health. They are developing Alpaca Assistant, the last admin hire for ABA agencies. To try Alpaca Assistant's session note-generation feature, head over to www.alpacahealth.io.
Christina Morales, an Autism mom, BCBA, and the CEO of Piece of the Puzzle Behavior Analysis, is a truly authentic leader and a dear friend. Her work is driven by her personal journey with her son, Vinny, and her unwavering dedication to supporting individuals with disabilities. Christina also founded the IQR Group, which includes impactful initiatives like Bumblebee Academy, an inclusive learning center; PACE, a life and social skills program for teens; Believe & Achieve, a nonprofit fostering acceptance and awareness; and Include & Connect, a resource hub for families. Her passion and authenticity shine through in everything she does.
Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist Show hosted by WallStreet Journal and USA Today,
best-selling author, Dr Pauly.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right, welcome back to the Thoughts and Rants
of a Behavior Scientist Show.
I am your host, dr Pauly, and Iam here with a couple of very
cool persons.
One of them is a very goodfriend of mine, christina
Morales, and the other one is anewly emerging friend.
I guess, michael, we'll seewhat happens with this.
Michael Gao, all right, so Iwant to talk a little bit about
how we came to have thisparticular show.
(00:32):
Michael Gao is a softwaredeveloper, right?
Am I right in saying that,Michael?
That's right.
Yeah.
And he reached out to me saying, hey, I would love to get on
the podcast to talk about thesoftware I have.
Right, I'm not trying to pushpeople into software unless,
unless I think it's going to addvalue Right, Because you guys
know me and I want to add valuein the world.
(00:52):
And what he told me was thatthere's a platform that can help
BCBAs to take and organizetheir notes.
Correct, am I saying that?
Yeah, and is it also for RBTsor just BCBAs at this point?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, with Christina, we developed a BT session of
features.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Amazing, wonderful, okay.
So when he came to me, I saidwell, you know what I don't want
to.
I don't know about it, you know, but let's test it.
I've got a good friend, youknow somebody.
I did some consulting withChristina, alice and I want to
find out if it works right andhow it goes.
So let's pile it, let's test it, and so we did, and so we're
(01:29):
going to talk a little bit aboutwhat happened here with this.
Right, we're going to talkabout, you know, maybe some
kinks with it and you know, andwhat some of the outcomes are
with it.
But I thought that, besidesmaking it just about the
software, I want to talk alittle bit about behavior,
analytic organizations and someof the challenges that have
occurred and what we need to doto scale things.
I know one of the things thatwe need to do and, christine,
(01:49):
you're in the middle of scalingthings right now is we've got to
make shit easy for people.
We can't keep putting stuff onpeople's back.
Right Now, we have technologythat can really make things
easier so we can focus on thethings that are really important
.
I use AI all the time.
Right, I use it with my writingall the time People are like
you shouldn't do this.
I note it on.
(02:10):
I'm like are you kidding me?
It's like mixing the paint forme.
So now I can focus on what'sreally important sequencing my
stuff and telling a story that'simportant to engage them.
Right, and I'm not embarrassedabout it.
I've written books for yearswithout any of that stuff.
Now I can like wow, I canreally get into some really
important details with it.
So I find it very useful and Ithink we really need to embrace
(02:30):
AI as we move forward and thinkabout how we can make things
better for our learners, betterfor our employees and such and
such.
So, christina, just give alittle introduction to yourself,
right?
And, of course, your company,right, and then we'll let
Michael just introduce yourselfand your company.
And then we'll let Michael justintroduce yourself and your
company and then we'll dive intosome of the challenges that are
going on organizations rightnow yeah, so I am the founder
and CEO of the IQR group, whichconsists of several
(02:54):
organizations all centeredaround providing services to
individuals with disabilities.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
We have, piece of the puzzle, behavior analysis,
which is what Ali came in andconsulted with me on.
It's's, you know, obviouslyproviding that ABA services and
the community homes, schools.
And then I like kind of sawthis gap in the education system
and I opened a school that'sindividualized education for
individuals with disabilitiesand we have a preschool and
(03:21):
elementary program Disabilitiesand we have a preschool and
elementary program.
And I have a teen group calledPACE stands for Prepare, achieve
, create and Evolve and that isa life and social skills group.
Right now it's a smallafter-school program.
I do have big plans for that,but one thing at a time.
And then I also have a nonprofitorganization called Believe and
(03:42):
Achieve and really my missionwith Believe and Achieve is to
create more inclusion,acceptance and awareness in the
community and just allow thesefamilies to be able to access
more things for their, for theirkids and for them, because I am
also an autism mom and abehavior analyst and you know,
(04:02):
as an autism mom with my son wasyounger, he's now 17.
I isolated a lot and it was ascary thing Like and I know what
these parents are going throughwhen they're first experiencing
, you know, hearing from adoctor that their child has
autism, and doctors,unfortunately, are still saying
to parents that their child maynever talk, they could be
(04:25):
institutionalized, and it's sad,it's scary.
As a parent, it changes yourwhole world in the blink of an
eye.
And so, you know, with thenonprofit, it's really allowing
me to channel that side of mypassion when it comes to this
field and be able to providemore extracurricular activities
(04:45):
to families with the support ofhaving ABA therapists come in,
so when these learners are goinginto these new environments,
they're set up for success.
And we also have I'm doing likea whole family support side of
it as well, where I'm doingcoffee meetups where parents can
pick my brain, share wins.
You know, like we just need tobe able to share that.
(05:05):
And I plan to do some parentsupport like training, virtual,
so more families can access thatsupport because, as we all know
, wait lists are very long.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and let me say this about Christina, that she
is a very authentic and valuedperson and she reached out to me
many years ago about gettingleadership training for herself
and for people in there, andthis is where I got to connect
with her.
I'm like, wow, I wish more CEOsin an organization had this
kind of value, because I feellike when that value is in place
(05:40):
, when you care about the people, because we're going to bring
out the best in learners If youguys have heard me say this a
bunch you got to bring out thebest in employees.
And she really wanted to createa culture like this and she was
very reflective on her ownbehavior because, as we all know
, it's not about intent, it'sabout impact.
And so Anika Costa and I camein and started doing some work
(06:01):
with her and man, her and herteam would take and she has a
wonderful, amazing leadershipteam and I love these ladies Um,
they would, we would meet andwe'd go over some stuff and they
would just take the ball andthey'd run with it and they'd
come back with stuff.
I'm like, oh my gosh, it'd belike you know, like I can
imagine, like a doctor, right,but writing, you know, giving
some sort of plan to a patientand the patient just coming back
(06:22):
and just going way above andbeyond with everything.
You're like, oh my gosh man,you just want to keep treating
them, you know, because it's sogreat to see progress happen and
see outcomes happening.
So it's been really wonderfuland I think we'll get into a
little bit of that journey injust a bit.
So.
But, michael, now, if you cankind of, you know, talk a little
bit about yourself and how youcame into what you're doing and
how you connected it with thefield of behavior analysis.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
My background was in education.
Before this, I started anonline tutoring organization.
We worked with all kinds ofstudents, but it became pretty
obvious that kiddos with specialneeds in pull-out programs had
the most needs that weren'tbeing fulfilled by the school
system in many cases today.
(07:06):
And so earlier this year, dug alittle bit deeper, learned more
on the clinical side of ABA,went to ABAI and met a whole
bunch of clinicians where itseemed like when I asked them
what they didn't like to do intheir weeks, the biggest thing
they said was some form ofdocumentation, whether it's
writing session notes, whetherit's reviewing BT session notes,
writing treatment plans,retreatment plans and all that
(07:30):
not so fun stuff of behavioranalyst jobs.
And so I studied computerscience in school, thought there
were some interesting toolsthat we could create, really
with the mission to helpclinicians do clinical work
period Like it sounds incrediblyobvious that you went to a two
years master's program youshould do the work that you went
to the master's program for,but that doesn't seem to be
(07:50):
happening in the field todaybecause of all these insurance
requirements that we hope toalleviate using technology.
And so now we work with mostlysmaller scale-ups in the ABA
world.
Organizations were just gettingstarted.
Organizations were on the vergeof growth, ready to open.
The second, the third, thefourth location to think about
(08:13):
how you can use new technologieslike AI to make things easier
for your team, your parents,your clients and really set them
up for the next phase of growth.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I've got your perfect hashtag, Just hashtag.
We make shit easier.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Honestly.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, that is the whole point.
Man who doesn't want their jobto be easier, you know.
So you can really focus onwhat's important, especially
taking care of some of thosethings oh gosh, man, there's.
You know, we come into thefield of human services because
we really want to help peopleand there's these things that we
just don't want to have to do,but we have to because it's part
of the deal, and so if we canmake those things as easy as
(09:00):
possible in a way that doesn'tcompromise the integrity of the
treatment that we're providingin fact, that enhances it
because we can put more time tothat I think that's amazing.
So, christina, I want to shiftback to you now, and because I
know that you know you had somestruggles and your struggles are
very common, right inorganizations, and I like to
call it, when we don't have goodsystems.
I believe that the two keycomponents in organizations are
(09:22):
systems, leadership, right, andif you, you can't have one
without the other, uh and butyou did have.
What you did have were people,including yourself, with high
values.
So so you had strong will,right, and I believe, higher
will over skill.
That's really important becausewe can embed the skill and we
can help develop the systems.
But without a system it's likeagain people are outgrowing
(09:42):
their drawers, they just get toobig and you can't scale.
So talk a little bit about someof the struggles that you've
had before.
I don't want to provide thesolutions yet.
Just say what you were doingright and what was occurring as
a result of that right, what youwere intending to do, what was
occurring, and then we'll get towhat we really need to do to
make those things better.
(10:03):
As you're doing it, talk alittle bit about even the
technology side of it right, howthings were kind of screwed up,
because then we can kind ofhand it back over to michael in
a little bit to find out, likeyou know, what he's seen in
companies and how thesesolutions can make a difference
yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
So when I started piece of the puzzle I was the
only bcba in the company so Iwas doing all the direct
services, getting credentialingdone, doing all the billing, all
the intake.
Like I look back and I'm likenot sure I did that, but I
figured it out and made ithappen and I really, as I
(10:39):
continued to grow, I realized Ican't keep providing direct
services if I'm going to scaleand grow, and that happens very
quickly.
And I think that when BCBEshave this idea to start their
own organization, they all havegood intent, right Like.
They maybe see that I want todo things differently than what
I'm experiencing, whatever it is, but they don't realize how
(11:02):
quickly you will grow in thatyou can no longer be the one
providing the direct services.
We were small, I had greatculture, I was the only leader
really and I started buildingthat is anybody that is a CEO
knows you have to have a verystrong lie and purpose in your
(11:37):
organization and I really lostsight of that and that was when
things just started to fallapart.
Honestly, they really did.
My culture started to get toxicand I Polly knows like I freely
talk about all the like cringythings that were.
And, polly, you've said itbefore and I it's such a good
(11:59):
like metaphor of like, when youstart to feel this spiral on
your team leaders often getlouder and, you know, get more
like stern, and they think thatthat's going to change the
behavior.
Well, like, maybe I'm being toonice, so I need to get louder
and get more, put morepunishment in place and all this
.
Well, all that does people justexit your company and go
(12:21):
elsewhere.
So you know, as, as far as thetechnology side of it goes, like
let's tie that in it.
It is so important to have.
That's all part of systems,right?
So if you don't have goodtechnology that is making your
systems flow, response effortcan be very high.
Nothing is automated, so it's alot of manual which is going to
(12:45):
lead to a lot of errors,because at the end of the day,
you're human and nobody is goingto be programmed to never make
errors.
So that was definitely a hugelearning curve and one that
we're still truly honestly,still working through, and why
I've really enjoyed starting towork with Michael, because we do
(13:06):
need to automate more andstreamline, because that's all
going to lower response effortand, like you said, polly, to me
before, like this is one of thebiggest things that you said
when you started consulting withme is like you have to remember
when you give somebody a newtask, you need to figure out how
to offload something, and whenyou have good technologies and
(13:28):
systems, then you're going tojust automatically be able to
kind of take that workload offof them.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, and what you I mean what you experienced is so
common.
There's a, there's a bookcalled the e-myth.
It's the entrepreneurial myth,and that is you can be like an
amazing clinician, right, andyou want to make you're like,
you know what I want to make adifference at scale.
And you know I want to have myown organization.
So we get some people to go.
But just because you're goodclinician doesn't mean you have
the skills to be an entrepreneur.
(13:56):
It doesn't mean you can't gainthem right.
But a lot of people thinkbecause they're good at this,
they're going to be good at thator they can just do it right,
but it requires skills.
It's a completely differentskill set, as you've learned,
and that's why you've gottenthese pieces of the puzzle to
put in.
And I think the other piece ofit and my listeners have heard
me say this before and, ofcourse, christina, you have is
the importance of having a goodsystem that's easy to navigate,
(14:18):
that cannot be complex, becausecomplexity is an enemy of
execution, sustainability andscalability.
So it's got to be very simple.
And, just for anybody listening, remember that every time you
drive in the roads that you'regetting to work on, this is a
system that guides your behavior, brings your behavior for our
behavior analysts generates rule.
(14:38):
Government behavior brings yourbehavior.
Understand this control.
Essentially, it tells yourbehavior what to do.
Nobody has to come out thereand manage it right.
So it helps to maintainbehavior and there's
contingencies in place that keepyour behavior going in the
right direction and there's lotsof reinforcement because you're
getting to the places safelyand effectively and efficiently
and all this stuff.
But there's also corrections inplace and a good system is
going to leverage positivereinforcement for value-added
(15:02):
behavior.
And, christina, I know you guystook a lot of time and effort to
build your system on values.
It's what I know, anika, and Igot you guys going on it and you
took the ball and ran with itright and real value.
You took your values and youunpacked it that way, right.
And what were your three values?
Again, I know it was aInclusion, quality and respect
(15:24):
Right.
Inclusion, quality and respectright.
And so I think that clearly tome that you can.
The quality piece of it we havethings that make it easier to
automate in this area.
It allows us to focus more onthe quality of aspects of it.
So we'll talk about how likethese values are that they're
(15:44):
functional response classes,right, they're like buckets, as
Anik like to say that we putbehaviors in, and I love that.
And so I think that you know, byby by, looking to reduce effort
on people, because that's ahuge thing the more effort goes
up, the more positivereinforcement you need to have.
Right, if you don't have enoughpositive reinforcement to match
the effort, you're going to getescape behavior.
(16:05):
And now escape behavior mightnot mean immediately quitting
the job, which we have a hugeissue with people leaving the
job and immediately quitting thejob, which we have a huge issue
with people leaving the job.
And, christina, you recentlyshared with me that your
retention is up and I love thatso much, because we can't help
the learners if we don't supportour employees and if there's a
constant cycle of turnaround.
(16:25):
That's not good for anybody,including you as a CEO.
So I know that with a goodsystem where response effort is
minimized and there's, you know,good positive reinforcement for
these value-added behaviors,because you've unpacked it
across the performance chain, aswe did and worked with you on
it that makes a big, bigdifference, huge, yes.
So, michael, why don't you comeon over here and just talk a
(16:47):
little bit.
Come on over here, man, talk alittle bit about like I.
You know you did this and Ithink I'm pretty sure that what
I said must resonate with you,because you probably saw there's
a lot of problems out there.
First, talk about some of theproblems that you've seen out
there an organization thatyou've experienced, right,
because that gives us the reasonwhy you wanted to solve this
problem and, uh, kind of what,what your software does to solve
(17:09):
that yeah, when we werebuilding alpaca health, we still
were building Alpaca Health.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
we still are building Alpaca Health.
There's a lot more to do.
We've spoken to at this pointprobably over 100, 120 BCBAs
about what their days look like,what their weeks look like,
what they like most about theirjobs, what they liked least out
of their jobs and a lot of thisconversation of it's very human.
It's very manual.
(17:35):
The systems aren't there.
I have technology but I'msomehow still doing stuff in
spreadsheets or manually or onpen and paper.
That was really the core themethat we heard from clinicians
and when I think about the kindof burden that adds to staff, it
(17:56):
really comes from how you seeclinicians, like spending
potentially 7am to 7pm, with anhour lunch break, in the clinic
doing hard, difficult,emotionally taxing clinical work
.
I mean, you guys know this morethan me.
I spent a couple of sessions asa BT and I don't know if I
could honestly do that Five,seven days a week for 50 weeks a
(18:20):
year.
Honestly, I don't know if Ipersonally have the emotional
muscle and stamina needed.
And then you ask them to dosession notes and figure out
your schedule and do sometexting of parents to make sure
that they know to get to theirsessions on time.
The next day and we talked toclinicians who were falling
asleep on their computers doingtheir session notes, who were
(18:43):
like quickly making dinner fortheir kiddos and then put the
kiddos in front of the TV andthen getting.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Was that Stephanie?
I did talk to Stephanie.
She's talking about fallingasleep on her computer.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty, it's not just Stephanie.
A lot of clinicians say that, ohyeah, I'm sure, and also not
something sustainable.
And having kind of watched andlistened to a lot of clinicians,
(19:15):
it's understandable why folksare leaving the field or
thinking about other optionsbesides direct clinical work,
are turning over, at the veryleast, from organizations to try
to find one that has less ofthis manual work, to try to find
one that has less of thismanual work.
(19:35):
And so I guess, when I thinkabout it from a technology
perspective, kind of what arethe challenges with existing
tools?
It's, I guess, that they addcomplexity.
In many ways it's almost likethe introduction of a new system
.
It adds a person who managesthat system right.
I saw a LinkedIn post fromsomeone who's starting an ABA
clinic who was saying hey, isthere anybody who's very well
(19:57):
versed in insert big competitorhere that can help me set it up
and train my staff?
And so it's almost like youbought a system and then now you
hire a person to manage thesystem that you just paid for
and then as you grow, you haveto incrementally grow the number
of people that uses that systemas your organization grows.
(20:18):
And I guess from the start ourthinking was how could we build
a tool that actually takes Lyftaway from agencies, away from
clinicians, instead of adding toit.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Man, I got to think.
People are on the edge rightnow wanting to hear right.
People are like, well, I wantyou.
This is great, right, I'mwanting to hear right.
So now let's go back, let'scontinue the story.
So you know, chris, I connectedyou guys with this right
Because we wanted to test it out, just like any good behaviorist
.
We want to test it out right,and I know you guys will be
authentic about it, right CauseI know, like you said, you're
(20:52):
still.
You know there was some kinksor whatever, and that's fine,
that's great.
But talk about the initialintroduction to Michael,
christina, and what you guysbegan doing at first, uh, just
some of the challenge with it,what you learned along the way
and where it's at right now.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah.
So I have absolutely lovedworking with Michael.
He loved working with Michael.
He's actually been joining ourexecutive level meetings and,
like my team loves him he is.
You know from my experience inthe past with other software
providers and you know you meetwith somebody and it's, I'll be
honest, I feel like there's beentimes I've had like a smoke and
(21:26):
mirror show.
You know they're selling yousomething and I get it.
You want to like make the salewhatever, but you know you're
selling you something and I getit.
You want to like make the salewhatever, but you know you're
kind of promised something andthen you go to use it and then
start using it or it's notworking the way that they said
it would.
And here's the deal.
That's going to happen too.
But what I love about Michaeland his business partner Bao,
(21:48):
they are so receptive to thefeedback.
I mean, paul, you know me, I'ma high energy person and I just
kind of like say whatever is onmy mind and sometimes I'm like
Michael, sorry, like you're veryauthentic.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I'm very authentic, yes, and you know, but they have
been so receptive.
So when we started meeting what?
What last Michael mentioned inthe beginning like or you did,
polly, but it started off asBCBAs right, and of course I
want to make my BCBAs jobseasier as well.
I'm not saying that my BCBAsdon't matter.
(22:20):
As far as you know, initialassessment interviews with
parents Of course we want tomake those shorter.
Insurance doesn't reimburse alot for that, especially when
you have state Medicaid.
A lot for that, especially whenyou have state Medicaid.
It's very little hours thatthese BCBAs get and then they're
expected to write thesedetailed reports that take so
long and you know.
(22:40):
So I want to make that responseeffort for them shorter, like
easier on them, but also givethem more time so that they're
actually getting those billablehours, which is everybody that
works in the field knows thatthat's like a buzzword.
Billable hours, which iseverybody that works in the
field knows that that's like abuzzword.
Billable hours how manybillable hours am I going to get
to complete this?
So that piece I loved.
(23:01):
And then the supervision AInote session and the parent
training.
Those are the three things,michael, right?
Yeah, those are the threethings we started off with Well.
So I had some BCBAs probe itout.
We proved it out with theinitial assessment.
It was great.
Um, it was funny because myBCBA Shauna said she's like,
honestly, like it would havebeen better.
(23:23):
I was like kind of in my headat first about it because, like
I'm like, okay, this isrecording me, remember, michael?
She was kind of likeoverthinking it, but she's like,
but I couldn't believe when itso.
So when you're doing the parentinterview, we all know parents
are overwhelmed.
Like you're going in, they'reoverwhelmed and I know at first
hand I was overwhelmed too.
(23:43):
But they they sometimes can getoff on topic where I mean,
here's the deal.
You want to build arelationship with these parents
when you're going in and doingthese initial interviews.
So there is going to be somekind of small talk and that's
very necessary in those initialinteractions.
So you're building thosepositive relationships rates,
(24:08):
exactly what you need for yourinitial assessment that
insurance is looking for.
And to further like that's justkind of that's just like their
regular template can do that.
But what's really cool about itis that Michael and Val can
further customize it to whatyour company's template is.
So it's going to take.
(24:30):
When we talk about responseeffort, that's even less
response effort because, paul,you know you said you use AI.
You have to shape AI, you know.
But this is almost shaping itfor you because you're talking,
you're interviewing the parentfor this initial assessment and
then it's spitting it out intothe sections of your initial
assessment template, which isvery cool because it's less time
(24:51):
of editing things.
And then, if you did need toreference the actual transcript
of, you know, the conversationwith the parent, it also records
the transcript as well.
So you do have the exactconversation that's happening on
top of what AI is formulatingfor you.
Polly, do you have anyquestions on that?
(25:12):
Because there's more.
I can keep going.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
No, keep.
Well, Michael, do you want tointerject anything from?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
what she?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
said so far.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I think this is a great description of a lot of
the things that we worked on,because Christina has been an
instrumental part in making someof these things happen,
especially the BT session notespiece, even making the templates
right, very well organizedMaybe.
Just like on your first commentaround, sometimes software is a
(25:40):
smoke and mirror show.
This is my biggest thing too,because when I ran a tutoring
company, I had to buy schedulingsoftware not sort of central
region EHR software, but stuffto get my tutors on time to
sessions, not sort of centralreach and EHR software, but
stuff to get my tutors on timeto sessions.
And it was so hard to actuallyfind technology because nobody
would actually let me try it outbefore I signed something that
(26:01):
committed me to X number ofmonths and when I went into this
new venture I didn't want to dothat anymore.
I just wanted to say, like, tryit for yourself and if you like
it, we can talk about how wecan make it better for your
organization.
If you, you know, let's notwaste any of our times, right,
that's totally okay, right, andso that's why we really believe
(26:22):
in show.
Don't tell, right, just go onthe website, try it out, let us
know how it is and we can worktogether.
Awesome, if not?
No, no sweat on either of ourbacks.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah, yeah, so the what I want to hop to.
So again, this is all great forbehavior analysts, right, and
that's what we initially metwith.
But I said to Michael, I said,listen, I need to make my RBTs
jobs as easy as possible.
Like you said, michael, youcan't imagine doing that job,
you know, and at the end of theday, behavior analysts do get a
(26:54):
break from the direct services.
It's not.
You know, and as I should.
We've worked very hard to getthere, you know, but the RBTs
deserve as much of a break as wecan give them to, and Polly
knows that.
You know I am a verycompassionate person by nature
and I just I care so deeplyabout my team and I know how
(27:14):
hard they work and I valueeverything they do each and
every day for our learners,everything they do each and
every day for our learners.
It really is incredible workthat's happening at my school,
you know in the other schoolsand you know homes, everything,
but the session notes is thebiggest thing that RBTs are
always like oh my gosh, my notes.
And any business owner in thisfield knows getting everybody to
(27:38):
get session notes done on timeis a total shaping process and
if you can lower that responseeffort for RBTs.
That to me is like major valueadded.
You know, it just really is.
Because now it is also a greatthing in interviewing to be able
to say, hey, you know, if youhave an existing RBT who's
(28:00):
worked other places, like, hey,we have this capability where
you can just rattle off whatyour session note was and, like
Michael said, he's taking oursession note template and
customizing it to the AI.
So it is just coming outexactly what our template is and
they just copy paste, boom,convert and central reach and
(28:21):
it's done.
So you know that's.
And, michael, I know that I'msure you're going to talk about
it is you know we're venturing,like talking further, michael,
is Bauer building out othercapabilities where potentially,
you know, down the road we couldnot have central reach and be
doing all the things thatcentral reach does in Alpaca,
(28:42):
and then there's not even goingto be the copy paste into
another software, whether youknow it's rethink whatever it is
that you're using.
You're just converting yournote, you talk in, it's done,
submit and you're done.
Right, michael, that'sbasically where your vision is,
with everything Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, done right michael, that's basically where
your vision is with everything,exactly, exactly, yeah, um, and,
and I guess on the bt piece, um, it really is like when you say
rattle off, it really is a btjust riffing about the session,
right, like they, they, theyintentionally, do not have to be
structured with it, they don'thave to think about what should
(29:22):
the first sentence be and howdoes this narrative flow.
They just like literally rattleoff.
Oh, the child seemed reallyangry today and our system will
recognize that you don't want toput angry in a session note,
since that is not objective.
You want to say theevidence-based facts.
So when the BT says oh well,you know, the kid cried multiple
(29:43):
times and even kicked me duringthe session, that's the
specific elements that you wantto add into a session note.
So in the same way that itknows what pieces to keep in a
parent training, it also canfigure out the pieces to take
out of a BT just rattling thingsoff.
And I think that's probably thebest way to have BTs operate
(30:04):
right, like BTs are not meant tobe highly trained, master's
levels, clinicians that know thedifference between subjective
and objective.
They're not trained to knowevery little piece of behavior
analytic vocabulary, like BCBAsare, and so why not give an
assistant to BTs so that theycan just do the work they love,
which is working with children,instead of thinking about how to
(30:27):
write those in a scientificfriendly, insurance-friendly
kind of way?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I think it's like the bowling alley, where the things
come down so you bowl, yourball doesn't go off into the
side lanes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like they need-.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, guardrails, they need guardrails.
I can't remember yeah they needguardrails.
I'm going to steal that For thebehavior?
Absolutely right, because wejust want them to get a strike.
You know we want them to interms of the performance and I
bet so I got to think thatanybody.
That's because I used to hatedoing notes when I was a
therapist.
God man, I dreaded that stuff.
I'd get backed up on them.
(31:01):
All this stuff Then you'retrying to recall it was
miserable.
I kind of think that any BT orBCBA that's been out there
that's been doing notes inanother organization comes to
your organization like oh, thisis kind of good, right.
So I have to think that's anice little perk to add to say
we know you care about thelearners, right.
We know you want to work withthem and we're doing our best to
(31:24):
minimize response effort here.
And guess what?
This isn't the only place.
This is what we always want todo.
We always want to make thingsyou know as practical and as
simple as possible for you.
Are you experiencing that,christina?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, and you know we definitely are.
And, paula, you know like Ilike to rule out change.
This is again something you youhelp me with slowly.
You know we, we are making surethat we're doing it in kind of
our little coaching cohorts.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
that we have.
Yeah, you test it out.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
And getting that feedback and then we're able to
give Michael about that feedback.
But on top of this whole idea,of course, we I care so much
about my team and lowering theresponse effort because, again,
that ties to so many more thingsthat you can give them another
task to do instead.
Whatever it is, but it's alsoas a CEO.
Insurance auditing can be ascary thing.
(32:15):
Like I'm a Paula, you know, I'msuch an ethical legal business
owner, I do everything by thebook, but it's still going to
make you like a little like, ohgoodness, I have an insurance
audit coming up.
And the thing for me that makesme nervous about an insurance
audit it's not about I.
I I'm not worried about fraud,I'm not worried about that.
That doesn't make me nervous,it's them.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
looking at the content of the notes finding an
error and then, like you know,hey, we got.
Yeah, that is a huge thing.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And here's the thing like you said, michael, rbts
aren't trained, they're notmaster level with the.
They don't understand all the.
You know behavior, analyticlingo and objective versus
subjective, and you're justtrying to get the learners to
get the outcomes that, likeyou're, it's hard to shape all
(33:04):
of that and you don't want tooverwhelm them.
So to know, as a business owner, that you, that they are using
a system that is going to ensurethat their session note is high
quality and everything thatinsurance company is looking for
because the insurance companiesdon't care about all these
little things of how hard it isfor them, and then that you know
(33:27):
they it's hard to trainsubjective versus objective.
They don't care.
They're going to say thiswasn't written properly, you owe
us back this money.
So that's a huge piece of ittoo when you look at it from,
you know, a CEO perspective aswell it too when you look at it
from, you know, a CEOperspective as well.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I that's.
I think what got me sointerested in note writing too
is, I think one of the firstconversations we had with an
agency owner.
He said he had a $300,000clawback from an insurance
company.
Oh, my goodness, because bt wascopy and copy and pasting.
yes, the same exact note,session after session after
session and literally notchanging anything and so stuff
(34:11):
like that happens when you don'thave folly to take the language
guardrails right to right, easefrom doing crazy stuff and and
obviously, like the, the BTshouldn't have done that.
But if you put yourself in theBT shoes, you've just come off a
four hours of a kid kicking,screaming, biting you and you're
stressed out and you're readyto cry and you just want to go
(34:32):
home and watch Netflix.
I, I don't think they shouldhave done that.
I don't think she had a copyand pasted session notes, but I
also can't blame them if thatmakes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Well, I mean, you really can't.
And now I would say this that agood system would have
prevented that from happening,you know, because we have to
have quality assurance, right.
But now here's the thing, again, that requires effort on
everybody's part, right.
And so now again you are takingbecause you only have X amount
of resources, and it's aboutwhere are you going to put those
(35:03):
resources?
Christina, you and I weretalking about and we're going to
go back, but we had a chat witha well-known person in the
field where we're talking aboutonboarding and doing simulations
and stuff like that, and theysaid well, we should hire actors
to play kids.
Well, that sounds reallywonderful to be able to do that.
Know, do you understand theresources that would be involved
(35:25):
in doing something like that?
And you have to work with theresource that you have, and so
in this case, certainly you cancheck the quality of notes on a
regular basis and prevent thatfrom occurring, but that comes
at a cost.
It's a resource and you shouldstill do it right, probably with
the ai, until you're certainthat things are good for a while
, but you still want to havemaintenance of it right To
reinforce, but I imagine thatreduces the response effort
(35:48):
across the board.
But, more importantly, thatperson that's doing that can now
focus on coaching, you know, oryou know doing their own
clinical you know stuff.
So yeah, I could just just justso many benefits of doing this
kind of stuff.
And that's just to me, just oneexample of how, you know,
reducing response effort hasthis kind of, you know, ripple
(36:08):
effect.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, yeah, I guess like here's how we've seen
organizations solve the problembefore us or without us, right
To your point one there'susually hiring a human quality
assurance, BCBA, and that's veryexpensive and that's all
non-billable.
Or it's them doing monthlytrainings to BTs about how
session notes work and sayingthe same thing over and over
(36:32):
again and nagging people, andthat's not good for team morale,
it's not a good use of yourtime, it's also not that
effective and so sort of like.
The third option, the one thatwe're trying to build, is just
get session notes right in theget-go.
If you need to change yoursession notes, what goes into
the notes, what goes into eachparagraph, what goes into each
checkbox you just tell one place, tell Alpaca Assistant, and
(36:55):
that has the change implementedthroughout the entire
organization.
So instead of oh, I have to adda new paragraph, you have to
sit down every BT and tell themabout this new paragraph and
what goes in this new paragraphand what's the definition of
quality when writing for thisnew field in the session note,
instead of having to do all ofthat change management to get
your note to a new place that anew payer needs to get to or you
(37:18):
that you need to get to for anew contract.
You just tell alpaca assistant.
One time in one place.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Okay, but this is beautiful, I think, all right.
So tell me a little bit, whatare your, what are your next
steps?
Right With this and like cause,let's just start to wrap this
up here and then I'm going tolet you.
You know, both you guys justtalk about how folks can reach
out to you and stuff, becauseyou're both great and I got to
say, if you've heard me, Ialways talk about how great
(37:48):
Christine is.
Michael, I'm hearing from bothyou and Stephanie Walden.
They both said the same thingseparately about you, about the
quality of your person, and so,once again, folks that are
listening to this, I have no tieinto this.
I'm not making any moneyMichael's not sponsoring me,
right but I see something thathas potential to help
organizations and you know I I'mexcited about the potential for
(38:11):
this and we're starting to seeit.
So go ahead.
You know, what do you guysthink the next steps are and
where do you see things in?
You know, a month or two.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, so Michael has already started to kind of
review other things that they'reworking on.
The next thing that me as abusiness owner and planning to
take on is intake, and they haveAI, has a system that calls for
you, answers the phone.
I don't even understand thedepths when it comes to
insurance, but like you thinkabout when you have like
(38:43):
somebody in the office callinginsurance, you're on hold for a
really long time, you'retransferred a bunch of times and
they're building out a systemfor that, which I think is
really cool.
It's funny because when Michaelshowed it us, the intake stuff,
I was like again me beinghonest, I'm like well, michael,
you know I get really annoyedwhen I get a bot that answers
(39:04):
the phone.
I like I start yelling at thebot sometimes and everything,
but then at the same time I'mlike but you have to look at
things from a scalingperspective and like you can't,
it doesn't mean that a parent isnever going to be able to talk
to a human and and that was whatwe talked through is like the
system can have where you knowif you can flag that the parent
(39:27):
really wants to talk to a human,then you call that parent, but
it helps like if it is a phonecall that doesn't necessarily
need a human to be on.
It takes all the information foryou in that intake process,
because intake is when you do itright and you're, you know,
getting everything you need.
It can be a back and forththing for a while with families.
(39:47):
There's a lot of documentationthat's needed to get ABA
services going.
So I think that that piece ofit is great and, michael, you go
ahead and talk on, because Ihave a contract right now with
the software company that I'mbound to.
So we're like we're going tobasically be very systematic in
how we bring on things and, plus, michael's still building
(40:07):
things, and that is what I loveabout him and Val.
They are very transparent aboutwhere they're at in the process
.
They're not trying to bring onagencies and have them be their
guinea pigs.
They are like test this first,give us feedback, and they're
shaping it and taking all thefeedback as as we go with it.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Michael.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Exactly, yeah.
So that's a great descriptionof intake is, instead of waiting
on insurance or trying to pingparents who never get back to
you, let alpaca assistant do itfor you.
Trying to ping parents whonever get back to you, let
Alpaca Assistant do it for you.
Scheduling we are working on ascheduling optimizer so instead
of you spending the first twohours of your Sunday planning
(40:51):
the next week's schedules, letAlpaca Assistant do it for you.
We will input your staffschedules, your block schedule,
their availability, clientsavailability and shift around
schedules.
And if there's any last minutechanges like a cancellation
comes up, a BT call out comes up, we'll automatically send the
(41:13):
messages to the right people ifwe can't get another BT to staff
that shift otherwise.
And so all this sort of manualpuzzle piecing that it seems
like right now it's master'slevel BCBAs who train to be
clinicians doing we want ouralpaca assistant to do.
And the last piece of the puzzleis kind of bringing everything
together and actually billinginsurance.
So submitting claims, doingdenial management, all things
(41:37):
that we can do more efficientlywith our technology than you
know, like one person who'salready stressed out doing a
bunch of things can dothemselves.
So really the vision is to bethe back office partner, the
admin partner for growing ABAclinics is you want to grow your
(42:01):
team, you want to serve moreclients and families, you want
to open that new location,expand into that next state.
You know to do that you have tohire your scheduler, your
intake person, you have to thinkabout the processes to bring
new people on, and we just wantto be the partner that says, hey
, no, let us handle that withyou so that you can focus on, I
(42:24):
think, what really matters,which is how do we deliver the
best, highest quality clinicalservices to the most vulnerable
families and kids?
Speaker 2 (42:32):
But this is awesome and this is exciting and how
would, how would, and we'll makesure we drop this in the
description for anybody.
But how would folks reach outto you best?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah, so my name is Michael Gao GAO.
I'm very active on LinkedInmaybe too active, so connect
with me there.
Or you can go to our website,alpacahealthio alpacahealthio,
and if you search alpacahealthABA, we should be the first ones
on Google too.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Christina.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, so I know I listed out like a bunch of
different organizations.
We have one landing page forthem.
It's iqrgroupflcom, whichstands for values, inclusion,
quality and respect, so you cango there and you can choose
which organization you'reinterested in learning more
about.
There's an email to contact.
If you do want to contact medirectly, you can find me on
(43:27):
LinkedIn.
I'm also on Instagram andFacebook, so are all my
organizations.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
And Christina has her own podcast too.
Just drop.
Yeah, Talk about your podcast.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I have a podcast.
It's sometimes I talk aboutleadership stuff and autism
because it's I.
This is what I say to people.
All things Christina Morales.
I am very, very big intopersonal growth and healing and
the podcast is called KnowYourself to Grow Yourself.
You can find me on Instagramand if you want to listen in,
(43:58):
you can find me on Apple andSpotify.
So, and my son, vinny, has beencoming on and doing episodes,
so for anybody, I know I've hadfamily, other autism moms that
have really enjoyed listening tothose episodes.
So definitely share it as aresource to other families and
everything.
He's such a great kid.
(44:19):
I may be biased, but he's agreat kid.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
He's the best.
I love Vinny.
Shout out to Vinny.
All right guys, thanks forcoming on and sharing your
experiences with us.
Maybe we'll have you back on.
I'm going to have a new seasonof this podcast is going to be
about leadership, but certainlythis all ties in leadership.
If your life's being suckedaway from doing this stuff, how
(44:44):
are you going to be a leader,right?
So maybe we'll have you back onin a few months just to see how
things are going.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So thank you, guys, and you guys have a great day.
Okay, thanks for having us.
Welcome to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist Show hosted by WallStreet Journal and USA Today,
best-selling author, Dr Pauly.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right, welcome back to the Thoughts and Rants
of a Behavior Scientist Show.
I am your host, dr Pauly, and Iam here with a couple of very
cool persons.
One of them is a very goodfriend of mine, christina
Morales, and the other one is anewly emerging friend.
I guess, michael, we'll seewhat happens with this.
Michael Gao, all right, so Iwant to talk a little bit about
how we came to have thisparticular show.
(00:32):
Michael Gao is a softwaredeveloper, right?
Am I right in saying that,Michael?
That's right.
Yeah.
And he reached out to me saying, hey, I would love to get on
the podcast to talk about thesoftware I have.
Right, I'm not trying to pushpeople into software unless,
unless I think it's going to addvalue Right, Because you guys
know me and I want to add valuein the world.
(00:52):
And what he told me was thatthere's a platform that can help
BCBAs to take and organizetheir notes.
Correct, am I saying that?
Yeah, and is it also for RBTsor just BCBAs at this point?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, with Christina, we developed a BT session of
features.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Amazing, wonderful, okay.
So when he came to me, I saidwell, you know what I don't want
to.
I don't know about it, you know, but let's test it.
I've got a good friend, youknow somebody.
I did some consulting withChristina, alice and I want to
find out if it works right andhow it goes.
So let's pile it, let's test it, and so we did, and so we're
(01:29):
going to talk a little bit aboutwhat happened here with this.
Right, we're going to talkabout, you know, maybe some
kinks with it and you know, andwhat some of the outcomes are
with it.
But I thought that, besidesmaking it just about the
software, I want to talk alittle bit about behavior,
analytic organizations and someof the challenges that have
occurred and what we need to doto scale things.
I know one of the things thatwe need to do and, christine,
(01:49):
you're in the middle of scalingthings right now is we've got to
make shit easy for people.
We can't keep putting stuff onpeople's back.
Right Now, we have technologythat can really make things
easier so we can focus on thethings that are really important
.
I use AI all the time.
Right, I use it with my writingall the time People are like
you shouldn't do this.
I note it on.
(02:10):
I'm like are you kidding me?
It's like mixing the paint forme.
So now I can focus on what'sreally important sequencing my
stuff and telling a story that'simportant to engage them.
Right, and I'm not embarrassedabout it.
I've written books for yearswithout any of that stuff.
Now I can like wow, I canreally get into some really
important details with it.
So I find it very useful and Ithink we really need to embrace
(02:30):
AI as we move forward and thinkabout how we can make things
better for our learners, betterfor our employees and such and
such.
So, christina, just give alittle introduction to yourself,
right?
And, of course, your company,right, and then we'll let
Michael just introduce yourselfand your company.
And then we'll let Michael justintroduce yourself and your
company and then we'll dive intosome of the challenges that are
going on organizations rightnow yeah, so I am the founder
and CEO of the IQR group, whichconsists of several
(02:54):
organizations all centeredaround providing services to
individuals with disabilities.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
We have, piece of the puzzle, behavior analysis,
which is what Ali came in andconsulted with me on.
It's's, you know, obviouslyproviding that ABA services and
the community homes, schools.
And then I like kind of sawthis gap in the education system
and I opened a school that'sindividualized education for
individuals with disabilitiesand we have a preschool and
(03:21):
elementary program Disabilitiesand we have a preschool and
elementary program.
And I have a teen group calledPACE stands for Prepare, achieve
, create and Evolve and that isa life and social skills group.
Right now it's a smallafter-school program.
I do have big plans for that,but one thing at a time.
And then I also have a nonprofitorganization called Believe and
(03:42):
Achieve and really my missionwith Believe and Achieve is to
create more inclusion,acceptance and awareness in the
community and just allow thesefamilies to be able to access
more things for their, for theirkids and for them, because I am
also an autism mom and abehavior analyst and you know,
(04:02):
as an autism mom with my son wasyounger, he's now 17.
I isolated a lot and it was ascary thing Like and I know what
these parents are going throughwhen they're first experiencing
, you know, hearing from adoctor that their child has
autism, and doctors,unfortunately, are still saying
to parents that their child maynever talk, they could be
(04:25):
institutionalized, and it's sad,it's scary.
As a parent, it changes yourwhole world in the blink of an
eye.
And so, you know, with thenonprofit, it's really allowing
me to channel that side of mypassion when it comes to this
field and be able to providemore extracurricular activities
(04:45):
to families with the support ofhaving ABA therapists come in,
so when these learners are goinginto these new environments,
they're set up for success.
And we also have I'm doing likea whole family support side of
it as well, where I'm doingcoffee meetups where parents can
pick my brain, share wins.
You know, like we just need tobe able to share that.
(05:05):
And I plan to do some parentsupport like training, virtual,
so more families can access thatsupport because, as we all know
, wait lists are very long.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and let me say this about Christina, that she
is a very authentic and valuedperson and she reached out to me
many years ago about gettingleadership training for herself
and for people in there, andthis is where I got to connect
with her.
I'm like, wow, I wish more CEOsin an organization had this
kind of value, because I feellike when that value is in place
(05:40):
, when you care about the people, because we're going to bring
out the best in learners If youguys have heard me say this a
bunch you got to bring out thebest in employees.
And she really wanted to createa culture like this and she was
very reflective on her ownbehavior because, as we all know
, it's not about intent, it'sabout impact.
And so Anika Costa and I camein and started doing some work
(06:01):
with her and man, her and herteam would take and she has a
wonderful, amazing leadershipteam and I love these ladies Um,
they would, we would meet andwe'd go over some stuff and they
would just take the ball andthey'd run with it and they'd
come back with stuff.
I'm like, oh my gosh, it'd belike you know, like I can
imagine, like a doctor, right,but writing, you know, giving
some sort of plan to a patientand the patient just coming back
(06:22):
and just going way above andbeyond with everything.
You're like, oh my gosh man,you just want to keep treating
them, you know, because it's sogreat to see progress happen and
see outcomes happening.
So it's been really wonderfuland I think we'll get into a
little bit of that journey injust a bit.
So.
But, michael, now, if you cankind of, you know, talk a little
bit about yourself and how youcame into what you're doing and
how you connected it with thefield of behavior analysis.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
My background was in education.
Before this, I started anonline tutoring organization.
We worked with all kinds ofstudents, but it became pretty
obvious that kiddos with specialneeds in pull-out programs had
the most needs that weren'tbeing fulfilled by the school
system in many cases today.
(07:06):
And so earlier this year, dug alittle bit deeper, learned more
on the clinical side of ABA,went to ABAI and met a whole
bunch of clinicians where itseemed like when I asked them
what they didn't like to do intheir weeks, the biggest thing
they said was some form ofdocumentation, whether it's
writing session notes, whetherit's reviewing BT session notes,
writing treatment plans,retreatment plans and all that
(07:30):
not so fun stuff of behavioranalyst jobs.
And so I studied computerscience in school, thought there
were some interesting toolsthat we could create, really
with the mission to helpclinicians do clinical work
period Like it sounds incrediblyobvious that you went to a two
years master's program youshould do the work that you went
to the master's program for,but that doesn't seem to be
(07:50):
happening in the field todaybecause of all these insurance
requirements that we hope toalleviate using technology.
And so now we work with mostlysmaller scale-ups in the ABA
world.
Organizations were just gettingstarted.
Organizations were on the vergeof growth, ready to open.
The second, the third, thefourth location to think about
(08:13):
how you can use new technologieslike AI to make things easier
for your team, your parents,your clients and really set them
up for the next phase of growth.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I've got your perfect hashtag, Just hashtag.
We make shit easier.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Honestly.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, that is the whole point.
Man who doesn't want their jobto be easier, you know.
So you can really focus onwhat's important, especially
taking care of some of thosethings oh gosh, man, there's.
You know, we come into thefield of human services because
we really want to help peopleand there's these things that we
just don't want to have to do,but we have to because it's part
of the deal, and so if we canmake those things as easy as
(09:00):
possible in a way that doesn'tcompromise the integrity of the
treatment that we're providingin fact, that enhances it
because we can put more time tothat I think that's amazing.
So, christina, I want to shiftback to you now, and because I
know that you know you had somestruggles and your struggles are
very common, right inorganizations, and I like to
call it, when we don't have goodsystems.
I believe that the two keycomponents in organizations are
(09:22):
systems, leadership, right, andif you, you can't have one
without the other, uh and butyou did have.
What you did have were people,including yourself, with high
values.
So so you had strong will,right, and I believe, higher
will over skill.
That's really important becausewe can embed the skill and we
can help develop the systems.
But without a system it's likeagain people are outgrowing
(09:42):
their drawers, they just get toobig and you can't scale.
So talk a little bit about someof the struggles that you've
had before.
I don't want to provide thesolutions yet.
Just say what you were doingright and what was occurring as
a result of that right, what youwere intending to do, what was
occurring, and then we'll get towhat we really need to do to
make those things better.
(10:03):
As you're doing it, talk alittle bit about even the
technology side of it right, howthings were kind of screwed up,
because then we can kind ofhand it back over to michael in
a little bit to find out, likeyou know, what he's seen in
companies and how thesesolutions can make a difference
yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
So when I started piece of the puzzle I was the
only bcba in the company so Iwas doing all the direct
services, getting credentialingdone, doing all the billing, all
the intake.
Like I look back and I'm likenot sure I did that, but I
figured it out and made ithappen and I really, as I
(10:39):
continued to grow, I realized Ican't keep providing direct
services if I'm going to scaleand grow, and that happens very
quickly.
And I think that when BCBEshave this idea to start their
own organization, they all havegood intent, right Like.
They maybe see that I want todo things differently than what
I'm experiencing, whatever it is, but they don't realize how
(11:02):
quickly you will grow in thatyou can no longer be the one
providing the direct services.
We were small, I had greatculture, I was the only leader
really and I started buildingthat is anybody that is a CEO
knows you have to have a verystrong lie and purpose in your
(11:37):
organization and I really lostsight of that and that was when
things just started to fallapart.
Honestly, they really did.
My culture started to get toxicand I Polly knows like I freely
talk about all the like cringythings that were.
And, polly, you've said itbefore and I it's such a good
(11:59):
like metaphor of like, when youstart to feel this spiral on
your team leaders often getlouder and, you know, get more
like stern, and they think thatthat's going to change the
behavior.
Well, like, maybe I'm being toonice, so I need to get louder
and get more, put morepunishment in place and all this
.
Well, all that does people justexit your company and go
(12:21):
elsewhere.
So you know, as, as far as thetechnology side of it goes, like
let's tie that in it.
It is so important to have.
That's all part of systems,right?
So if you don't have goodtechnology that is making your
systems flow, response effortcan be very high.
Nothing is automated, so it's alot of manual which is going to
(12:45):
lead to a lot of errors,because at the end of the day,
you're human and nobody is goingto be programmed to never make
errors.
So that was definitely a hugelearning curve and one that
we're still truly honestly,still working through, and why
I've really enjoyed starting towork with Michael, because we do
(13:06):
need to automate more andstreamline, because that's all
going to lower response effortand, like you said, polly, to me
before, like this is one of thebiggest things that you said
when you started consulting withme is like you have to remember
when you give somebody a newtask, you need to figure out how
to offload something, and whenyou have good technologies and
(13:28):
systems, then you're going tojust automatically be able to
kind of take that workload offof them.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, and what you I mean what you experienced is so
common.
There's a, there's a bookcalled the e-myth.
It's the entrepreneurial myth,and that is you can be like an
amazing clinician, right, andyou want to make you're like,
you know what I want to make adifference at scale.
And you know I want to have myown organization.
So we get some people to go.
But just because you're goodclinician doesn't mean you have
the skills to be an entrepreneur.
(13:56):
It doesn't mean you can't gainthem right.
But a lot of people thinkbecause they're good at this,
they're going to be good at thator they can just do it right,
but it requires skills.
It's a completely differentskill set, as you've learned,
and that's why you've gottenthese pieces of the puzzle to
put in.
And I think the other piece ofit and my listeners have heard
me say this before and, ofcourse, christina, you have is
the importance of having a goodsystem that's easy to navigate,
(14:18):
that cannot be complex, becausecomplexity is an enemy of
execution, sustainability andscalability.
So it's got to be very simple.
And, just for anybody listening, remember that every time you
drive in the roads that you'regetting to work on, this is a
system that guides your behavior, brings your behavior for our
behavior analysts generates rule.
(14:38):
Government behavior brings yourbehavior.
Understand this control.
Essentially, it tells yourbehavior what to do.
Nobody has to come out thereand manage it right.
So it helps to maintainbehavior and there's
contingencies in place that keepyour behavior going in the
right direction and there's lotsof reinforcement because you're
getting to the places safelyand effectively and efficiently
and all this stuff.
But there's also corrections inplace and a good system is
going to leverage positivereinforcement for value-added
(15:02):
behavior.
And, christina, I know you guystook a lot of time and effort to
build your system on values.
It's what I know, anika, and Igot you guys going on it and you
took the ball and ran with itright and real value.
You took your values and youunpacked it that way, right.
And what were your three values?
Again, I know it was aInclusion, quality and respect
(15:24):
Right.
Inclusion, quality and respectright.
And so I think that clearly tome that you can.
The quality piece of it we havethings that make it easier to
automate in this area.
It allows us to focus more onthe quality of aspects of it.
So we'll talk about how likethese values are that they're
(15:44):
functional response classes,right, they're like buckets, as
Anik like to say that we putbehaviors in, and I love that.
And so I think that you know, byby by, looking to reduce effort
on people, because that's ahuge thing the more effort goes
up, the more positivereinforcement you need to have.
Right, if you don't have enoughpositive reinforcement to match
the effort, you're going to getescape behavior.
(16:05):
And now escape behavior mightnot mean immediately quitting
the job, which we have a hugeissue with people leaving the
job and immediately quitting thejob, which we have a huge issue
with people leaving the job.
And, christina, you recentlyshared with me that your
retention is up and I love thatso much, because we can't help
the learners if we don't supportour employees and if there's a
constant cycle of turnaround.
(16:25):
That's not good for anybody,including you as a CEO.
So I know that with a goodsystem where response effort is
minimized and there's, you know,good positive reinforcement for
these value-added behaviors,because you've unpacked it
across the performance chain, aswe did and worked with you on
it that makes a big, bigdifference, huge, yes.
So, michael, why don't you comeon over here and just talk a
(16:47):
little bit.
Come on over here, man, talk alittle bit about like I.
You know you did this and Ithink I'm pretty sure that what
I said must resonate with you,because you probably saw there's
a lot of problems out there.
First, talk about some of theproblems that you've seen out
there an organization thatyou've experienced, right,
because that gives us the reasonwhy you wanted to solve this
problem and, uh, kind of what,what your software does to solve
(17:09):
that yeah, when we werebuilding alpaca health, we still
were building Alpaca Health.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
we still are building Alpaca Health.
There's a lot more to do.
We've spoken to at this pointprobably over 100, 120 BCBAs
about what their days look like,what their weeks look like,
what they like most about theirjobs, what they liked least out
of their jobs and a lot of thisconversation of it's very human.
It's very manual.
(17:35):
The systems aren't there.
I have technology but I'msomehow still doing stuff in
spreadsheets or manually or onpen and paper.
That was really the core themethat we heard from clinicians
and when I think about the kindof burden that adds to staff, it
(17:56):
really comes from how you seeclinicians, like spending
potentially 7am to 7pm, with anhour lunch break, in the clinic
doing hard, difficult,emotionally taxing clinical work
.
I mean, you guys know this morethan me.
I spent a couple of sessions asa BT and I don't know if I
could honestly do that Five,seven days a week for 50 weeks a
(18:20):
year.
Honestly, I don't know if Ipersonally have the emotional
muscle and stamina needed.
And then you ask them to dosession notes and figure out
your schedule and do sometexting of parents to make sure
that they know to get to theirsessions on time.
The next day and we talked toclinicians who were falling
asleep on their computers doingtheir session notes, who were
(18:43):
like quickly making dinner fortheir kiddos and then put the
kiddos in front of the TV andthen getting.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Was that Stephanie?
I did talk to Stephanie.
She's talking about fallingasleep on her computer.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty, it's not just Stephanie.
A lot of clinicians say that, ohyeah, I'm sure, and also not
something sustainable.
And having kind of watched andlistened to a lot of clinicians,
(19:15):
it's understandable why folksare leaving the field or
thinking about other optionsbesides direct clinical work,
are turning over, at the veryleast, from organizations to try
to find one that has less ofthis manual work, to try to find
one that has less of thismanual work.
(19:35):
And so I guess, when I thinkabout it from a technology
perspective, kind of what arethe challenges with existing
tools?
It's, I guess, that they addcomplexity.
In many ways it's almost likethe introduction of a new system
.
It adds a person who managesthat system right.
I saw a LinkedIn post fromsomeone who's starting an ABA
clinic who was saying hey, isthere anybody who's very well
(19:57):
versed in insert big competitorhere that can help me set it up
and train my staff?
And so it's almost like youbought a system and then now you
hire a person to manage thesystem that you just paid for
and then as you grow, you haveto incrementally grow the number
of people that uses that systemas your organization grows.
(20:18):
And I guess from the start ourthinking was how could we build
a tool that actually takes Lyftaway from agencies, away from
clinicians, instead of adding toit.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Man, I got to think.
People are on the edge rightnow wanting to hear right.
People are like, well, I wantyou.
This is great, right, I'mwanting to hear right.
So now let's go back, let'scontinue the story.
So you know, chris, I connectedyou guys with this right
Because we wanted to test it out, just like any good behaviorist
.
We want to test it out right,and I know you guys will be
authentic about it, right CauseI know, like you said, you're
(20:52):
still.
You know there was some kinksor whatever, and that's fine,
that's great.
But talk about the initialintroduction to Michael,
christina, and what you guysbegan doing at first, uh, just
some of the challenge with it,what you learned along the way
and where it's at right now.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah.
So I have absolutely lovedworking with Michael.
He loved working with Michael.
He's actually been joining ourexecutive level meetings and,
like my team loves him he is.
You know from my experience inthe past with other software
providers and you know you meetwith somebody and it's, I'll be
honest, I feel like there's beentimes I've had like a smoke and
(21:26):
mirror show.
You know they're selling yousomething and I get it.
You want to like make the salewhatever, but you know you're
selling you something and I getit.
You want to like make the salewhatever, but you know you're
kind of promised something andthen you go to use it and then
start using it or it's notworking the way that they said
it would.
And here's the deal.
That's going to happen too.
But what I love about Michaeland his business partner Bao,
(21:48):
they are so receptive to thefeedback.
I mean, paul, you know me, I'ma high energy person and I just
kind of like say whatever is onmy mind and sometimes I'm like
Michael, sorry, like you're veryauthentic.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I'm very authentic, yes, and you know, but they have
been so receptive.
So when we started meeting what?
What last Michael mentioned inthe beginning like or you did,
polly, but it started off asBCBAs right, and of course I
want to make my BCBAs jobseasier as well.
I'm not saying that my BCBAsdon't matter.
(22:20):
As far as you know, initialassessment interviews with
parents Of course we want tomake those shorter.
Insurance doesn't reimburse alot for that, especially when
you have state Medicaid.
A lot for that, especially whenyou have state Medicaid.
It's very little hours thatthese BCBAs get and then they're
expected to write thesedetailed reports that take so
long and you know.
(22:40):
So I want to make that responseeffort for them shorter, like
easier on them, but also givethem more time so that they're
actually getting those billablehours, which is everybody that
works in the field knows thatthat's like a buzzword.
Billable hours, which iseverybody that works in the
field knows that that's like abuzzword.
Billable hours how manybillable hours am I going to get
to complete this?
So that piece I loved.
(23:01):
And then the supervision AInote session and the parent
training.
Those are the three things,michael, right?
Yeah, those are the threethings we started off with Well.
So I had some BCBAs probe itout.
We proved it out with theinitial assessment.
It was great.
Um, it was funny because myBCBA Shauna said she's like,
honestly, like it would havebeen better.
(23:23):
I was like kind of in my headat first about it because, like
I'm like, okay, this isrecording me, remember, michael?
She was kind of likeoverthinking it, but she's like,
but I couldn't believe when itso.
So when you're doing the parentinterview, we all know parents
are overwhelmed.
Like you're going in, they'reoverwhelmed and I know at first
hand I was overwhelmed too.
(23:43):
But they they sometimes can getoff on topic where I mean,
here's the deal.
You want to build arelationship with these parents
when you're going in and doingthese initial interviews.
So there is going to be somekind of small talk and that's
very necessary in those initialinteractions.
So you're building thosepositive relationships rates,
(24:08):
exactly what you need for yourinitial assessment that
insurance is looking for.
And to further like that's justkind of that's just like their
regular template can do that.
But what's really cool about itis that Michael and Val can
further customize it to whatyour company's template is.
So it's going to take.
(24:30):
When we talk about responseeffort, that's even less
response effort because, paul,you know you said you use AI.
You have to shape AI, you know.
But this is almost shaping itfor you because you're talking,
you're interviewing the parentfor this initial assessment and
then it's spitting it out intothe sections of your initial
assessment template, which isvery cool because it's less time
(24:51):
of editing things.
And then, if you did need toreference the actual transcript
of, you know, the conversationwith the parent, it also records
the transcript as well.
So you do have the exactconversation that's happening on
top of what AI is formulatingfor you.
Polly, do you have anyquestions on that?
(25:12):
Because there's more.
I can keep going.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
No, keep.
Well, Michael, do you want tointerject anything from?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
what she?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
said so far.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I think this is a great description of a lot of
the things that we worked on,because Christina has been an
instrumental part in making someof these things happen,
especially the BT session notespiece, even making the templates
right, very well organizedMaybe.
Just like on your first commentaround, sometimes software is a
(25:40):
smoke and mirror show.
This is my biggest thing too,because when I ran a tutoring
company, I had to buy schedulingsoftware not sort of central
region EHR software, but stuffto get my tutors on time to
sessions, not sort of centralreach and EHR software, but
stuff to get my tutors on timeto sessions.
And it was so hard to actuallyfind technology because nobody
would actually let me try it outbefore I signed something that
(26:01):
committed me to X number ofmonths and when I went into this
new venture I didn't want to dothat anymore.
I just wanted to say, like, tryit for yourself and if you like
it, we can talk about how wecan make it better for your
organization.
If you, you know, let's notwaste any of our times, right,
that's totally okay, right, andso that's why we really believe
(26:22):
in show.
Don't tell, right, just go onthe website, try it out, let us
know how it is and we can worktogether.
Awesome, if not?
No, no sweat on either of ourbacks.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah, yeah, so the what I want to hop to.
So again, this is all great forbehavior analysts, right, and
that's what we initially metwith.
But I said to Michael, I said,listen, I need to make my RBTs
jobs as easy as possible.
Like you said, michael, youcan't imagine doing that job,
you know, and at the end of theday, behavior analysts do get a
(26:54):
break from the direct services.
It's not.
You know, and as I should.
We've worked very hard to getthere, you know, but the RBTs
deserve as much of a break as wecan give them to, and Polly
knows that.
You know I am a verycompassionate person by nature
and I just I care so deeplyabout my team and I know how
(27:14):
hard they work and I valueeverything they do each and
every day for our learners,everything they do each and
every day for our learners.
It really is incredible workthat's happening at my school,
you know in the other schoolsand you know homes, everything,
but the session notes is thebiggest thing that RBTs are
always like oh my gosh, my notes.
And any business owner in thisfield knows getting everybody to
(27:38):
get session notes done on timeis a total shaping process and
if you can lower that responseeffort for RBTs.
That to me is like major valueadded.
You know, it just really is.
Because now it is also a greatthing in interviewing to be able
to say, hey, you know, if youhave an existing RBT who's
(28:00):
worked other places, like, hey,we have this capability where
you can just rattle off whatyour session note was and, like
Michael said, he's taking oursession note template and
customizing it to the AI.
So it is just coming outexactly what our template is and
they just copy paste, boom,convert and central reach and
(28:21):
it's done.
So you know that's.
And, michael, I know that I'msure you're going to talk about
it is you know we're venturing,like talking further, michael,
is Bauer building out othercapabilities where potentially,
you know, down the road we couldnot have central reach and be
doing all the things thatcentral reach does in Alpaca,
(28:42):
and then there's not even goingto be the copy paste into
another software, whether youknow it's rethink whatever it is
that you're using.
You're just converting yournote, you talk in, it's done,
submit and you're done.
Right, michael, that'sbasically where your vision is,
with everything Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, done right michael, that's basically where
your vision is with everything,exactly, exactly, yeah, um, and,
and I guess on the bt piece, um, it really is like when you say
rattle off, it really is a btjust riffing about the session,
right, like they, they, theyintentionally, do not have to be
structured with it, they don'thave to think about what should
(29:22):
the first sentence be and howdoes this narrative flow.
They just like literally rattleoff.
Oh, the child seemed reallyangry today and our system will
recognize that you don't want toput angry in a session note,
since that is not objective.
You want to say theevidence-based facts.
So when the BT says oh well,you know, the kid cried multiple
(29:43):
times and even kicked me duringthe session, that's the
specific elements that you wantto add into a session note.
So in the same way that itknows what pieces to keep in a
parent training, it also canfigure out the pieces to take
out of a BT just rattling thingsoff.
And I think that's probably thebest way to have BTs operate
(30:04):
right, like BTs are not meant tobe highly trained, master's
levels, clinicians that know thedifference between subjective
and objective.
They're not trained to knowevery little piece of behavior
analytic vocabulary, like BCBAsare, and so why not give an
assistant to BTs so that theycan just do the work they love,
which is working with children,instead of thinking about how to
(30:27):
write those in a scientificfriendly, insurance-friendly
kind of way?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I think it's like the bowling alley, where the things
come down so you bowl, yourball doesn't go off into the
side lanes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like they need-.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, guardrails, they need guardrails.
I can't remember yeah they needguardrails.
I'm going to steal that For thebehavior?
Absolutely right, because wejust want them to get a strike.
You know we want them to interms of the performance and I
bet so I got to think thatanybody.
That's because I used to hatedoing notes when I was a
therapist.
God man, I dreaded that stuff.
I'd get backed up on them.
(31:01):
All this stuff Then you'retrying to recall it was
miserable.
I kind of think that any BT orBCBA that's been out there
that's been doing notes inanother organization comes to
your organization like oh, thisis kind of good, right.
So I have to think that's anice little perk to add to say
we know you care about thelearners, right.
We know you want to work withthem and we're doing our best to
(31:24):
minimize response effort here.
And guess what?
This isn't the only place.
This is what we always want todo.
We always want to make thingsyou know as practical and as
simple as possible for you.
Are you experiencing that,christina?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, and you know we definitely are.
And, paula, you know like Ilike to rule out change.
This is again something you youhelp me with slowly.
You know we, we are making surethat we're doing it in kind of
our little coaching cohorts.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
that we have.
Yeah, you test it out.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
And getting that feedback and then we're able to
give Michael about that feedback.
But on top of this whole idea,of course, we I care so much
about my team and lowering theresponse effort because, again,
that ties to so many more thingsthat you can give them another
task to do instead.
Whatever it is, but it's alsoas a CEO.
Insurance auditing can be ascary thing.
(32:15):
Like I'm a Paula, you know, I'msuch an ethical legal business
owner, I do everything by thebook, but it's still going to
make you like a little like, ohgoodness, I have an insurance
audit coming up.
And the thing for me that makesme nervous about an insurance
audit it's not about I.
I I'm not worried about fraud,I'm not worried about that.
That doesn't make me nervous,it's them.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
looking at the content of the notes finding an
error and then, like you know,hey, we got.
Yeah, that is a huge thing.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And here's the thing like you said, michael, rbts
aren't trained, they're notmaster level with the.
They don't understand all the.
You know behavior, analyticlingo and objective versus
subjective, and you're justtrying to get the learners to
get the outcomes that, likeyou're, it's hard to shape all
(33:04):
of that and you don't want tooverwhelm them.
So to know, as a business owner, that you, that they are using
a system that is going to ensurethat their session note is high
quality and everything thatinsurance company is looking for
because the insurance companiesdon't care about all these
little things of how hard it isfor them, and then that you know
(33:27):
they it's hard to trainsubjective versus objective.
They don't care.
They're going to say thiswasn't written properly, you owe
us back this money.
So that's a huge piece of ittoo when you look at it from,
you know, a CEO perspective aswell it too when you look at it
from, you know, a CEOperspective as well.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I that's.
I think what got me sointerested in note writing too
is, I think one of the firstconversations we had with an
agency owner.
He said he had a $300,000clawback from an insurance
company.
Oh, my goodness, because bt wascopy and copy and pasting.
yes, the same exact note,session after session after
session and literally notchanging anything and so stuff
(34:11):
like that happens when you don'thave folly to take the language
guardrails right to right, easefrom doing crazy stuff and and
obviously, like the, the BTshouldn't have done that.
But if you put yourself in theBT shoes, you've just come off a
four hours of a kid kicking,screaming, biting you and you're
stressed out and you're readyto cry and you just want to go
(34:32):
home and watch Netflix.
I, I don't think they shouldhave done that.
I don't think she had a copyand pasted session notes, but I
also can't blame them if thatmakes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Well, I mean, you really can't.
And now I would say this that agood system would have
prevented that from happening,you know, because we have to
have quality assurance, right.
But now here's the thing, again, that requires effort on
everybody's part, right.
And so now again you are takingbecause you only have X amount
of resources, and it's aboutwhere are you going to put those
(35:03):
resources?
Christina, you and I weretalking about and we're going to
go back, but we had a chat witha well-known person in the
field where we're talking aboutonboarding and doing simulations
and stuff like that, and theysaid well, we should hire actors
to play kids.
Well, that sounds reallywonderful to be able to do that.
Know, do you understand theresources that would be involved
(35:25):
in doing something like that?
And you have to work with theresource that you have, and so
in this case, certainly you cancheck the quality of notes on a
regular basis and prevent thatfrom occurring, but that comes
at a cost.
It's a resource and you shouldstill do it right, probably with
the ai, until you're certainthat things are good for a while
, but you still want to havemaintenance of it right To
reinforce, but I imagine thatreduces the response effort
(35:48):
across the board.
But, more importantly, thatperson that's doing that can now
focus on coaching, you know, oryou know doing their own
clinical you know stuff.
So yeah, I could just just justso many benefits of doing this
kind of stuff.
And that's just to me, just oneexample of how, you know,
reducing response effort hasthis kind of, you know, ripple
(36:08):
effect.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, yeah, I guess like here's how we've seen
organizations solve the problembefore us or without us, right
To your point one there'susually hiring a human quality
assurance, BCBA, and that's veryexpensive and that's all
non-billable.
Or it's them doing monthlytrainings to BTs about how
session notes work and sayingthe same thing over and over
(36:32):
again and nagging people, andthat's not good for team morale,
it's not a good use of yourtime, it's also not that
effective and so sort of like.
The third option, the one thatwe're trying to build, is just
get session notes right in theget-go.
If you need to change yoursession notes, what goes into
the notes, what goes into eachparagraph, what goes into each
checkbox you just tell one place, tell Alpaca Assistant, and
(36:55):
that has the change implementedthroughout the entire
organization.
So instead of oh, I have to adda new paragraph, you have to
sit down every BT and tell themabout this new paragraph and
what goes in this new paragraphand what's the definition of
quality when writing for thisnew field in the session note,
instead of having to do all ofthat change management to get
your note to a new place that anew payer needs to get to or you
(37:18):
that you need to get to for anew contract.
You just tell alpaca assistant.
One time in one place.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Okay, but this is beautiful, I think, all right.
So tell me a little bit, whatare your, what are your next
steps?
Right With this and like cause,let's just start to wrap this
up here and then I'm going tolet you.
You know, both you guys justtalk about how folks can reach
out to you and stuff, becauseyou're both great and I got to
say, if you've heard me, Ialways talk about how great
(37:48):
Christine is.
Michael, I'm hearing from bothyou and Stephanie Walden.
They both said the same thingseparately about you, about the
quality of your person, and so,once again, folks that are
listening to this, I have no tieinto this.
I'm not making any moneyMichael's not sponsoring me,
right but I see something thathas potential to help
organizations and you know I I'mexcited about the potential for
(38:11):
this and we're starting to seeit.
So go ahead.
You know, what do you guysthink the next steps are and
where do you see things in?
You know, a month or two.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, so Michael has already started to kind of
review other things that they'reworking on.
The next thing that me as abusiness owner and planning to
take on is intake, and they haveAI, has a system that calls for
you, answers the phone.
I don't even understand thedepths when it comes to
insurance, but like you thinkabout when you have like
(38:43):
somebody in the office callinginsurance, you're on hold for a
really long time, you'retransferred a bunch of times and
they're building out a systemfor that, which I think is
really cool.
It's funny because when Michaelshowed it us, the intake stuff,
I was like again me beinghonest, I'm like well, michael,
you know I get really annoyedwhen I get a bot that answers
(39:04):
the phone.
I like I start yelling at thebot sometimes and everything,
but then at the same time I'mlike but you have to look at
things from a scalingperspective and like you can't,
it doesn't mean that a parent isnever going to be able to talk
to a human and and that was whatwe talked through is like the
system can have where you knowif you can flag that the parent
(39:27):
really wants to talk to a human,then you call that parent, but
it helps like if it is a phonecall that doesn't necessarily
need a human to be on.
It takes all the information foryou in that intake process,
because intake is when you do itright and you're, you know,
getting everything you need.
It can be a back and forththing for a while with families.
(39:47):
There's a lot of documentationthat's needed to get ABA
services going.
So I think that that piece ofit is great and, michael, you go
ahead and talk on, because Ihave a contract right now with
the software company that I'mbound to.
So we're like we're going tobasically be very systematic in
how we bring on things and, plus, michael's still building
(40:07):
things, and that is what I loveabout him and Val.
They are very transparent aboutwhere they're at in the process
.
They're not trying to bring onagencies and have them be their
guinea pigs.
They are like test this first,give us feedback, and they're
shaping it and taking all thefeedback as as we go with it.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Michael.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Exactly, yeah.
So that's a great descriptionof intake is, instead of waiting
on insurance or trying to pingparents who never get back to
you, let alpaca assistant do itfor you.
Trying to ping parents whonever get back to you, let
Alpaca Assistant do it for you.
Scheduling we are working on ascheduling optimizer so instead
of you spending the first twohours of your Sunday planning
(40:51):
the next week's schedules, letAlpaca Assistant do it for you.
We will input your staffschedules, your block schedule,
their availability, clientsavailability and shift around
schedules.
And if there's any last minutechanges like a cancellation
comes up, a BT call out comes up, we'll automatically send the
(41:13):
messages to the right people ifwe can't get another BT to staff
that shift otherwise.
And so all this sort of manualpuzzle piecing that it seems
like right now it's master'slevel BCBAs who train to be
clinicians doing we want ouralpaca assistant to do.
And the last piece of the puzzleis kind of bringing everything
together and actually billinginsurance.
So submitting claims, doingdenial management, all things
(41:37):
that we can do more efficientlywith our technology than you
know, like one person who'salready stressed out doing a
bunch of things can dothemselves.
So really the vision is to bethe back office partner, the
admin partner for growing ABAclinics is you want to grow your
(42:01):
team, you want to serve moreclients and families, you want
to open that new location,expand into that next state.
You know to do that you have tohire your scheduler, your
intake person, you have to thinkabout the processes to bring
new people on, and we just wantto be the partner that says, hey
, no, let us handle that withyou so that you can focus on, I
(42:24):
think, what really matters,which is how do we deliver the
best, highest quality clinicalservices to the most vulnerable
families and kids?
Speaker 2 (42:32):
But this is awesome and this is exciting and how
would, how would, and we'll makesure we drop this in the
description for anybody.
But how would folks reach outto you best?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah, so my name is Michael Gao GAO.
I'm very active on LinkedInmaybe too active, so connect
with me there.
Or you can go to our website,alpacahealthio alpacahealthio,
and if you search alpacahealthABA, we should be the first ones
on Google too.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Christina.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, so I know I listed out like a bunch of
different organizations.
We have one landing page forthem.
It's iqrgroupflcom, whichstands for values, inclusion,
quality and respect, so you cango there and you can choose
which organization you'reinterested in learning more
about.
There's an email to contact.
If you do want to contact medirectly, you can find me on
(43:27):
LinkedIn.
I'm also on Instagram andFacebook, so are all my
organizations.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
And Christina has her own podcast too.
Just drop.
Yeah, Talk about your podcast.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I have a podcast.
It's sometimes I talk aboutleadership stuff and autism
because it's I.
This is what I say to people.
All things Christina Morales.
I am very, very big intopersonal growth and healing and
the podcast is called KnowYourself to Grow Yourself.
You can find me on Instagramand if you want to listen in,
(43:58):
you can find me on Apple andSpotify.
So, and my son, vinny, has beencoming on and doing episodes,
so for anybody, I know I've hadfamily, other autism moms that
have really enjoyed listening tothose episodes.
So definitely share it as aresource to other families and
everything.
He's such a great kid.
(44:19):
I may be biased, but he's agreat kid.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
He's the best.
I love Vinny.
Shout out to Vinny.
All right guys, thanks forcoming on and sharing your
experiences with us.
Maybe we'll have you back on.
I'm going to have a new seasonof this podcast is going to be
about leadership, but certainlythis all ties in leadership.
If your life's being suckedaway from doing this stuff, how
(44:44):
are you going to be a leader,right?
So maybe we'll have you back onin a few months just to see how
things are going.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So thank you, guys, and you guys have a great day.
Okay, thanks for having us.
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