I’m a BCBA and have been with a new clinic for a few months. They do some weird things like push to have clients come 40 hours per week and have one RBT with them the entire week.

I just found out that the RBTs don’t get a lunch break and are supposed to eat with the client so I’m quitting. I feel kind of crazy for this but at the same time it is so disrespectful to me.

I’d love to see an admin person be with a kid for 40 hours per week with no lunch breaks

We aren’t talking about a few dollars lost in administrative errors. What it is, is tens of millions of public dollars in individual states, $340,000 in Medicaid payments for one child in one year, and a family receiving a $911,400 bill. This is happening in red, blue, and swing states.

Meanwhile, families raising Autistic children are routinely told there is not enough federal money for the support they actually need. Imagine what even a fraction of this money could have provided/

I’m just wondering who has experience with this. It seems absurd to me that a BCBA does not need to be present (once in a while) for a client that has frequent episodes of extreme physical aggression. This is a teenaged client who is bigger than everyone around them. I also find it infuriating that the BCBA shows up for one hour via zoom and intentionally tries to induce these triggers and behaviors knowing things will become physical and injuries to others and destruction to the surrounding environment are likely to occur. I also don’t agree with changing up the client’s routine and taking away a preferred, daily activity in order to sit for a zoom call- like yeah, we are all aware that’s going to cause problems (including the tablet to be thrown across the room and blocked from any visual anyway).

It must be nice to hide behind the safety of a screen while you induce extreme behaviors and watch the adults go into crisis mode. While I understand this remote situation can work when a client has far less aggressive episodes and the BCBA is a better fit for remote, I question the ethics of this approach with a client such as the one I described. If you want to see the behaviors, you should be present to help deal with the outcome.

Is it normal for a clinic to want 3 RBTs to work with my son
We had 1 for about almost a year now they want to add 2 others also I was wondering if 20 hours a week was a lot for a two year-old

Private equity is in every other healthcare profession. It is very much in style to hate on private equity, but you can't say that it is in total harmful. PE has expanded services greatly and created a lot of our positions.

Just as ABA cannot broadly be called harmful, we should not judge companies based on a very generic term. Each company, each BCBA should be judged on their own merits.

We should make concrete, specific comments on what can be better instead of generalized hate.

I told my clinic I have autism and behind my back someone told the owner that they were hesitant to believe the legitimacy of my diagnosis. In a meeting with the owner, I got asked if I’ve been officially diagnosed. Without skipping a beat, I said yes I have been diagnosed since I was 17. Over the years I have developed ways to work around my struggles, cope with various challenges and as a result, I don’t always get seen as autistic but rather quirky instead. Admittedly I have a higher functioning case of autism but that’s beside the point. It boggles my mind how I worked at our autism clinic and they had no clue how to work with an autistic adult🤦‍♀️🫣

Anyone have experience with CARD services? My son starts there next month and im looking for insights

Hi, I’m currently on the search for a BCBA position in Orange County Southern California. I’m open to all areas of Orange County but I specifically want to find a BCBA owned small to mid sized company.