Looking to give your BCBA case management an overhaul, but needing an easy way to do it? Read more about the Better Behavior Solutions top tips!
Before we started Better Behavior Solutions, we developed a survey to identify the pain points of BCBAs in the field. We deeply understood our frustrations, but we wanted to know everyone else’s so that we could be a part of the solution. The responses were all startlingly similar:
“My biggest pain point is caseload size.”
“I’m always overloaded with work – clients, admin, billable expectations, you name it.”
“My quality of service suffers because of unreasonable expectations for workload.”
Does this sound familiar?
For us, it did. We knew exactly how our survey respondents were feeling because this was our reality as well. What did come as a shock to us was the fact that an overwhelming majority of our respondents rated that finding a solution to this problem has been “very difficult”. So many BCBAs are struggling with the same problem and so many are unable to find relief.
This post is going to cover the top 3 things we did to organize our caseloads, streamline our practices, and gain some work-life balance. We’ll review how we tackled (and then overhauled) the following:
- Clinical Scheduling
- Completing Admin Tasks
- Material Making
Let’s dive in to talk about the 3 easy steps you can take to re-organize your clinical caseload!
Step 1: Clinical Scheduling
Clinical work is like a game of tug of war…where you’re the rope. No matter what intentions you might have for your day, it always seems to get derailed with RBT questions, unexpected emails, or major behavior events. Before you know it, the day is over and none of your to-do list got accomplished. And this happens over…and over…and over again.
BCBAs work a lot, but we end up working less efficiently because we want to be constantly available to everyone that we work with. Often, we show up more for those that we work with than we do for ourselves. We experienced this nearly every day in our clinical practice. We were killing ourselves to try and do it all – supporting staff, our clients, and their families day in and day out – while simultaneously getting absolutely nothing done. Our clinical practice took a major upward turn when we finally implemented a clinical scheduling system.
Instead of focusing on day-to-day tasks, we looked at weekly and monthly long-term goals. We did the math to determine who needed supervision, thoughtfully planned out all caregiver training sessions, and set aside adequate time to complete admin tasks and travel time to and from sessions (if necessary). Our weekly schedules were posted for all the staff to see, including office hours where we would be available to answer any clinical questions that came up. Admin time was respected as it if were a national holiday. We stuck to our posted schedule as much as humanly possible, and we were better BCBAs for it.
Instead of being constantly available to everyone around us, we were consistently available to our clients and staff. We got more done because we gave every task our undivided attention and focused on unexpected issues at more appropriate times. We were less burnt out because we got to focus on accomplishing tasks instead of anticipating everyone’s needs. We were able to manage larger caseloads because we dedicated time to each case and preemptively planned how often we would spend with each client before we ever walked into a session.
If you want to set up a clinical scheduling system like ours, you can get a copy of the clinical planner we love by clicking HERE!
Step 2: Completing Admin Tasks
Admin tasks may be what keeps the clinical train moving on the tracks, but man is it a time suck. In addition to scheduling admin time on our clinical schedule, we also made it a point to simplify admin tasks as much as we could. If it needed to be done, there was a form, a guide, or a template that made tasks more efficient (and less painful). These took time to create, but the return on investment was HUGE. Instead of spending all our time re-inventing the wheel, we pressed fast forward on our admin tasks by using our tried and true favorites for supervision, program monitoring, case review, and clinical management.
This made managing a clinical caseload SO much easier because it streamlined the clinical tasks that keep a caseload going. Having a system for paperwork felt like being thrown a life raft while you’re drowning in the ocean. For a quick fix for your clinical practice management, we’ve included our most useful favorites in the shop!
For a list of our 5 favorite products we use to make admin tasks a breeze, click HERE!
Step 3: Material Making
If we had a dime for every time we sat huddled over a card box trying to piece together stimuli, we would no longer need to be BCBAs. It often felt like we were sacrificing quality programming to “save time” by using the massive card sets you can buy online (spoiler alert: it didn’t actually save time, it just tacked on time to a different task). But there was something especially soul-crushing about spending hours making customized materials for a client, only for them to master that skill faster than we could clean a clinic ball pit (a great problem to have but exhausting nonetheless). It felt like a lose-lose situation: we were losing precious time on our cases by trying to find the perfect stimuli, make the perfect stimuli ourselves, or train someone to make the perfect stimuli for us.
We came out on top by customizing our stimuli sets for the clients we served, and then implementing clinic-wide usage of the same materials to address skill deficits across the operants. We modeled our stimuli to support skills that would be necessary at home, school, and the community to address generalization from the start, and avoided teaching strictly from the VB-MAPP or ABLLS. This was a significant overhaul, but it revolutionized how we ran our caseloads. Stimuli because less about checking a box from the ABA curriculum we were using and more about teaching critical skills using a variety of materials that supported the skills identified in ABA curriculums.
For a look at the materials we frequently use in our clinical practice, click HERE!
There you have it, the THREE tips we used to organize our caseloads, streamline our practices, and gain some work-life balance. While it may require a bit of work upfront to establish a new system, it pays off in spades when you can take a deep breath for the first time in your clinical career. All of the products featured on the Better Behavior Solutions shop were designed to support these needs and set BCBAs up for success. For more information about the strategies we use to create work-life balance in clinical practice, be sure to check out our other blogs!