| We
suggest you read the entire text of this document to get
an overall and complete view of what we offer, however if
there are items of special interest to you simply click on
the bulleted heading and the topic will instantly be displayed.
Thank you for taking the time to visit us. Just
by coming here we know that you are interested in the added
“Career Value” that only a Private Clinical
Practice can provide you.
Choosing the Right Setting
to Practice (return to list)
Do you know that according to a recent ASHA
survey (see Advance Dec12/05) only 8% of all clinicians work
in private clinical practices? The vast majority of Speech/Language
Pathologist (92%) work for the school system, hospitals, outpatient
care facilities, and for the State or Federal governments.
While we understand that each of these settings
has its own appeal and benefits, private practices, in our
opinion, can offer a far richer “Career Value.”
Career Value (return
to list)
Just exactly what is “Career Value?”
It is your career experience practiced in an environment,
which provides the optimal return on your educational investment
and need to serve the “caring” field that you
have chosen in the best possible environment for both you
and your patients. This environment should be one that uniquely
suits you and your expectations for patient care.
Simply put it is the measure of optimal professional,
personal and financial enrichment.
We know you are looking for two very important
conditions from your place of employment, whether you are
an experienced clinician or a CFY just getting started. You
want a place where your can experience your career in a truly
meaningful way while at the same time enjoy the financial
rewards your experience and education have earned you.
We believe that, on balance, a private practice
is where these two elements most closely can be realized.
What Makes a Private
Practice Setting Unique? (return
to list)
The very fact that you have chosen to visit
this site indicates that you are interested in the Private
Practice setting. We appreciate that and would like to clarify
what we believe are the benefits of this choice.
We find that most therapists initially enter
the “caring profession” because they are caring
people seeking to help others. There are many ways a Private
Practice suits this extraordinary goal.
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A Private Practice affords a great deal
of one-to-one, or individual therapy. There is an abundant
amount of clinical literature that speaks to the
benefits of individual therapy and how it is the
optimal delivery model for may types of patients
with speech/language disorders. Some settings
have a limit on their ability to provide this type
of treatment paradigm due to a number of factors
such as caseloads and the number of available speech
pathologists.
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In a Private Practice there is great
opportunity to establish long-term relationships with
patients and their families. Patients,
of course, have varying degrees of disabilities and needs,
but therapy is frequently a long-term commitment and
many families are dedicated to the process.
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Private practices such as our own have
a high degree of family involvement and parent participation. You’ll
find that we have wonderful, enthusiastic families committed
to long-term care and to carrying out therapy activities
and recommendations in their home and community to ensure
the best success for their child(ren). We include
families in therapy, when appropriate, especially for
children in the early intervention category, and always
provide parent education. This allows parents and
families to learn activities and important techniques
to improve their own interaction with their child as
well as ways to help generalize their child’s therapy
gains.
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Additionally, in our practice, we have
established a “Co-Treatment” program whereby a clinician
can join the primary therapist for a portion of their
session to observe and/or interact in the treatment
of their patient. We have found that there
are a number of exciting benefits to this program. For
one, a patient receives the benefit of having additional
clinician(s) to exchange ideas, provide a second
opinion and/or give assistance. Another
benefit is that therapists enjoy the opportunity
to learn new ideas and techniques, use of novel materials,
and new ways to use old materials. Therapists
are also excited to be able to observe patients with
etiologies, symptoms or disorders, which they, perhaps,
do not have on their caseload.
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Our practice also allows for flexibility
in our treatment paradigms. For example, on occasion
and as is appropriate, two clinicians may get together
with their individual patients for part of a session
to facilitate certain goals or add a social component
into therapy for which we specifically train. As
you can imagine this provides a much richer environment
for your patient than they might otherwise experience. This
paradigm is not considered group therapy since each child
has his or her own clinician present.
Other features of our
Private Practice: (return to list)
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Another important and critical consideration
is that a private facility, such as ours, can afford a
greater flexibility in obtaining treatment materials since
they are not required to depend on committees or government
funding to purchase appropriate materials and in the quantities
needed. Our clinic provides over 2000 therapy books
and materials, children’s books, games, speech/language
and learning CD’s and toys for your use. It
is not unusual for us to purchase specific therapy material
for just a single child, when needed. Further,
we typically have the most up-to-date testing material
available. This extensive library is constantly being
updated. This prodigious collection is kept in a
materials library room that is completely computerized
so we can find what you need when you need it.
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Further, to help facilitate the needs
of the therapists, our practice has designed and built
special mobile carts that can be used to move materials
(and computers, if needed) to just the right treatment
room for you. When
therapy is completed we will clean your room and
put away materials so you can concentrate on therapy,
not maintenance. This allows you to concentrate
on your patients to a greater extent.
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Our practice also has a number of computers,
with separate computers for administrative duties, such
as writing reports, and therapy. In regard to therapy, a therapist may
have a computer brought into their therapy room, when they
feel the use of a learning CD would be appropriate. There
is also a separate room with computers for treatment called
our “Computer Lab.” The Computer Lab
is equipped with an Internet connection so the Web is
just a click away from helping a child.
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Therapy rooms are specifically designed
to enhance treatment; they are not general office spaces. These
rooms are designed with the pediatric population
in mind, whether the patient is a toddler or an adolescent. We
also a specialty rooms designed for specific purposes;
they include our Computer Lab, Motor Room and Representational
Play Room.
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Another feature that you will find useful
is our fully video equipped facility. Each treatment room has
the ability to videotape a session. This concept
was originally created based on a particular preschooler
who, when his session was recorded, would take the video
home, watch it and practice his speech along with the video
(this was wonderful especially in light of the fact that
he had verbal dyspraxia). Clinicians can,
if they see it as appropriate and with parent consent,
videotape for many reasons such as mentioned above or,
for example, for recording progress, reviewing your own
session (for example, a diagnostic session), providing
training for parents, providing feedback for your patient,
providing training for other staff members, and use for
review by other professionals working with your patient.
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Our clinic even maintains a small but
colorful menagerie of small animals that provides reward
and interest for children and their families. In
most cases, these small pets can be held by patients
(with the supervision of their therapist or our pet handlers). We
find this an extremely enriching experience for our patients.
All of these features can be viewed on one of the videos
provided on our home page of this site. These videos
are also a great way for parents to get acquainted with our
facility prior to coming in to see us. Your personal
clinical biography will also be posted on our extensive site
so parents can get to know you and your credentials.
Compensation (return
to list)
This is a serious consideration for every working person
who must earn a living. Any organization looking to
hire competent staff must offer a competitive salary; if
they don’t, they simply will not be able to attract
or keep staff successfully.
The shortage of qualified clinicians is a matter of record
and is no surprise to anyone entering the field or to potential
employers. We address this issue in an open and direct
manner.
For starters, for selected candidates we will offer $1000.00
more than any signed offer you have received. The offer
must be dated no more than one month of your interview with
us and signed by a person officially representing that organization. It
should be presented on the organization’s letterhead.
If you have not received an offer, we would be happy
to provide a figure for serious candidates. We start
selected CFY’s at $60,000.00 per
year. Clinicians with 4 or more years start at
$80,000.00. We only ask that if you receive
a better offer, we be given a chance to negotiate in response
to that offer.
Our basis for establishing salary rates are:
1) our experience with other candidates and 2) our constant
review of the market place and salary surveys (as can be
found through professional organizations and online) at the
time we are seeking candidates.
Candidates frequently want to know what their “take-home” pay
will be. That can only be answered according to each
individual’s personal financial situation. Take-home
pay is based on a number of separate factors such as the
number of dependents you will claim, the state taxes due
in whatever state you are employed, your personal investments,
home ownership, other deductions you may have and other issues. However,
one way we try to help a candidate determine this is by providing
a very detailed accounting of every dollar you will earn
with us. This is presented in a proprietary computer
program that computes your direct salary, the value of all
the additional benefits you will earn with us, and all the
state and federal programs that will be paid on your behalf. This
will include Social Security, Workman’s Compensation
Insurance, etc.
Private companies pay about 15% more than the face value
of your salary to various agencies on your behalf. This
means that if, for example, you are being paid $50,000.00
(for illustration purposes only) per year, your employer
will pay an additional $7,500.00 on your behalf.
We also offer a $3000.00 sign-on bonus presented after three
months service.
Additionally, We will pay ($436.00) a CFY’s
initial certification as well as the first year’s license
fee ($25.00) for your RPE.
Health Benefits (return
to list)
Another topic candidates frequently inquired about is Health
Insurance. We offer Blue Cross HMO or PPO health insurance. We
will pay for 100% the monthly premium of the HMO plan. You
may choose the PPO plan however, we do not participate in
that addition premium cost of this plan. If you choose
this added benefit we will pay 100% of the HMO cost and you
would pay the differential of the added cost of the PPO program. The
premium cost is based on your age and prior health history.
This Blue Cross Insurance program, of course, also includes
a prescription drug provision.
We also provide either our HMO or PPO Dental program on
the same basis as our Health Insurance Package.
The state of California requires that you be employed for
one full month to be eligible for health insurance. Beyond
this required month, there is no additional waiting period
to be eligible.
Regarding time off for health reasons, we provide the following. (1)
You receive seven paid sick days as a matter of routine.
If circumstances require additional days, we will be happy
to sit down on a case-by-case basis and extend the number
of paid sick days, as appropriate. (2) We also provide
three personal paid days off. You can take these days
for whatever reason you need. Sometimes we refer to
them as mental health days.
Time-off from work (return
to list)
There is no waiting period to take time off. We have
this policy because we often find that candidates who join
us have long-standing plans to take time off for a scheduled
vacation or family event. Vacation time is calculated
on a weekly basis but may be taken when needed. We
do ask that you be responsible for “coverage” so
your patents will not go untreated during your absence. Our
operational staff is always able to help you find coverage.
For the first two years with us you are entitled to two
weeks paid vacation. After that you are entitled to
three weeks paid vacation.
We also honor the traditional seven national holidays: New
Years Day, Memorial Day, The Forth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving
and the day after, and Christmas day.
Altogether for your first two years of service, you will
be afforded 27 paid days off per year. A working year is
260 workdays long, so you will work 233 days, which is 10.75
working months per year. In your third year, you will
work 223 days which is 10.3 working months per year (we have
broken this down for you because we have been asked about
this issue from previous candidates).
You are also paid for any jury days you serve
as well as three paid days of bereavement should unfortunate
circumstances necessitate it.
Other State and Federal
Benefits and Other Insurances (return
to list)
The clinic will pay for your Workman’s Compensation
Insurance, which is provided over and above health insurance
in the event you are injured or become unable to work as
a direct result of your employment with the company.
We also provide you with Personal Liability insurance under
our company policy. This would be used to protect you
in the event that a personal liability claim should arise
out of your company clinical involvement with patients.
We will also provide 50% of your Unemployment Compensation
Insurance payment.
Our Financial Cafeteria
Plan (return to list)
This financial plan is so called “Cafeteria” because
you can “pick and choose” benefits for the plan
that you find important, just like you would choose food
in a cafeteria. This plan is provided so that you can
convert “after tax income” into pretax income. In
this way you can avoid paying taxes on certain benefits you
might normally pay with after tax dollars. There are
a number of important instruments available to you at substantial
savings over the open market price. These would include
long-term care coverage, bridging workman’s compensation
insurance, cancer treatment insurance (which is very important
if your have a family history of cancer), and others.
Continuing Education
(return to list)
Our practice provides for continuing education in two ways.
First, you will attend the weekly staff meeting. This
meeting is used for the exchange of information between clinicians
concerning on-going cases of interest and it provides a forum
for internal and external speakers covering various subjects. We
call these lectures in-services. Professionals from
other fields or areas of specialty are invited to provide
valuable education in a small group setting. This program
is valued at $1,600.00 per year and is free to you.
We also offer you a minimum of a once per
year (and perhaps more depending on the cost/location of
the seminar) outside seminar of your choice. The clinic will pay your airfare
anywhere in the continental U.S. or Canada, your hotel expenses
and a per diem food and cab fare expense. This may include
the annual ASHA or CSHA conference or other seminars of interest. This
benefit is valued at about $1200.00 and is free to you.
We Believe in a Meaningful
Work/Life Balance Paradigm (return
to list)
We feel that the best clinicians are people who have learned
the value of balancing their careers and their personal life.
We often hear about “burnout” in the Speech
and Language profession. This burnout is likely due
to exhausting caseloads and paperwork. We feel it is
important for an organization to be aware of and respond
to these types of trends.
It appears there is a generally accepted caseload average
of 30 therapy hours per week in many settings and this can
be exceeded. Coupled with evaluations, reports, IEPs
and other paperwork work, it is no wonder that that clinicians
are wondering how to squeeze it all in.
To combat this issue, our clinic has initiated a number
of policies that help alleviate the problem. For
one, we have found that by typically holding therapy hours
(actual therapy provided) to 28 per week and one evaluation
every two weeks, that our clinicians fair much better and
are able to dedicate more time to preparing and reviewing
for quality therapy sessions. Although the clinic bills
less secondary to reduced clinical hours, we feel this paradigm
leads to our primary goal, which is to all clinicians to
provide substantive therapy that is well planned, organized
and executed. As a private organization we are in a
unique position to make this concern a priority.
Further, and to the above aim, we have an excellent administrative
staff, which assists in patient sign-in, scheduling, phone
calls, and therapy clean up. We also have an office
manager who does all the billing. With this assistance
a therapist can put more time into their clinical duties.
Another way we have been able to improve the work environment
is to provide computerized report examples and templates
for written reports. Moreover, if reports can be completed
off-site, our clinicians are free to complete the work at
home, at the beach, at the park or wherever is comfortable
and use their laptop or home computer. We will provide
you with a method of “dialing into our server” from
your personal system so reports can be completed off–site
just as easily as they might be at the office.
We also provide you with an E-Mail account where you can
receive personal mail or business mail whenever the need
arises.
In addition to all the above we offer “flexible work
hour scheduling,” trusting each clinical associate
to understand they are responsible for meeting the need to
put in their forty hours on weekly basis. This means
that clinicians have the option of customizing their start
and stop times for each day as well as managing their lunch
time to balance their time at work. So long as a therapist
can satisfy the needs of their caseloads and patients, they
are free to custom design their own working daily hours. We
trust each clinician to be responsible with their time and
ours, and we believe this trust is transformed into better
quality work and a better lifestyle for you. This is
a unique paradigm not possible in many settings.
Supervision and Training
(return to list)
Supervision and training are vital for a successful career
no matter what level of experience you have. For therapists
in their clinical fellowship year (CFY/RPE), it is crucial. We
feel it is so important that our two owners personally conduct
a great amount of the supervision.
Our President and Founder, Lynne Alba, personally supervises
all clinical staff. This supervision includes heading
up the weekly staff meetings, providing at least a half hour
to one hour of one-on-one meeting time, and offering clinical
training, as appropriate, with each clinician on a weekly
basis. She also supervises the training of all CFYs.
Over the years Lynne has developed an impressive set of
credentials in a number of areas and is recognized as a local
leader in her field. She is an excellent listener,
trainer, diagnostician, and mentor. A number of our
alumni have gone on to establish their own private practices
after receiving her tutorage.
Bob Alba is our Director of Operations and will take the
time to personally train you on every aspect of your operational
duties including E-Mail, Intra-Mail, Computer programs particular
to our practice and the various forms you will need to completely
integrate well into our clinic.
Much of our paperwork and reporting is now computerized
and aids in making life easier for everyone.
Custom Career Plan Program
(return to list)
We are not only interested in you coming to join our practice
and provide services; we are interested in your long-term
career goals. Within a short time of joining our team,
we will begin the process of customizing your career path
while you are at the clinic.
We will ask you where your professional goals lie and what
we can do to help you reach those goals. This may mean
that you have an area of specialty that you would like to
pursue. Or it might even mean that you would like to
know more about management or computer sciences. You
might enjoy working with adults, adolescents or other specific
populations. You may have a particular interest in
a certain type of disorder. It is possible that you
may be interested in research or even publishing case studies.
These things are important to us and we want to be an active
part of you reaching whatever goal you have in your professional
life.
Each clinician who comes to join us is different and has
different goals and dreams, so we want to make sure that
we recognize that individuality and support it actively. There
are many ways this can be done and all we have to do is explore
the possibilities together. We are always interested
in investing in education and the acquisition of knowledge. Ours
is an excellent setting to be able to conceive of new programs,
present them to the team, design them and then make them
a reality.
Extra Pay for Project
or Program Development (return
to list)
There is no reason why you should not be rewarded
for developing programs that profit the clinic. We encourage all our
staff to be proactive in devising new projects or programs
that will enrich the experience of our patients while at
the same time add value or income to the clinic.
When this happen successfully, we feel it is only natural
to reward the associate who had put in that extra time and
effort with a monitory reward, time off or some other form
of benefit.
Paid FBI and DOJ Checks
(return to list)
Since personal security for all of our pediatric patients
is so important and vital, we have all associates fingerprinted
and FBI and Department of Justice background checked. The
clinic will pay for your time during this process as well
as for the fees that are due.
The Bottom Line (return
to list)
As we said in the ad that brought you to this page, we know
that a private practice setting is not for everyone. For
it to be of special value, a candidate must have a predisposition
toward working in this type of setting. Our experience
is that it is best suited for those that understand the added
value that a private practice setting provides for the patient
as well as for their own career goals and lifestyle desirers
Negotiation, it is not
over till it is over. (return to
list)
It is important for you to realize that
any part of this plan is negotiable. We are flexible
and can give and take on issues that are important to both
of us. We will be open to discussing all employment features
and concerns you bring to the table. A healthy review of any
employment opportunity is never complete until all options
have been explored thoroughly.
We feel very strongly that, on balance, we offer
a unique opportunity for this type of candidate. To summarized,
we offer:
Financial Package
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More than competitive pay ($60,000.00 for
CFY to $80,000.00 for Senior Clinicians)
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A $3000 sign on bonus
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Great Medical Benefits and programs
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A 10.75-month working year first two
years; 10.3-month working year thereafter
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Flexible hours and schedules
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Pay for Program Development
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CYF initial certification paid as well
as first year license fee for your RPE
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Personal Liability Insurance paid
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FBI/DOJ certification paid
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Paid Educational Plan
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Cafeteria Plan
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Free E-mail account
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On the job illness or injury insurance
contribution
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Social security retirement contribution
Quality of Life Benefits
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Superior supervision
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Typical 28 therapy hour Caseloads
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One-on-one therapy paradigms as well as
small Social Skills and small Toddler Speech/Language
groups
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High parent and family involvement and
long term bonded relationships
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A superior facility, especially designed
for a pediatric population
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Diverse and interesting caseloads
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Excellent therapy and testing materials
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A completely computerized facility
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Great operational support
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Team Collaboration and Co-Treat Program
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Great location near all points of interest,
great beaches, shopping centers, one of the safest cities
in the US
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Customized Career Plans
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