Amber Nelms 0:00

Well, welcome to Accelerate with Amber podcast. I'm so excited to welcome today John and Carly Weinberg. They're both co-founders of Beyond ABA Therapy. And they have also built a project Infinity School. It is phenomenal having you both on. Thank you for taking your time. I know you are both really busy. So thank you for joining me. You have created an integrated ecosystem of education therapy and access for neurodiverse learners. That's fantastic, guys. It's really, really cool. You definitely have done phenomenal things. What made you realize families needed so a variety of solutions and not the typical options that most people when they build an ABA therapy? Oh, Carly gets the credit.

Carly Weinberg 0:55

Thank you. Thanks for having us. First off, so I would say we did start the school first. So I think Oh, interesting order. Okay. Yeah. So my background, I do have background in both education and ABA. But when I came down here, I noticed such a need for a school that really integrates therapies into the school. I wasn't that really anywhere. It's kind of you get your school, and then families are shuttling their child around after hours to speech, to OT. ABA does work hands in hand in schools, but there's not always that cohesive teamwork approach. That's really what we've tried to create. So the need is really just what I saw down here. I mean, these families don't really, they can't find a one-stop shop with the school, that the therapies, all of it under one roof, where they're really getting not only access to everything in one place, but also that teamwork approach.

Jonathan Weinberg 1:53

Yeah. I think one of the things we do here that's different than anywhere else that kind of emphasizes what we're doing here at a high level is at the end of every day, there's a team meeting, our therapists, our teachers, everyone kind of comes together, discusses the day, wins, losses, things that we can improve on Thursdays, I believe is therapy, Thursday.

Carly Weinberg 2:14

Therapy, Wednesdays, collaboration Wednesdays. So it's really just how any updates we need to all know, be aware of, how can we be improving? Where are we struggling? Where are we thriving? And we all were team to help each other.

Jonathan Weinberg 2:27

Yeah. I think that the emphasis is on everyone is on the same page at all times from academics.

Amber Nelms 2:32

Fantastic. Yeah. Wow. What a unique company. Well, two companies actually. So, what made you get into the ABA industry then? Because you were doing the school first, and then you were like, okay, let me also do ABA. And do you have BCBAs on your team? We do.

Carly Weinberg 2:51

So, so my background, like I said, is both education and also ABA. So last year, when we had just the school, we had a lot of outside ABA companies on our campus. And what we are finding is just a lot of that teamwork and collaboration was missing. The BCBAs come in once a week and they make changes on the fly, and we're not always kept abreast of that. And then we're not following through on the plan as consistently as we should be. And I worked at a school in New York where everyone was on the same campus and I just saw the impact that has. And so just knowing that, knowing the impact that can be when everyone's under the same roof, everyone's working as a team, that's really what we wanted to create here.

Jonathan Weinberg 3:36

Yeah. I think it all ties back to being an experience.

Carly Weinberg 3:39

Yeah.

Jonathan Weinberg 3:39

Right. How do we allow these families to get the most out of their experience, make sure their child is safe, but also taken care of because the scariest thing for these families is what happens as my child gets older? Goes on. Life happens. And when the parents go, what happens next? So how do we create the best environment for a child to succeed? And that's how we do it.

Amber Nelms 4:03

Amazing. You guys come from some interesting roles. You were at Amazon Web Services and Tiger 21. What business lessons helped you most in building a mission-driven organization?

Jonathan Weinberg 4:15

I think it doesn't matter what industry you're in. I think from Amazon one, you know, the customer obsession is the biggest thing. But I think overall, across every experience I've had, it's that trust is the only currency that compounds. Right. So earning trust, being able to deliver on what you're saying you're delivering, right? Not just talking the talk, but walking the walk as well. And it's the most important thing across the board. How are you treating these kids, these families? How are you communicating to them? What is your process frictionless? Are you providing the best kind of services? All of these things, every single thing that you do ties back to trust. And trust is one of those things that takes a while to build, but you lose it within a couple of minutes, especially in this space.

Amber Nelms 5:01

Especially in this community for sure. I agree. That was one thing I was analyzing the other day in our own systems. I'm very passionate about just having the right tech in place and make things easy. And like the truth is, a lot of our families, they do have unique burdens that another customer wouldn't have, right? And don't stress them out by giving them something really hard to fill out in a clunky way. And I love that you guys use that language because it's true. Like, what is that customer's experience like coming through it? Is it frictionless? Have you even asked yourself that question? I meet a lot of business owners, especially people that are on A, that's not a question they ask. They don't even use that terminology. So I love that you guys are asking that question to your team.

Jonathan Weinberg 5:43

I think largely it's because ABA, it kind of grew up as a very just grew up very clinical and not necessarily operational. Interesting.

Amber Nelms 5:53

Yep.

Jonathan Weinberg 5:53

Well, a lot of the tech around this space is more around billing, right? It's not around experience. It's not around visibility for there's so many operational gaps in this space. There's a lot of opportunity, I think, just for people smarter than me and more tech savvy than me to come in and do something great with it. I have a load of ideas. So hopefully.

Amber Nelms 6:15

Oh, well, maybe me and you should talk. That's what I'm saying. I mean great.

Jonathan Weinberg 6:18

Yeah, sure.

Amber Nelms 6:19

That is what I'm working on currently and asking me. I mean, that's also part of why I'm doing this podcast, because I'm really looking at what a business owners have going on, what would really move the needle forward and help them and like asking those questions. I mean, even as a board certified behavior analyst, I obviously think about the quality of the care and I think about like the notes we have to use and all of that part. Like that's one part of an ABA business. But there's so many other things when it comes down to like the customer experience of like the tech and how you do the process, that really like you're not going to even get them into treatment. We're not going to be able to use those fancy templates if their experience is not seamless and doesn't stress them out. And we don't have like 50 forms done poorly for them to get done. And it's just astounding to me to see what some people have to experience to get the services they need. So that leads very nicely into my next question. Where do you think the ABA industry is under-leveraging technology, particularly in regarding to referral management, insurance workflows, data visibility, intake flows? I mean, like, where do you think it's under-leveraged? Where can we do better? Where is there not truly good flows?

Jonathan Weinberg 7:31

I think the only workflow that this space has, I won't even say like executed well on, but like executed on, unless there's technology out there I don't know yet about that's that's being used. But the only thing is billing, right? Billing is the only thing that has like a clear process and workflow.

Carly Weinberg 7:50

Yeah, the data tracking, like the you know, it's part of the billing, obviously, but the the soap notes and the data tracking and stuff like that, that all flows into the billing.

Jonathan Weinberg 7:58

Yeah.

Carly Weinberg 7:59

But I I I agree. I think that's kind of the only area that tech is being utilized.

Jonathan Weinberg 8:04

It's so clunky though, still. Like even like even the software we use, like there's data collection, there's billing, but it's clunky.

Amber Nelms 8:10

What do you guys use out of curiosity? I'm always trying to also learn what we can do.

Jonathan Weinberg 8:14

We use Artemis ABA.

Amber Nelms 8:16

Oh, I haven't met anybody who's use that yet. Okay.

Jonathan Weinberg 8:19

It's built on Salesforce. It's hard to use. My whole career I've used Salesforce, and I love building dashboards, but for some reason I can't get a grip on it on Artemis. I think from a referral perspective.

Carly Weinberg 8:32

There is some networks for referrals, but they're not. I think they're definitely underutilized for sure. I mean, I've seen a few, but it's not used by the majority in the field. I mean, at least, yeah. Yeah. At least my experience in this, because I've come over to the therapy company this year, obviously, since we started it. There's a lot of intake, a lot of scheduling that goes on in our company. We probably could be utilizing technology more for that. I feel I do it old school because that's what I know.

Amber Nelms 9:09

And I feel like that's what do you use currently right now for your intake system?

Jonathan Weinberg 9:13

Google Drive. Yeah. Drive. Google Drive.

Amber Nelms 9:16

No, I mean, no judgment I've met.

Jonathan Weinberg 9:18

Listen, we're swappy. We're our therapy companies you're still is two years old.

Carly Weinberg 9:23

We do use a platform for the school that has a lot of our intake forms on it as well, but it's definitely like more of a school platform.

Amber Nelms 9:32

So yeah. Oh, well, that's kind of interesting. I mean, at least parents are probably familiar with that. I mean, I have seen all over the place what people are using. It's all across the board right now.

Jonathan Weinberg 9:41

I think the other problem, too, there's a few areas here, right? There's the billing side, there's the scheduling, there's the data collection. Then there's the referral side of things. Referral side of things is very email and phone based, especially when it comes to insurance carriers. So if a family's looking for a provider, they can call their insurance company. Their insurance company is just going to go ahead and call all the different providers in the area and see if they have availability. There's probably room for like an open table for ABA, right, in this space where people can come on and actually see who's available, what's the turnaround time on getting from intake to prior authorization to services starting? There's a huge gap there. And I think there's a lot of room where AI can come in. And I think it's a it's like a very delicate situation because there's a lot of HIPAA around everything in this space, clients that you need to follow. But there's a lot of room for just more efficiency, better workflows, and it always circles back to what is your current client experience, right? It always comes back to the client, right? It's never about how to make my life easier. It's well, that'd be great, but it's also how do we make these families' lives easier?

Amber Nelms 10:54

Yeah, I agree. How are you using AI in both of your companies? Is there has there been a recent breakthrough that you're like, wow, that really changed that workflow when I integrated that system?

Jonathan Weinberg 11:06

I think my BCBA is using it right now to help her with reports. Obviously, we keep names out of it, but the structure of your reports, we're getting more effective, efficient, and organized on.

Carly Weinberg 11:18

Providing the feedback that we get in peer reviews or anything from insurance companies will submit, we'll show them like, oh, got it. Template that we have. This is the feedback that we got. How can we make it more succinct? Things like that. Definitely helpful. Scheduling, I'm definitely trying to use it.

Jonathan Weinberg 11:35

I tried. I tried building like a on Claude, like a scheduling tool, but it comes back to adoption. We know what we know. The therapists are comfortable with what they're comfortable with. Introducing something new is another learning curve on top of having to do the sessions, the reports, the notes.

Amber Nelms 11:51

Yeah. What do you guys use for your scheduling right now? What is your current tool? You're the scheduler. You don't have an in-house scheduler. You're your you're the in-house scheduler. Okay.

Jonathan Weinberg 12:02

We're the scheduler, the billers, the the whole you guys do your own billing?

Amber Nelms 12:07

Yeah, we do.

Jonathan Weinberg 12:08

You do everything. I bill also.

Amber Nelms 12:10

That's great though. So you're understanding how everything works. That's good.

Carly Weinberg 12:14

You know, I mean, listen, we're year one. We're very scrappy. We were very scrappy year one with our school as well. And then you grow. Like we went from three students to 20 in one year.

Amber Nelms 12:24

So congratulations, guys. And you're going to understand all of those pieces. That's one thing they always say with ABA companies. A lot of people don't want to ever learn the billing or learn. I got lucky that I spent a decent amount of time knowing like I spend it my own claims, like right in the beginning at first, and learned some of those pieces. So then when you do have somebody that is on your team doing it, it's not completely like, what are you doing? A lot of people get taken advantage because they don't have any background in it. So that's good. You guys are setting yourselves up well. What's that?

Jonathan Weinberg 12:56

I'm up at midnight with my laptop in bed and emitting claims and billing because okay.

Amber Nelms 13:02

Yeah.

Jonathan Weinberg 13:03

Who else is gonna do it? It's not scalable, but it's what works now.

Carly Weinberg 13:07

And it worked while we were getting contracts and onboarding a bunch of new clients. So it definitely worked, and it's still working for now.

Jonathan Weinberg 13:16

Yeah.

Amber Nelms 13:17

Until we get to well, it is so cool meeting both of you. Thank you for taking your time. Thank you for bringing really good insight to what the industry needs. And thank you for also bringing a different version of like a combination ABA company to the table to make a lot of people think there we've had decent traction on this podcast. And I know a lot of people are gonna listen to this and be inspired. Like, oh, that's really cool to see it work, start that way and then combine the two. And there's a lot of ways to help families and make a difference. So I'm glad you guys came on so other people can learn about this. Thanks for having us. Absolutely.