ABA Business Leaders
You started an ABA practice because you wanted to provide good services. Now you are also responsible for hiring, payroll, billing, training, supervision, policies, and making sure there is enough money to keep it all going. Somewhere in there you are supposed to have a life too.
We get it. We ran an ABA practice for nearly 10 years, and we know what it feels like when the business depends on you to hold everything together.
ABA Business Leaders is hosted by April and Stephen Smith, the owners of 3 Pie Squared. We talk about the practical work of starting, running, and growing an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) practice. That includes the decisions that affect your staff, your families, your finances, and the quality of the services you provide.
Some problems look simple until you start looking at where they came from. A billing issue may have started at intake. A staff performance issue may come back to unclear expectations or training that never included a competency check. A full schedule can look great while the company is struggling to make payroll. These are the kinds of things we talk through.
Along with our guests, we share experiences, ask questions, and discuss what owners and leaders can do to build better systems. You’ll hear conversations about:
Starting an ABA practice: Planning, startup costs, credentialing, choosing funders, and building the foundation before taking on more than you can support.Hiring and supporting staff: Recruiting, onboarding, training, supervision, feedback, accountability, and helping people understand what is expected of them.Billing and financial health: Claims, denials, cash flow, funder rates, expenses, and understanding whether the services you provide are financially sustainable.Quality and ethics: Looking beyond billables to consider treatment quality, staff support, family communication, and the pressures that influence everyday decisions.Policies, compliance, and audit preparation: Turning requirements into processes people can follow and keeping documentation from becoming something you scramble to fix later.Leadership and growth: Delegating, tracking useful measures, developing leaders, and getting information out of the owner’s head so the team can do its work.Technology and practice management: Making scheduling, documentation, communication, training, and billing easier to manage without creating more work for everyone.
We also talk about the strain of ownership. It is difficult to support your team when you are burned out, making every decision, and fixing the same problems every week. Hiring more people or adding more clients does not automatically fix that. You need to understand what is breaking down and build systems that your team can actually use.
Whether you are preparing to open your doors, managing an established practice, or leading a team, our goal is to give you something useful to think about and bring back to your company. We want more ABA businesses that can provide quality care, support their staff, pay their bills, and keep doing that over time.
Learn more about our training, handbooks, consulting, credentialing, billing services, and practice management software at 3piesquared.com.
© 2026 Stephen & April Smith · more info
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