It started as a passion project. Now around 25 staff support families from infancy to adult life.

Meet Stephanie Montaño

Stephanie Montaño, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist and AAC implementation specialist. She grew up in a low-income community, volunteered at a rehabilitation center because she thought she wanted to be a nurse, and found the speech department instead. “I love to talk. I love to communicate. I’m a huge overall advocate.” The idea that someone could struggle to communicate, and that she could help led her to this journey. She nearly left the field before graduate school. As an assistant she was working in a profession that, in her words, did not look like her and was not accepting of her language difference or her identity as a Latina. A mentor made room for her to say so without fear of losing her job, and that is the reason she stayed. It is also why she wanted her own license. #### “I needed to be in a space where my license was only responsible to me, not anyone else. And I didn’t need anyone else to allow me to do the work that I wanted to do.” She met Vanessa when both were speech-language pathology assistants. Vanessa went on to school psychology, Stephanie stayed in speech, and the pairing is the point. One practice looks at how a person communicates, how they think and how they take in the world around them, from infancy through school and into supported living as an adult, so a family is not starting over with new providers every few years. Both founders still carry caseloads. The business side came later, and reluctantly. In the early days billing was done in Google Docs, “very paper to pen.” #### “We didn’t start a business to run a business. We didn’t plan or want to run a business. We just wanted to help.”

Parents can see what a program costs before anyone picks up the phone.

School services start and stop with the school day and so often, a family can love a provider and lose them when the funding source changes. Growth Educational Services was built to stay with the family through those transitions. #### “I don’t have to sit here on the phone and be like, well, you know, if you do this and this and this, this would be this. It’s just there for them to be able to say, okay, I want to add this, I want to see this many sessions, this is what the cost is, and it’s pretty transparent there for them.”

The form she needs usually already exists.

Stephanie’s first stop with Carepatron is the template library. If there is no standard template, another practice in the community has usually built one and shared it. #### “Instead of having to find someone to do it or spend time doing it myself, Carepatron is almost the first place I look. I’ll look at the templates and say, hey, is there a template for the release of information or release of liability? And if there’s not a standard template there, I usually will leverage the community. And there’s usually one.” Because the practice is multidisciplinary, she borrows templates from other specialties and adapts them. Families upload IEPs, evaluations and school files through the portal before a break or a change of therapist, and the next therapist picks up where the last one left off. The small things matter to her families, many of whom are not comfortable with technology. Smart chips fill in names, dates of birth and case numbers on notes and forms, so parents review and sign rather than retype, and the form translates as soon as they open it. #### “In other places they have to go in and type in their UCI number and then they turn in a paper and it’s wrong and then they have to go back and do it again. The smart chips just make it so easy for parents, as well as the language piece. The fact that it translates in so many different languages. Parents really appreciate that.” Records travel too. When a child sees a speech therapist somewhere else, Growth Educational Services invites them into sessions so the work carries over, and a parent can share notes from the portal without anyone emailing attachments back and forth. #### “Parents are entitled to all of their records and Carepatron just makes it so easy for them that they don’t really even need us. They can go and share it themselves.”

Billing by session, tagged by funding source.

Very little of the practice’s income comes from insurance. Their website lists regional center funding, self-determination budgets, school district contracts and private pay, and each comes with its own paperwork. Invoicing worked for private pay from the start. Third-party funders were harder, because those payers want to see sessions, not invoices. The billing insights view gave the billing team that session-level picture. Tags do the sorting. #### “When our billing department is running whatever source that they’re billing at that time, they’re able to tag everybody. So then they’re only looking at the chunks of individuals of that time. When they’re doing invoicing for specific private pay clients, they’re able to look up anyone who has private pay and then tag them, and then they’re only looking at that list for the day.” Insurance billing is, in her words, the last box on her checklist she has not ticked yet.

Not smooth sailing, and still here.

Growth Educational Services has changed platforms more than once before Carepatron. Stephanie looked at a lot of EMRs, and the test was never her own convenience. Ninety percent of the decisions she and Vanessa make come down to two questions: will the team be happy, and will parents be happy. The relationship with Carepatron has not been frictionless either, and she says so on camera. What kept them was what happened next. #### “When there is an issue, they are not afraid to address it. Having those uncomfortable conversations where it’s like, actually, that was our fault, we didn’t know that feature was supposed to work this way, because for us that doesn’t work. And then having those conversations to say, well, actually, let’s see what we can do so that it does work for you.” She has kept a list of things Carepatron could do better since the day she started. About eight of the ten things on it have shipped. Asked where the practice goes next, she does not offer a growth target. #### “I think our hobby is just going to continue to go in whatever routes the community needs us to go.” And for anyone watching who wants to build the same thing in their own town, she has an answer ready. “Please take our secrets. There are more than enough individuals in this world that can use passionate and dedicated providers.”