4 - Creating Intake Documents for Your New ABA Business

You've got the business plan, you're credentialing, and everything is starting to fall into place. Hell, people are calling you to get on your waitlist! But how do you document this? What forms do you need? We've got you covered!

Basic Intake Form

• When parents call, you'll need to take meaningful information down, information that you'll need for prior authorization and future authorizations.

• We have a "quick" information form for parents to fill out if they come to the facility or for our office manager to fill out if they call over the phone. This basic information includes:

  • Name, age, birthday, diagnosis, previous ABA history, school history, services that they're interested in, general verbal abilities of the child, general description of behavior concerns, guardian name, relationship to client, contact phone number, address.

• We have a database for all potential clients where we gather the information from out service inquiry form and add it to the database. This allows us to search for clients, ages, or requested services more easily. It's especially useful once you've been open for an extended amount of time, and you're trying to determine who your next client will be.

  • In our "ABA Agency Starter Bundle" you will find this database and other resources available for purchase. Check out TPT to see reviews about this bundle and all other items in our shop.

Detailed Intake Packet

Awesome. It looks like you're moving forward with accepting this potential family as a client. With the information from the previous form + insurance card + diagnostic evaluation, you should be able to submit for prior authorization. The next thing that you'll need once submitting for prior authorization is a detailed history of your client.

• Name, date of birth, nationality, age, gender, religion, weight, height, dominant hand, address, living situation, diagnosis, date of diagnosis, doctor who diagnoses, siblings (names and ages), family history, parents / guardians (names, address, phone number, email, occupation), parent history, medical history (PCP, address, phone number, psychological testing, diagnoses, injury history, trauma history, etc), immunizations, milestones, medications, hospitalizations, hearing / vision history, behavior health history, ABA history, detailed family history / household details, education history, psychological history, open-ended functional assessment questionnaire, skills assessment, preference assessment.

• Below find a copy of the intake packet that we use. A watermark has been placed on the document, but you can purchase this intake packet along with a slew of other documents from our store.

Policies and Procedures

You've got all the information that you need to get started with your client. Now that you've decided to move forward, you need to present your client with a slew of other documents to protect them and yourself going forward. These documents include the following:

• Confidential release

• Declaration of relationship

• Informed consent

• Media release

• Notice of privacy practices

• General policies and procedures

  • Mission statement, attendance and cancellation policy, sickness and health policy, Covid-19 policy, client service agreement, parent involvement agreement, complain policy, disaster plan, fire safety plan, hazardous materials policy, cell phone and electronic media policy, sentinel even policy, etc.

• Other policies: client rights agreement, financial responsibility agreement, exchange of information agreement, welcome letter, standard operating policies, ABA treatment contract, fee schedule and agreement, payments policies, HIPAA compliance agreements, etc.

You can try to create these documents on your own. There are some websites and companies available who will help you with this process. 3pieSquared is an excellent resource to consider.

We offer most of these documents and policies in our ABA Agency Bundle.

• The bundle contains 17 different policy templates and forms. You can visit TPT to read recent reviews on the product.

• Although this bundle is no all-encompassing, it does provide you with several of the items needed to get started with intake and to satisfy the needs of your company or insurance providers.