Telehealth Tuesday

June 9, 2020:  Q&A with the CASP Telehealth Task Force

Original Webinar Date: June 9, 2020

CEU offered: 1.0 Learning CEU

Short Title: Telehealth Tuesday (June 9, 2020)

Webinar Duration: 55 min

CE Instructors:

  • Joy Pollard, PhD, BCBA-D
  • Jennifer Dantzler, BCBA
  • Jenna Minton, Esq


About Telehealth Tuesdays:  CASP's Telehealth Tuesdays provide a recurring meeting time for providers to join and ask questions about telehealth service models and billing practices. During the pandemic, CASP will hold a call every Tuesday at 11:00 PT/2:00 ET via Zoom.  Providers should submit questions by the prior Friday evening. A selection of members from the CASP Telehealth Task Force, led by Dr. Joy Pollard, will then guide the general meeting based upon prior submissions, as well as questions that come in during the webinar. 

Effective May 26, 2020 these meetings will be held every 2 weeks and include a 10-15 minute demonstration of a telehealth technology platform.  Please note: These demonstrations do not imply CASP endorsement.

This week's technology platform demonstration features: 

Questions addressed in this presentation include:

  1. Is there any literature you’re aware of that supports best practices and models of telehealth to provide teaching new skills and behaviour reduction function-based strategies to a small group of students in a virtual forum with? If so, what does the research say around how to implement this? Most research is focused on 1:1 support with caregivers being coached and implementing programming.
  2. Are you requiring staff and families to get the COVID-19 test and/or the antibody test prior to beginning in-person services?
  3. Are you requiring staff/families to get ongoing testing (i.e., frequency of testing 1x/month)? Should employers pay for ongoing testing?
  4. Could you share what you have found to be successful for new staff training? We typically send a trainer in the home with the new staff after some didactic training/ role play. With concerns with multiple staff in the home, we are considering telehealth training. Have you conducted new staff training with a client via telehealth? Could you please share billing practices for this?

Instructor(s)

BCBA, LBA, M.S. Ed Jennifer Dantzler

Jennifer is the Founder & Executive Director of Including Kids Autism Center. Jennifer holds a Post Graduate Certificate of Autism from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, in addition to an M.S. Ed. in Intensive Special Needs from Simmons College, Boston, MA. She did her undergraduate work at American University, Washington, D.C. where she earned a B.A. in Elementary/Special Education. Jennifer is a Licensed Behavior Analyst and she is also certified in Special Education/Intensive Special Needs in Texas. She is currently venturing into young adult services and speaks professionally at local and national conferences on a regular basis to help spread autism awareness, including The World Autism Organisation Conference and The Council of Autism Service Providers (CASP). The rate of autism continues to increase at an alarming rate and that need is what continues to drive her to do more, build more and want more for families with autism.

Ph.D., BCBA-D Joy Pollard

Dr. Joy Pollard is the Co-founder and CEO of Clinical Operations at Behavior Change Institute. She earned her Ph.D. in Disability Disciplines, with a Specialization in Applied Behavior Analysis and her clinical experience has spanned across the home, clinical, school, and residential home settings. Dr. Pollard serves as Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where she provides clinical supervision and collaborates on research focused on children with ASD and neurogenetic syndromes. Her research and clinical practice have focused extensively on practitioner capacity building initiatives and pioneering telehealth applications to increase access to medically necessary ABA treatment for individuals living in rural and geographically isolated areas. Her scholarly publications include articles on ethical considerations in the design and implementation of telehealth service delivery models and she has served as a subject matter expert for the Telehealth Guidelines by the Council for Autism Service Providers (CASP).

Esq Jenna Minton

Jenna W. Minton, Esq. is the President of Proactive Strategies (formerly Minton Healthcare Strategies). Proactive Strategies specializes in guiding clients through Medicare and Medicaid regulatory processes. Specifically, Jenna focuses on the development of CPT Codes. Jenna also assists in valuing medical services through the AMA Relative Update Committee. From 2016 through the end of March 2019, Jenna guided and contributed substantially to the efforts of the ABA coding work group, including the development of the 2019 ABA CPT code set and generation of subsequent educational materials aimed at their implementation. Jenna also serves as the Director of Operations at Residential Options, Inc. (ROI). She oversees audit, contracting, and reimbursement issues for ROI which employs almost 350 people and services around 300 clients with ASD or a developmental disabilities. Jenna is licensed to practice law in Maryland and is a member of the Maryland State Bar Association.