It has come to my attention that there are professionals and non-professionals that may be inadvertently or even intentionally performing services for which they are not qualified and licensed.  As consumers of therapy services, it behooves you to be well informed and I thought it may be helpful to describe a few things to watch out for.

Because I am a speech language pathologist that is the area with which I am more familiar.  Other therapy services may or may not have similar protocols.  However, this could serve as a guideline for looking into concerns for other services as well. 

Service professionals should be licensed in the state and in the profession in which they are servicing you or your loved one.  I have heard of teachers of the deaf or hearing impaired providing speech therapy.  Speech therapy is not what they are licensed to provide unless they are dually certified and licensed as speech language pathologists.  I have also heard of “tutors” being utilized to provide speech and language therapy under the “supervision” of a certified and licensed speech language pathologist.  That is also inappropriate administration of the service.  While speech assistants utilized under the supervision of a licensed and certified speech language pathologist is acceptable, the fee for services should be lower than if the supervisor was directly responsible for performing the therapy.

Even the school systems have been observed to use parent volunteers to provide help with speech groups in the schools to  cope with very high caseloads.  In the past, some schools have “grandfathered” speech language pathologists in with different (and less stringent) licensing requirements due to insufficient professionals available to provide service.

In addition to inappropriate, unqualified people providing therapy services, there are times when professionals are not certified to work in the professional area they are treating.  Make sure you know what the licensing, certification, and education requirements are for the professional working with you.  This is important for safety reasons, remediation issues, and for therapy fees.  The internet, state licensing branches of the government (such as the State of Florida Department of Health Division of Medical Quality Assurance) and professional organizations could be quite informative. For example, professional organizations for speech and hearing include, The American Speech /Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) for Speech Language Pathologists and the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) for Occupational Therapists.  There are other professional organizations for doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, social workers, counselors, etc.  Each professional is regulated to work under specific guidelines for their patients/clients.  The more informed you are, the better you will be served.

Health insurance is an important issue in the news.  Everyone is concerned that people in the United States of America should be receiving a better quality of health care.  If we want to improve the quality of health care we as consumers need to take some responsibility.  We need to make sure that we are getting what we are paying for.  It is important that our insurance companies are getting charged for the correct service from the appropriate professional.  Insurance fraud by the few, will negatively affect the rest of us.