Each week I interview an ABA company that treats its BCBAs well, then share what I find. This week I talked with AJ Stern, who runs Ladder of Success ABA in Denver.
Ladder of Success is a center-based clinic in Denver. It’s still small, one center with a second one on the way, and AJ likes it that way. He talks fast and he has strong opinions about how ABA companies should treat their people. Most of them come back to one idea. Treat staff and families like people, not numbers.
They dropped strict billable requirements
This is the part that will make BCBAs sit up. Ladder of Success doesn’t hand you a billable number and tell you to hit it. Instead, the clinical director has real conversations with each BCBA. How is your caseload? How is supervision going? What’s happening with your families this week?
AJ’s logic is that a fixed number ignores context. A child with severe behaviors at 40 hours a week is not the same as a two-year-old just starting out. If a BCBA’s billables dip one week, he probably already knows why. Maybe they had an assessment due, or a school meeting for a kid on their caseload. Because leadership stays in close touch, there’s no need to chase numbers.
Weekly conversations, not metrics meetings
Every BCBA meets with the clinical director once a week. On top of that, there’s a weekly BCBA roundtable where the team works through ways to improve care together. AJ told me this is more than most BCBAs expect, and he’s right.
The schedule is flexible too. Office hours run 8 to 6 so working parents and after-school kids both have room, but nobody works a ten-hour day. As long as a BCBA is managing their caseload well, they build their own schedule, and there’s a work-from-home day. AJ sets caseloads and schedules around each person’s life before they start, not after.
He’s also direct about being a young company, and he treats that as a selling point. New ideas are welcome. Trying something and having it not work is fine. He said his goal is for the company to be better in three months than it is today, and better again six months after that.
Small caseloads and clinical autonomy
Caseloads stay small on purpose. AJ won’t let them reach double digits, because a BCBA spread that thin can’t give each kid the supervision they need. And that supervision level is the BCBA’s call, not the company’s. Your treatment recommendations are yours. Nobody at Ladder of Success pressures you to push 40 hours or to overdiagnose. Most of their kids land around 20 to 25 hours, and they make it work.
That same honesty runs through hiring. AJ says he asks every candidate what they need from a schedule and a caseload first, then checks whether his openings can meet it. He won’t promise a work-from-home setup he can’t deliver just to close a hire. His RBTs get the same straight talk, and nobody starts with a family before they’re ready. The result is low turnover, which makes every BCBA’s job easier.
“We never discuss the company’s needs. In every interview I ask what they’re looking for from a schedule and a caseload, then we see if our openings can meet it.”
— AJ Stern, Founder of Ladder of Success ABA
At a glance
- Settings: center-based in Denver, with some in-home by case (they serve kids up to age 10)
- Location: Denver, Colorado
- Hiring status: hiring now, with a second center opening
- Notable perk: small caseloads and no arbitrary billable requirements
If that sounds like your kind of practice, take a look at ladderofsuccessaba.com to see their team and their openings.
Do you run an ABA company that treats its BCBAs well? Reply to any Book Club email and tell me about it. I’d love to hear the story.
This is not a paid placement. I interviewed this company myself and receive no compensation for featuring them.