Budgetary Considerations and Start-Up Costs

Establishing a severe behavior program is an expensive endeavor; thus, proper planning is essential. In this section, the start-up costs and a typical budget for a medium-sized severe behavior program will be discussed.

The size of a severe behavior program is gauged by the number of treatment rooms rather than the number of patients because the number of patients varies, depending on the level of service you provide to each patient. A filled treatment room is defined as one day-treatment patient receiving services 6 hours per day, 5 days a week (i.e., a day-treatment service) or two patients each receiving services 3 hours per day, 5 days a week (i.e., an intensive-outpatient service), one scheduled in the morning and one in the afternoon.

For example, the census might include:

(a) 16 patients receiving services 3 hours per day, 5 days per week, with half scheduled in the morning and half in the afternoon; (b) 8 day-treatment patients receiving services 6 hours per day, 5 days per week; or (c) 12 patients with four day-treatment patients receiving services 6 hours per day, 5 days per week, and 8 intensive outpatients receiving services 3 hours per day, 5 days per week, with half scheduled in the morning and half in the afternoon; and so forth.

The Severe Behavior Program Business Plan is an Excel workbook of a sample business plan for a medium-sized severe behavior program.

If you plan to use the sample business plan, you should adjust the salaries, fringe-benefit rate, and other expenses based on local data. If you do not have access to such data, adjust the estimated expenses based on the cost-of-living index in your area.