Speech therapist Cecilia Smith found her profession almost by accident, and she calls it “the best choice I made in my life.” Seventeen years in, she runs a full-time home health practice as an independent contractor, choosing her own caseload and still collecting the moments that made her fall in love with the work, witnessing patients eat, speak and communicate again.
01 / A CALLING BORN IN CHANCE
What Started as a Random Idea Became Her Life’s Calling
Cecilia didn’t grow up planning to be a speech therapist. She earned an undergraduate degree in communications, worked for a while, and only then decided to go back to school for a master’s. She knew she wanted to do some kind of therapy. After learning the background of each discipline, it was speech therapy that resonated with her, and one detail settled it.
“Once I found out that speech therapy entails the swallowing aspect, I was all in,” she says. “It was just kind of a random finding, and then I decided I was going to do it.”
What keeps her in the field is how direct the results are. She works with patients who cannot eat or swallow safely after a stroke, an injury or cancer, and with people who have lost their language and want to communicate again.
“The hands-on treatment and seeing the progress is what’s the most rewarding.”
Before FeldCare: Full-Time in Skilled Nursing
Before home health, Cecilia worked full-time at a skilled nursing facility. Her patients were mostly in their 80s and 90s, with dementia and stroke the most common diagnoses. Almost all of her treatment was swallowing therapy. It was meaningful work, but it was one setting and one population, and she says that is still what a facility caseload usually looks like.
She had never practiced in the home, and she had never worked as a solo clinician. Home health was new to her and she hadn’t been looking for a change.
“Being an independent contractor definitely gives you more freedom and flexibility.”
CECILIA SMITH · SPEECH THERAPIST
02 / THE MATCH
Then Randi Reached Out
Cecilia is candid that there was no single dramatic turning point. What changed her career was an invitation. Randi Peled, who knew her from her student clinical rotation, was starting FeldCare Connects and reached out to ask whether Cecilia would partner with her as an independent contractor. FeldCare became the first home health setting Cecilia ever worked in. She admits she didn’t know much about it at the time, but one thing stood out.
“I decided that it would be good because it’s flexible. I can take as many or as few patients as I would like.”
She said yes without knowing exactly where the road would lead her. Fifteen years later, she is still saying yes.
What began as a flexible way to try something new has become her entire career. Cecilia now builds a full-time schedule from home health alone, and she says that is the number one thing she loves about it.
“Being an independent contractor definitely gives you more freedom and flexibility.”
The variety keeps the work fresh. Instead of a caseload dominated by one population and one diagnosis, her home health patients now span a wide range of ages and conditions, including ALS, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, brain tumors and young adults recovering from serious accidents.
“There is a bigger variety of diagnoses and needs and patient clientele,” she says. “I enjoy that part too.”
03 / THE FELDCARE ADVANTAGE
Less Hassle, More Healing: The FeldCare Advantage
Ask Cecilia what makes working with FeldCare Connects different, and she talks about time. Time is what a therapist gets back when the logistics get easier. The system that FeldCare Connects has in place simplifies the process for the clinician so that they can concentrate on treating the patients under their care.
“That really frees up more space and time for us to concentrate on patient treatment.”
It all comes back to the patient. Cecilia has heard stories from patients about therapists who weren’t really in it to help, and she is determined to be the opposite.
“It’s my passion to see people get better and to help in any way I can.”
04 / WOW MOMENTS
Your Own Practice, Your Own Wow Moments
Seventeen years in, Cecilia still has wow moments, and she doesn’t have a single favorite one to name. Over the years she has treated hundreds of patients, and she says the moments come fresh regularly as she keeps on learning.
“The wow moment comes often. You never stop learning.”
If you went into therapy to help people get their lives back, and you want the freedom to build a practice around that, Cecilia’s path shows what it can look like. She chose her patients, shaped her own caseload and stayed curious. FeldCare Connects partners with independent clinicians who run their own practices, and many of them find what Cecilia found: more freedom, more variety, and more time for patients.
Ready to explore partnering with FeldCare Connects as an independent contractor? Visit feldcareconnects.com to contact the team.
ONE CLINICIAN. A REMARKABLE JOURNEY.
A calling born in a chance discovery
From first home health case to full-time practice
Serving patients across a wide service area
Cecilia Smith sees patients in areas located within
a 30-mile radius of Pasadena, California.
