Helping Patients Find Their Voice: Arlene Ho on Running Her Own Independent Practice

Speech-language pathologist Arlene Ho has spent 16 years helping people get their words back. She works with patients who know exactly what they want to say and cannot make it come out, and she has seen what that does to them. For much of that time, she says, paperwork took hours she wanted to give those patients. Today she works as an independent contractor with FeldCare Connects, runs her own business, and hopes to keep doing it indefinitely.

An Aunt’s Hunch, and a Moment She Never Forgot

Arlene knew what she wanted from a career before she knew what it was called: “flexibility and where I can help people.” The answer came from her aunt, who thought Arlene’s skills and background would make her a good match for speech therapy. Arlene had never heard of it.

She didn’t take her aunt’s word for it. She called private practices and asked if she could volunteer and observe. In a skilled nursing facility, she followed a senior speech therapist doing swallowing evaluations for patients who had recently had a stroke. That is where it clicked.

“It was really exciting to see the change in the patient and how their life could change once they were able to eat again.”

The Word Is Right There, but It Won’t Come Out

Ask Arlene what she finds most fulfilling, and she goes straight to patients who have had damage to the brain. After a stroke, a craniotomy or another surgery that changes how the brain works, some people lose the ability to control the movements of speech. Their words come out distorted, and the people around them cannot understand what they are trying to communicate.

In some cases, the patient says something completely different from what they mean. “Let’s say you show them a picture of the word cat and they say blue instead,” Arlene explains. The painful part is that they often know it is wrong.

“I’ve had patients crying, they’re so frustrated because they can hear that they’re saying the wrong word, but they don’t know how to gain control again.”

ARLENE HO · SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST

Think about what that means for the patient. A person cannot answer a simple question, ask for what they need or even tell the people they love how they feel. They cannot even talk to their doctor. As Arlene puts it, they can’t say where it hurts or what is wrong.

How Speech Therapy Helps Them Find the Way Back

This is where speech therapy makes a big difference. Arlene starts with the smallest building blocks. She teaches the patient how to move the jaw, lips and teeth to produce a single sound. Once the patient can control that movement, she makes it a little harder: a syllable, then a word, then a phrase, then a sentence, until they are saying more things more clearly.

She is honest about what it takes. “It’s a very tedious type of therapy,” she says. “It takes a lot of patience, and it takes a lot of practice for the patients on their end, but it makes a huge difference.”

Sometimes the progress is dramatic. One of her most memorable patients was a stroke survivor recovering from dysphagia, a swallowing disorder. After sessions using neuromuscular electrical stimulation, she saw a huge improvement in the ability to swallow and a big increase in the ability to speak. “It was a double bonus,” she says. “It was really great to see just how happy the patient was to change the quality of their life.”

The family felt it too. They framed a photo of her with their father and put pictures of her in a memory book of his journey after the stroke. “They wanted to remember all of the important healthcare people who helped heal their father,” she says.

In home health, Arlene usually has only a few weeks with a patient, so she sees them intensively and trains their family to continue the work. “The family will eventually have to take over,” she says. In the end, that is what gives a patient a way to keep communicating after therapy ends.

Before FeldCare: 40-Page Reports and Hours of Paperwork

Arlene once worked for the government and loved the patient care. The paperwork was another matter. Diagnostic reports took her hours every day, and some ran 40 pages. She knows the information mattered, but she saw the cost. “It did take away from being able to help the patient,” she says.

The Turning Point: A Chance to Own Her Independence

Arlene found FeldCare Connects online and realized that she wanted to be part of the network. What she heard in return excited her: the chance to run her own business as a 1099 contractor.

“I was really excited about the opportunity to be able to have more control and independence by having my own business.”

The difference was clear right away. “I loved how they really customize everything towards the therapist,” she says, “and I have more freedom than I had with any other home health company.”

Not Just a Number

Arlene says another thing set FeldCare apart. Her first conversation with Randi Peled, the company’s founder, left her with an impression she hadn’t had elsewhere. “She seemed like she really cared about the therapists, but she also really cared about the patients,” Arlene says.

In her experience, that is rare. At other companies, she says, “you don’t really feel appreciated. You’re just a number because they have so many therapists.” That first conversation made her feel valued, and she says it has stayed that way. Randi, she says, has a personal touch, and Arlene calls her “like an auntie.”

The Life She Has Now

As an independent contractor for about a year, Arlene says the paperwork that used to take her hours is now quick. “They’ve streamlined all the paperwork,” she says, “so it’s very concise and it’s very quick to document everything that you’ve done.” That means more of her time goes to the patients and families she cares about.

What she loves most is simple. “I love the flexibility and the freedom,” she says. And how are things so far? One word: “Amazing.” “I hope to continue working with them indefinitely.”

After 16 years and countless patients who learned to eat, speak and be understood again, Arlene has found a way of working that she wants to keep. She hopes to continue with FeldCare Connects for as long as she can practice, and says she has never felt that about any other work she has done.

If you became a therapist to help people and want more control over how you do it, FeldCare Connects partners with independent occupational, physical and speech therapists. Visit feldcareconnects.com to schedule a call with the team.