Webinars

Interpreting Medical Necessity & Symptom Severity: Conceptualizing Socially Valid Progress & Treatment Dosage Alignment

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM (EDT)

Hosted on Zoom

Event Details

Abstract

In the field of evaluation and diagnostics, there is currently no objective guide or decision-making tool that incorporates the DSM-5 available for a clinician to determine the diagnostic severity of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (i.e., levels 1, 2, 3) across raters. Similarly, in the field of ABA, there is no wide-scale industry standard for practitioners when recommending a treatment dosage for ABA therapy; treatment dosages are typically informed by a summation of subjective and objective assessments of the recipients of the ABA services with the ultimate determination being the clinical opinion of the practitioner. This lack of standardization across both diagnostics and treatment is a significant practice gap across both fields and leads to flawed diagnoses and medically necessary dosage recommendations.

The presenters will discuss the definition of medical necessity in relation to insurance funders, industry guidelines, and the severity of diagnostic symptoms, particularly ASD, while drawing parallels to the broader healthcare industry. Content of the presentation will discuss the need for progress monitoring throughout a recipient’s time in ABA services and how that relates to treatment dosages. The presenters will also review preliminary data associated with these topics.

Learning Objectives

Participants should be able to describe medical necessity in the fields of diagnostics and treatment, particularly in relation to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy.
Participants should be able to explain the importance of ASD symptom severity over time and appropriate progress monitoring during therapeutic intervention.

This webinar offers 1.0 BACB Learning CEU.

Cost

CASP Members - free
non-members - $20

Presenters

Allison Brazendale, PsyD

Dr. Allison Brazendale is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in child and adolescent diagnostics and treatment. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology with a focus on working with children with autism, ADHD, and learning differences. She spent her practicum years conducting diagnostics, therapy, and acting as the clinic coordinator for the severe behaviors disorders applied behavior analysis (ABA) clinic. She is research reliable on the ADOS-2, and has actively been involved in ABA for over 15 years. She is also certified in the world renowned Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT).

She has been involved in extensive research relating to autism and increasing physical activity, and health indicators. She also served as the Director of Psychology at the Unumb Center for Neurodevelopment, where she also co-founded and ran a summer camp for youth with social skills differences for 6 years using ABA principles. She then moved to Orlando, Florida and was overseeing quality assurance at a large ABA company, training BCBAs on understanding medical necessity, severity of symptoms, and treatment assessment writing and planning. Around this time, she co-developed a tool to help look at better ways to assess for autism symptoms, understand severity levels in diagnosis, create dosage of treatment recommendations, and create progress monitoring methods. She also has over 5 years experience on the funder side of ABA and understanding medical necessity from a managed care perspective.

Nicole McMillan, PhD, BCBA-D

Nicole McMillan, BCBA-D received her PhD in Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences with an emphasis in ABA from Auburn University. Over the past 15 years, she has gained clinical experience across skill acquisition and challenging behavior in settings, such as clinics, schools, in-home, and early intervention preschools. Those settings have included several populations, including caregivers, teachers, RBTs/BCaBAs/BCBAs, and individuals with ASD and other developmental disabilities. She has served in executive and senior leadership roles across multi-state ABA agencies with a focus on quality assurance and clinical systems, training, community outreach, research, and university program partnerships. Her interests include patient outcome measurement, clinical decision-making, and early intervention. She has presented at regional and national conferences, as well as published studies in several peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. She has also co-authored two book chapters in Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Recent Advances and Innovations in Assessment, Education, and Intervention and Handbook of ABA for Children with Autism: Clinical Guide to Assessment and Treatment.