Growth in an ABA practice is governed by the intake funnel: referral → intake → assessment → authorization → treatment start. Every stage loses some families, and long waitlists between referral and first session are one of the industry's defining problems — children wait while need is urgent, and referrals quietly go cold. This dashboard shows where families enter, where they drop, and how long it takes to start care.
Why the intake funnel matters
A referral is only potential revenue until the child is in active treatment. Between those points sit insurance verification, an assessment (97151), an authorization decision, and scheduling — each a place where days stretch into weeks and families choose another provider or disengage. Tracking conversion and time-to-start turns intake from a black box into a managed pipeline, and it tells you where adding staff or fixing a process would actually move activations.
What this dashboard tracks
The funnel overview counts total referrals and how many reach each stage — intake, assessment, authorization, and active treatment — so the drop-off at each step is visible at a glance, alongside the average days from referral to first session. A by-source view shows which referral sources (pediatricians, payers, school districts, families, web) send the most families and which convert best, so outreach goes where it pays off. A lost-opportunity view ranks why families drop — no response, chose another provider, insurance denied, moved — so the most fixable losses get attention.
How to read it
Watch two things: the shape of the funnel and the time through it. A funnel that narrows sharply at one stage — many assessments but few authorizations, say — points to a specific bottleneck to fix. Rising days-to-start is an early signal that demand is outrunning capacity. And the lost-reason mix separates losses you can influence (slow response, scheduling) from those you can't (a family that moved).
Who uses it
Intake coordinators, BCBAs managing assessment capacity, and owners use the funnel to shorten waitlists, focus referral relationships, and convert more of the families who reach out into active clients.
Metrics it tracks
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total Referrals | Referrals received in the period — the top of the funnel. |
| Active Clients | Referrals that converted all the way to active treatment. |
| Lost Referrals | Referrals that dropped out before starting treatment. |
| Average Days to Start | Average elapsed days from referral to first therapy session — the waitlist metric. |
Used by: Intake coordinators, BCBAs managing assessment capacity, owners
Frequently asked questions
Why are ABA waitlists so long?
Time-to-start stacks up across insurance verification, the initial assessment, the authorization decision, and scheduling against limited BCBA and RBT capacity. Each step adds days, and demand often outpaces clinical capacity — which is why average days-to-start is one of the most watched ABA intake metrics.
What are common reasons families drop during ABA intake?
The frequent ones are no response after the initial inquiry, choosing another provider (often a shorter waitlist), insurance denial or coverage issues, and families moving out of the service area. Separating the losses you can influence from the ones you can't tells you where process changes will actually help.
How can an ABA practice shorten time-to-start?
Find the funnel's narrowest stage and the longest delay, then address that specifically — faster insurance verification, more assessment slots, or quicker scheduling after authorization. A funnel report makes the bottleneck visible instead of guessing.
Can I build this on my own referral data?
Yes. Export your intake/referral log and use this as a template — we model it into a Power BI report. The sample uses synthetic data so you can see the finished funnel before bringing your own.
Build this report on your own data
Clone this ABA template — describe it and we’ll generate sample data so you can try it free, or upload your own export. You get a fully modeled, branded Power BI project that opens in Power BI Desktop.
Use this as a template →