Hometown: Bloomfield Hills
Major and class standing: Linguistics and Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Junior
Where you interned: Connections Speech and Language Center, Lansing, MI

What was your internship title and role/responsibilities?
I worked at Connections Speech and Language Center as a Practice Manager for my internship. Connections is a Speech and Occupational Therapy clinic located in Lansing Michigan. My position is hybrid, so I mainly worked virtually only coming into the office once a week. I absolutely love this position! My responsibilities consisted of administrative management of office supplies, toys for therapy, and organization around the office, human resources jobs, such as employee onboarding, acting as a point of contact between management and employees, assisting in financial planning and insurance billing, handling day-to-day challenges within the office, and overseeing the implementation of office technology.

How did you obtain your internship? What resources did you utilize to secure your internship?
This position was not one that simply fell into my lap. When I knew that I wanted to become a Speech Pathologist, I called every speech clinic I could find asking if they were hiring for any paid or unpaid opportunity. Once I connected with Tara and discovered that she was thinking about creating an office manager position, I did everything in my power to try and obtain that position. I immediately sent her my resume, followed their social media on Instagram, and asked for her personal cell phone number. Once I had these resources, I called and messaged her nearly every day to convince her that I was the perfect person for the job. After I was in this post for a while, she told me that my persistence was a major reason as to how I got this job. Hearing this, I knew that I did the right thing to receive the job that was right for me.

What did your daily routine include?
As my position is one that is hybrid and evolving, no day ever looks the same. Due to this, it is easier for me to list out all my responsibilities daily, weekly, and monthly:
• The first thing I do once I clock into work is check my email and see if there are any faxes that we have received, updating the Plan of Care (POC) patient tracking sheet as needed.
• After this, I check to make sure all our POCs and appointment notes are up to date, if they are not, I will contact the clinician to complete these as soon as possible.
• Next, I will check our ‘Therapist Wish-List’ to see if there are any items in the office that need to be bought.
• Every week on Friday’s I create a report for all missing POCs and appointment notes to send out to clinicians for completion as I cannot bill without them completed. After this, I will file insurance claims for the appointments that have completed notes.
• On Fridays I also go through and count patient appointments to make sure they are not going over their authorized amount of visits.
• Every other week I update payroll for each clinician with each patient that they are seeing.
• Monthly, I count all patient appointments and create a monthly expense report with each individual patient and clinician’s monthly average for appointments and payments.
• Along with this, every month I create a list of all POCs due for each clinician that month and add them into the calendar as reminders.

Your favorite experience from the internship?
It is very difficult for me to pick just one experience as my favorite during my internship. Because of this, I have decided to say the whole job! I love being able to use my skills in organization and technology to create an environment where our clinicians can focus solely on delivering excellent patient care. I find great satisfaction in this and my decision to pursue a career in the field of my colleagues.

What was your least favorite part of the internship?
I would have to say my least favorite part of this internship has to do with insurances and billing. There always seems to be a problem with insurance coverage for patients. The process of coverage is very complex and hard to fully understand. I am very happy for the experience with it, and I think I might finally be getting the hang of it, but it would still have to be my least favorite aspect of my job.

What skills did you learn and/or build upon during your internship?
Building on the previous question, I had the opportunity to learn more about insurance coverage for patients. I find that this is a very useful tool to have both in my future as a Speech Pathologist, and as someone who receives healthcare. I am also very thankful for the opportunity to build upon my organizational and technology skills. I feel as though I have been able to learn more about the opportunities within Google Workspace which will be very useful to me in the future.

What did you learn about the industry or your career path as a result of the internship? What are your future plans?
The information that I learned about Speech Pathology from working at Connections has been unmatched. Walking into this job, I wanted to become a pediatric Speech Pathologist that founded my own clinic straight out of graduate school. Now, I am not so sure I want this to be my plan. As I observe how much goes into running a practice, I realize that I might not be able to do it all straight out of graduation. I have also learned that even if I might have my mind set on being a pediatric Speech Pathologist, I may go through my second year of graduate school placements and realize that is not my true calling. I am so thankful that I have had this experience and cannot wait to see what it brings me next.

What advice do you have for other students seeking out internship opportunities?
Some advice that I have for students seeking out internship opportunities would be to put yourself out there! If you want to get an internship that will give you the opportunity to learn skills that you may need to use in the future, you will need to put your best foot forward and actively pursue your ambition.