A practical guide for companies navigating divided attention—while protecting clients, clinicians, and the field

Let’s skip the lecture. You already know divided attention is a problem—for clients, for your team, for you. The question is what to actually do about it.

Here’s the facts: multiple jobholders are at a 25-year high across the U.S. workforce. Nearly a quarter of workers globally report holding two or more jobs. COVID didn’t just change where we work but it changed how we think about work. Economic uncertainty, overnight layoffs, and the normalization of remote everything made “diversify your income” feel less like hustle culture and more like common sense.

BCBAs didn’t invent the side gig. And the usual corporate playbook of tighter policies, guilt trips, appeals to loyalty isn’t going to make it disappear.

But you can get strategic about why it’s happening and build structures that work with reality instead of against it.

The Money Problem

I need or want more money than this position provides.

BCBAs often feel underpaid relative to their education and the emotional weight of the work. They see billing rates of $150+/hour and wonder where the money goes. The gap between what clients are billed and what clinicians are paid feels exploitative—even when it isn’t.

Meanwhile, organizations are managing reimbursement rates that have been flat for years, rising costs for everything from malpractice insurance to electronic health records, and administrative overhead that’s invisible to clinical staff.

Neither side is lying. But neither side is seeing the full picture.

Open the Books

Just stick with me for a minute. Actually show your BCBAs where the money goes.

It’s common for BCBAs to be curious about billing—they’re not wrong to ask, and most have never seen how expenses and overhead affect what actually reaches the clinician.

We asked FlyChain—a healthcare-specific bookkeeping platform that works with ABA practices across the country—to share what they actually see in the data. These are the benchmarks healthy ABA practices hit. If your numbers fall outside these ranges, it’s worth understanding why – you may be over or under paying your staff.

Here’s everything that comes out of collected revenue before clinical salaries get paid:

Admin labor: 8-14% of revenue. Billing staff, schedulers, intake coordinators, HR—the people who keep the operation running so clinicians can focus on clients. Best-in-class practices run closer to 8-10%. Above 14% usually means an overbuilt back office or heavy owner W-2 comp.
Benefits (clinical + admin): 4-8% of revenue. Health insurance, workers’ comp, retirement, training. It adds up to $15-25K per clinician beyond base salary. Most of your BCBAs have no idea that number exists.
Facilities: 4-9% of revenue. Rent, utilities, repairs, equipment. Lower for in-home models, higher for center-based.
G&A and overhead: 4-8% of revenue. Software, professional services, business insurance, licenses, travel.
Revenue cycle: 3-6% of revenue. Billing (in-house or outsourced), merchant fees, bank fees. Above 7% is a red flag unless you’re heavily outsourced.
Operating margin: 5-15% in a healthy practice. That’s the buffer for when a major payer sits on $80K in claims for 90 days, or when you lose two RBTs in the same month and have to scramble. Below 5% and you’re one bad month away from trouble.
What’s left for clinical labor: 50-55% of revenue goes to BCBA and RBT wages and payroll taxes. That’s the single biggest line item, and that’s not even counting benefits like health insurance, retirement, etc. Anything consistently above 55% usually means utilization problems, underpricing, or supervision loads that don’t pencil out.

Showing your clinicians this breakdown isn’t about defending yourself. It’s about replacing suspicion with shared understanding. Whether compensation at your practice is fair is still a conversation worth having—but it goes better when everyone’s looking at the same numbers.

And make sure they understand their total compensation—not just take-home pay. Benefits, CEU funding, supervision infrastructure, PTO, malpractice coverage—many clinicians don’t realize what that adds up to. If you’re investing $15K beyond salary, they should know it. Not as a guilt trip, but as information.

Know Where You Stand

If you haven’t benchmarked your compensation in the last 18 months, you might be losing people to the market without realizing it. The labor market has shifted. What was competitive in 2022 might be below average now.

Do the research. Know your regional market. And if you’re behind, have a plan—or at least be honest that you know and are working on it.

Audit Your Incentives

If your bonus structure incentivizes behaviors that could compromise client care, you’re putting your BCBAs in an impossible position and they know it.

Structures that create problems:

Productivity bonuses that reward volume over quality
Referral bonuses that influence recommendations away from best client fit or inflated prescription hours
Billing targets that pressure extending services unnecessarily
Penalties for recommending discharge when clients have met goals

Structures that work (when designed carefully):

Quality bonuses tied to treatment fidelity and appropriate progress and not raw outcomes that incentivize cherry-picking easy cases or rushing discharge
Staff retention and continuity-of-care metrics—rewarding clinicians for staying with clients through appropriate treatment duration
Supervision quality metrics that reward developing others
Caseload alignment incentives—authorizations that match what’s actually delivered, not inflated prescriptions that under-deliver for clients (insurance companies hate this too, and it erodes trust on all sides)

Make Path to Earning More Transparent

If someone asks “what do I need to do to earn more here?” and the answer is vague, they’ll assume the answer is “leave.”

Be specific. What does it take to get a raise? Is there a pay band structure? Are there clear milestones? If the path exists, show it. If it doesn’t, don’t be surprised when they find one elsewhere.

Create Pathways for More Income

When BCBAs work across multiple organizations, everyone pays a hidden tax. Every additional employer means another EHR to learn, another set of protocols, another supervision structure, another documentation style. Context switching isn’t free—it drains cognitive load that could be going to clients.

When that extra income comes from within your organization:

The learning stays with you. Hours spent on your overflow caseload deepen their knowledge of your systems, your client population, your culture—rather than building expertise somewhere else.
Conflict of interest risk drops. No overlapping clients, no competing for the same referrals, no ambiguity about whose protocols apply.
Quality stays visible. You can ensure the additional work meets your standards. When they’re moonlighting elsewhere, you have no idea what they’re doing or how it might affect their capacity.
It’s simpler for them too. One W-2, one supervision structure, one set of systems. That’s not nothing when someone’s already stretched.

If BCBAs want to earn more, make it possible internally: overflow caseloads, telehealth hours, training facilitation, weekend coverage, QA projects. Build hourly/contractual tracks for people who’d rather have higher rates than benefits. Give them options so moonlighting isn’t the only path.

Support Financial Stability

Sometimes the issue isn’t what you pay; it’s helping them manage what they have.

Consider what else supports financial wellness: student loan assistance programs, access to financial planning resources, even basic financial literacy offerings. These signal that you see them as whole people—not just billable hours.

At the ABA C.A.R.E.S. Summit, Brett Blevins is leading a session on behavioral finances for exactly this reason. The same science we apply to client programming can be applied to our own financial health.

The Meaning Problem

Not everyone working multiple jobs is doing it for the paycheck. Some of your best people are moonlighting because they’re not getting something else they need. Control. Growth. Alignment. Stability. A sense that their work matters beyond the billing cycle.

This is harder to fix than money. But it’s also where the real retention happens.

Autonomy and Flexibility

I want control over my schedule and how I work.

After telehealth expansion, many BCBAs aren’t going back to rigid schedules. The second job sometimes isn’t about money but about having one space where they control the terms.

What to do: Audit whether your stated flexibility matches your actual culture. Build outcome-based accountability instead of presence-based accountability but be specific about when presence actually matters.

Remote work isn’t inherently worse. But it’s not always appropriate either. Be clear about the clinical guardrails:

Caregivers sometimes need you in the room—not just on a screen—especially when building rapport or navigating difficult conversations
RBTs need in-person modeling and feedback, particularly early in their development or when introducing complex protocols
Fading to remote should follow the client’s readiness, not the BCBA’s schedule preferences

And then build the support to make it work. Train your BCBAs on how to make good clinical decisions about when remote is appropriate and when it isn’t. Give them frameworks, not just freedom. Normalize the conversation—”I’m going back on-site for this family because X” shouldn’t feel like a failure of efficiency; it should feel like good clinical judgment.

The flexibility isn’t “work from wherever, whenever.” It’s “we trust you to make good clinical decisions about when to be present—and we’ve equipped you to make them well.”

Trust, train, then verify.

Values Misalignment

I don’t agree with how this organization operates, and I need an outlet.

Some BCBAs work multiple jobs because their primary employer’s practices conflict with their clinical values. The side gig becomes where they can practice the way they believe is right.

This is a red flag for organizations—not about the BCBA, but about your own systems.

What to do: Create real channels for clinical voice—actual governance, not suggestion boxes. Be honest about your model’s constraints. If insurance reimbursement forces practices you know aren’t ideal, say so. BCBAs can handle hard truths; they can’t handle pretending everything’s fine.

But first, ask yourself: is it safe to speak up here? Can BCBAs raise concerns, push back on a policy, or admit a mistake without fear of retaliation or being labeled “difficult”? If the unspoken rule is to keep your head down and comply, don’t be surprised when your best clinicians find somewhere else to put their energy.

Psychological safety is the foundation of honest clinical culture. Without it, you won’t hear about problems until they’re already out the door.

And consider offering a different arrangement entirely. Some BCBAs don’t want to fight the system but they just want room to practice their way. Offer contractual or hourly tracks with more clinical autonomy for people who are willing to trade structure for freedom. Not everyone wants benefits and a steady caseload. Some want ownership of their clinical decisions, even if it means less security.

This keeps values-driven clinicians in your ecosystem instead of losing them to side gigs where they’re getting what you wouldn’t give them.

Institutional Exhaustion

I’m done with the establishment and want to work myself out of it.

These are your flight risks. They are actively building their exit while staying for stability. The danger isn’t that they’re planning to leave; it’s that they stop delivering while still on your payroll.

What to do: Be direct about what you need while they’re with you. Consider intrapreneurship pathways—can their ambitions become your new service line? Build graceful off-ramps so departures become referral relationships instead of burned bridges.

But also ask: do you actually know what’s on their plate? Burnout often comes from invisible labor—the crisis calls at 7pm, the parent who needs extra support, the RBT who’s struggling and needs more supervision than the schedule accounts for. If you’re not tracking the real workload, you’re not seeing what’s draining them.

Make the invisible visible. Check in on what’s actually happening, not just what’s on the calendar. Sometimes the exhaustion isn’t about the institution—it’s about unsustainable expectations.

Professional Growth

I’m not learning anything new here, and I need to grow.

Mid-career BCBAs often hit a ceiling. They’ve mastered their caseload, the supervision is rote, and there’s nowhere to go but sideways. The second job becomes a laboratory for skills they can’t access in their primary role.

What to do: Map career pathways beyond “Senior BCBA.” What comes after clinical mastery? Clinical directorship? Training and development? Quality assurance? Research? Business operations? If you can’t show people where they can grow, they’ll grow somewhere else.

Fund real professional development, not just CEU maintenance. Leadership training. Business skills. Specialty certifications. Conference attendance with actual engagement—not just badge-scanning.

Build mentorship that addresses career questions, not just clinical ones. Pair mid-career BCBAs with senior leaders who can help them navigate where they’re going, not just where they are.

Hedging Against Instability

I don’t trust that this job will be here in a year.

BCBAs who lived through COVID layoffs, reimbursement cuts, or sudden clinic closures learned a hard lesson: employer loyalty is one-way. The second job is insurance.

What to do: Be radically transparent about organizational health. Share financial realities. Explain how reimbursement changes affect the business. If things are tight, say so. If things are stable, show the evidence. People hedge when they don’t trust what they’re being told.

Build predictability into your model—guaranteed minimums, severance policies, advance notice commitments. Anything that signals “we won’t just disappear on you” reduces the felt need to hedge.

Acknowledge the history. Many BCBAs have been burned. Saying “I understand why you might not fully trust this” goes further than pretending the distrust is irrational.

The Management Problem

Don’t wait until it’s a performance problem.

Try: “I want to talk about something we don’t usually address directly: outside work. I’m not here to police what you do on your own time, but I need to understand your capacity so we can set you up for success here. Are you currently working anywhere else? My goal isn’t to say no—it’s to make sure we’re aligned and to see if there are ways we can meet your needs so you don’t have to look elsewhere.”

This conversation signals you’re not naive about reality, opens the door for honesty instead of hiding, and positions you as a partner rather than an adversary.

Don’t Wait for Exit Interviews

By the time someone’s leaving, you’ve already lost. The real insight comes earlier.

Build stay interviews into your rhythm. Not a formal HR process – just regular, honest questions:

What keeps you here?
What would make you consider leaving?
What’s one thing we could change that would make your work better?
Is there anything you’re not getting here that you’re finding elsewhere?
When was the last time you felt in your zone?

Ask before they’re halfway out the door. And when they tell you something, do something about it or explain why you can’t. Nothing kills trust faster than asking for feedback and then ignoring it.

Look at Your Leadership Layer

People leave managers. And in ABA, most clinical directors and supervisors got promoted because they were good clinicians not because they know how to lead.

Ask yourself:

Are your managers equipped to have hard conversations about capacity, workload, and performance?
Do they know how to set boundaries with rationale instead of just enforcing rules?
Can they identify when someone’s disengaging before it becomes a crisis?
Have they been trained on any of this or were they just handed a team and expected to figure it out?

If you’re expecting frontline leaders to implement everything in this article but haven’t invested in their development, you’ve built a system that depends on people having skills you never taught them.

Train your managers on:

Having risk reduced direct conversations about outside work and capacity
Recognizing signs of disengagement or burnout
Giving feedback that’s clear, specific, and not personal
Balancing flexibility with accountability
When to escalate and when to handle it themselves

This isn’t optional. It’s the layer where everything either works or falls apart.

Accountability Has to Go Both Ways

You can set all the right expectations and provide no follow-through.

That doesn’t mean punishment. It means consistency:

If a boundary exists, it applies across the board
If someone’s not meeting expectations, you address it early and directly—not six months later in a performance review

BCBAs will respect boundaries they see enforced fairly. They’ll resent ones that only apply when convenient.

The Real Bottom Line

The multi-job BCBA isn’t going anywhere. You can fight it with restrictive policies that everyone ignores, or you can adapt.

The organizations that figure this out aren’t just surviving the shortage. They’re building reputations. They’re becoming the place people want to stay. And that compounds. Just like turnover compounds—every departure costing you recruiting dollars, onboarding time, client continuity, and team morale—retention compounds too. Stability builds culture. Culture attracts talent. Talent stays longer.

Adaptation means:

Getting honest about what you’re competing with
Building workforce models with more texture—full-time, part-time, contract, hybrid
Focusing on what you can control: culture, transparency, career pathways, and how you treat people who might have one foot out the door
Measuring engagement and outcomes, not just schedule exclusivity

Save this article. Share it with the people on your team who can actually make these changes happen. Sometimes the first step is just getting everyone looking at the same problem.

If you don’t know where your practice falls on these benchmarks—or you know and don’t like what you see—that’s exactly the kind of visibility Flychain provides. They flag margin pressure automatically so you can catch problems before they become crises. Feel free to reach out to them on their website to learn more.

Special thanks to Flychain for contributing data-informed insights and real-world benchmarks that helped ground this piece in the financial realities ABA organizations face today.

At the ABA C.A.R.E.S. Summit this August in Boston, we dig into exactly these workforce challenges—including a session on behavioral finances with Brett Blevins. Because sometimes the best retention strategy starts with helping your people build financial stability that doesn’t require three jobs to achieve.

For BCBAs connecting this to the Ethics Code, the concepts in this piece align with Sections 1.10 (Awareness of Personal Challenges), 1.11 (Multiple Relationships), 2.01 (Providing Effective Treatment), 3.01 (Responsibility to Supervisees), and 5.01 (Ethical Business Practices).

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, HR, or financial advice. Employment laws vary by state—consult with qualified counsel before implementing policies around outside employment, compensation structures, or disclosure requirements.

The Multi-Job BCBA: What Organizations Can Actually Do About It