Why Your Business Partner Doesn't Need to Be an SLP: Aliza Shahar on Building a Niche Oral Myofunctional Practice

Aliza Shahar has been practicing speech therapy for 20 years. She's worked with autism, hippotherapy, pediatric feeding, and adult swallowing. But when she launched TASL Speech Therapy Consultants in Houston, Texas, she did something most SLPs don't: she partnered with a business professional who has zero clinical background.

That decision changed everything about how her practice runs.

Aliza's private practice focuses exclusively on teenagers and adults with oral myofunctional therapy, swallowing issues, and related speech concerns. It's a niche within a niche. And in just one year, she hit full capacity at roughly 30 clients per week, built a custom patient tracking app, and established referral relationships with orthodontists and dentists across the Houston area.

Let the Therapist Do Therapy

The most striking thing about Aliza's setup is how clearly she's drawn the line between clinical work and business operations. Her co-founder handles the financial conversations, the customer onboarding, payment processing, and marketing strategy. Aliza handles treatment.

"As a therapist, I want to focus on therapy. You have to first understand what you're good at and what you're not."

That doesn't mean she's hands-off. Aliza is deeply involved in shaping the messaging and the client experience. But her partner brings a customer's perspective that she admits is hard for clinicians to see on their own. When you've spent your career thinking like a therapist, it takes effort to step back and think like the person walking through your door for the first time.

For SLPs who aren't ready for a full business partner, Aliza's advice is simple: consult. Get someone with business experience to review your workflow, your pricing model, your customer experience. You don't need to figure it all out alone.

A 12-Month Treatment Program (Not Sessions)

Aliza doesn't charge by the session. She charges by the program.

Clients pay upfront for a 12-month oral myofunctional therapy program that starts intensive and tapers over time. The first three to four months involve frequent in-person sessions to build the foundation. After that, it shifts to a hybrid model with online check-ins and in-person visits as needed.

For clients who can't pay in full, she offers third-party financing through services like CareCredit and PatientFi. The provider gets the full amount, the client pays off the third party on their own terms, and Aliza splits the processing fee with the client.

"Do people ever balk at that? No, actually no."

The program model solves two problems at once. It gives Aliza predictable revenue, and it gives clients a clear commitment to the process. In oral myofunctional therapy, compliance is everything. Without consistent daily exercises, the treatment doesn't stick. A program-based approach signals that upfront.

Tracking Patient Outcomes with a Custom App

One of the more surprising details in Aliza's story is the app she built specifically for her practice. It started as a spreadsheet. She needed a way to track whether clients were actually doing their daily exercises at home, because oral myofunctional therapy depends on it.

So she worked with a developer (connected through her business partner) to build an app that lets clients log their exercises, report pain or discomfort levels, complete patient outcomes surveys, and message her directly.

Every session, Aliza reviews the data. If compliance drops, she can follow up immediately. If an exercise is causing discomfort, she tweaks the plan before the next visit.

"Being able to develop this for my practice, specifically for my clients, it helped me track. The most success comes from the practice."

It's a level of accountability most clinics don't offer. And it's one of the reasons her 12-month program produces little to no relapse after completion.

The Tongue Is More Than Speech

Aliza's clinical passion is the connection between the tongue, the jaw, and full-body health. She works closely with orthodontists who see teenagers and adults coming back six months after braces removal with an overjet again, because the underlying tongue thrust was never addressed.

She's also trained in craniosacral therapy, which she uses as a tool (not a standalone service) for adults with tongue ties who also present with TMJ issues. The multidisciplinary approach extends into the community. Aliza has built a local network of bodywork professionals, dentists, and orthodontists who refer back and forth.

"Don't be afraid of your competitors because you've got to actually work together."

In Houston, Aliza is one of only two certified oral patient myologists. Rather than competing with the other practitioner, they've built a referral system. Aliza takes the teenagers and adults. The other takes younger pediatric cases. When one finds a family where both parent and child need treatment, they send them to each other.

Know Your Value and Charge for It

Aliza's closing advice hits the same nerve that comes up in nearly every Clinic Chats episode. SLPs undercharge because they're uncomfortable with the business side of what they do.

"Don't be afraid of your value. You know what you are worth, what your treatment is worth. Put it out there and show the confidence, because the moment you show that you don't have confidence in what you do, people can catch up on that."

She's seen it in Facebook groups: therapists frustrated about unpaid invoices, clients ghosting on payments, awkward conversations about rates. Her answer is structural. Design a payment model that eliminates the ambiguity. Charge for the program. Use third-party financing. Get a business partner or consultant who can handle the money conversations so you can focus on treatment plans and clinical outcomes.

After 20 years, Aliza has found the niche she wants to stay in. She's planning to expand, but carefully, because oral myofunctional therapy is a specialty within a specialty, and she won't compromise the customer experience or clinical quality to grow faster.

Running a niche practice means your systems have to work as hard as you do. ClinicNote is a HIPAA-compliant EMR built specifically for private practices and university clinics, handling documentation, scheduling, and billing in one place so you can spend more time on the clients you're there to serve. See how ClinicNote works.

Transcript

Kadie: You are listening to Clinic Chats, the speech therapist's private practice podcast, a podcast full of personal journeys where we not only talk about success stories, but also real life struggles of small business startups. Clinic Chats is sponsored by ClinicNote, a HIPAA compliant, cloud-based EMR platform used specifically by private practice owners and university clinics. I'm your host, Kadie Jackstat, and thank you for joining me today.

Kadie: All right. Hello and welcome to Clinic Chats podcast today. I'm excited to get the chance to interview Aliza Shahar from TASL Speech Therapy Consultants. Hi, Aliza. How are you?

Aliza: Great. How are you doing today?

Kadie: I'm doing well. Just in between some sessions here and excited to chat a little bit about private practice per usual.

Aliza: Great.

Kadie: So, tell me a little bit about your company. You are a co-founder. Is that correct?

Aliza: Yes. I'm one of the co-founders.

Kadie: So when did you all begin your business?

Aliza: So this particular business, we started last year. However, I've been practicing for 20 years. So we actually started where we're specifically working with teenagers and adults with oral myofunctional therapy, swallowing issues, as well as some speech issues.

Kadie: Okay. But primarily in teenagers and adults. You're not seeing the young pediatrics with these issues.

Aliza: No. I am not seeing the young pediatrics. One thing about private practice, even though there's another OMT in the area that I refer the younger ones to, we refer back and forth to each other.

Kadie: Oh, nice. Nice. And what area did you say you're in?

Aliza: Houston, Texas.

Kadie: Houston, Texas. So you are the only two certified oral patient myologists?

Aliza: Yes. In the area. So we work to, even though we are separate businesses, we work together. So if they funnel through me, I refer over to her and vice versa, because many times when we're working with adults with tongue ties, the kids also have, and vice versa. So it's a very good process. And that's one thing about being in private practice, don't be afraid of your competitors because you got to actually work together.

Kadie: Yeah. What an awesome opportunity. So is your business partner also certified, or what is that dynamic like?

Aliza: Our dynamic, one's literally working the business portion of it.

Kadie: Oh, really?

Aliza: Yes. I'm the therapist here, and I'm working with this particular population because there's a huge need for this population, for teenagers and adults. And here, I work a lot with the orthodontists and the dentists in the area, and educating as well, consulting with them as well, and educating them in regards to oral myofunctional therapy.

Aliza: And one of the biggest things here, the orthodontists are knowing more and more with seeing more and more adults as well as teenagers with tongue thrust. And it's very awful for them when they remove the braces and everything is very nice and straight and beautiful. And six months later, they have an overjet again.

Kadie: Yes, I imagine. So that's where you kind of bridge that.

Aliza: I bridge that gap there. I also specialize with TMJ because I have a training in craniosacral, and I use that as a toolbox. I don't advertise craniosacral therapy, but I use it as a toolbox in my session because adults who typically have tongue ties also have issues with TMJ. And I provide them a little bit of relief until the surgery takes place.

Kadie: Wow. See, I'm so intrigued in this specific topic right now because I have zero experience as an SLP in the topic, but my son, who's only two and a half, had a tongue tie release and lip tie release at about age three months, and I feel like we're still seeing some effects of it to this day. So I'm like doing my own research at this time and seeing where we're going to go for his own therapy, but there's no one near us.

Kadie: At what point did you kind of determine your specialty and decide, okay, now I want to open my own business with this?

Aliza: I think particularly, like I said, I'm 20 years into practicing, and when you see over and over again kids coming in, especially like for articulation, and like 10 years ago, you can say about 10 years ago, they were saying oral motor, it doesn't work. And to me, I was thinking, well, how can that be possibly because everything's a muscle, tongue's a muscle, you have jaw muscles, and how is it related to speech and how is it related to swallowing?

Aliza: And so when I decided to open up, this was about, I had been already clinically practicing oral myofunctional therapy and seeing the results and then how it also can impact your health, this abdominal effect. There's such a power in the tongue, much more than speaking positive or negative things, but also with your health, the tongue is not in the right position. It affects the floor of your nasal cavity because it shapes your hard palate. And so it'll impact your breathing, it impacts your swallowing.

Aliza: If you have an immature swallow, by 18 months, a child should have a mature swallow where you're using your throat muscles and not your jaw muscles. And you see a lot of adults that they never mastered that. So it evolves into a lot of TMJ issues, I was noticing that. And to be able to get someone on the right path, it's much more than, okay, I can swallow now or I can speak better. It's wow, my full health.

Aliza: And also with my adult clients, it's a multidisciplinary team that we have, even though they're not in my practice, but we work together in the community where we have our own networking community. And they need body work done. The hips are not aligned, it impacts the jaw. Jaw is primary to the tongue.

Kadie: That is so amazing to me. I just love hearing people talk about this because you're right, when I was in grad school, it was ingrained in us. No more oral motor. And it's like, now you're seeing all of this resurfacing. So it's so amazing to me.

Aliza: Yes. And to see the impact that it does and to see the changes and the differences that you see in the face. I take before and after pictures and video. You want the client to always see the progress because some things you're just used to seeing. In the video mode, something slightly, they don't see what I see. So I have to show them what I see.

Aliza: And with the before and after pictures, you'll see jaws that are like U-shaped, tongues forward, where you see the jaw more parallel to the floor and tongue back into position, not in a low lying position, facial changes as well.

Kadie: So obviously not right now while everyone's wearing masks, but are you out in the community like pegging people like, oh, you need it, your jaw.

Aliza: It's hard, not so much out in the community because like you said, with COVID, everyone I come across, even now I'm watching the news. And there's a particular speaker and I was like, oh my goodness, his jaw is like on the other side of his face. So you see that you start to see the jaw deviating to the left, not at midline.

Kadie: And you mentioned that your partner is strictly business side. Are they a business professional or are they an SLP?

Aliza: No, business professional only. So we work together. I have to say this, when you're in private practice, as a therapist, I want to focus on therapy. So you have to first understand what you're good at and what you're not. You have to be knowledgeable. You have to be knowledgeable of what's going on. You can't be ignorant of those things either. But I'd rather focus my time on what I'm really good at.

Aliza: When we meet and set up the business model, one thing when you're in private practice is customer experience. That is crucial, especially working with teenagers and adults, but also with little children, the customer experience and how do you market out there and understanding those aspects. So it's great to have someone who's knowledgeable as your partner on your side, where you're providing the content, the information, and how to filter that.

Kadie: Absolutely. And I really think that your point is a good one, but you are actually, I think, the first SLP business owner whose partner is actually an outside business professional. Do you feel like that's been beneficial?

Aliza: Very beneficial. If you don't want a partner, I say consult. Definitely consult. We're trained as therapists and I have learned marketing along the way, especially with social media. Now that to me, you asked me 20 years ago or even 10 years ago, it's so different. Three years ago, it was different the way you do things and sit there and try to figure it out. It's a full-time job.

Kadie: It is. It really is. It's a full-time job.

Aliza: Having someone there that is focused on that, it's actually alleviating and I'm knowledgeable enough to know what I want and how it needs to be conveyed, but they help you through the process. They're focusing on the customer experience and you're providing the necessary... They provide the outline and you provide the, I guess, the meat and the potatoes of that outline, all the details in the outline, how it would look.

Aliza: It makes you look at things from a different perspective. As a therapist, we're looking at it from a therapist's perspective, but the business partner is looking at it from a customer's perspective. Sometimes that's very hard for us as therapists to switch over and be the client and see how it's going.

Aliza: What's nice is that when you have either a consultant or someone who works with you, you're constantly looking at your workflow. How does the flow work from the time that a client walks through the door, whether it's through the evaluation, how do they sign on with your program, when do they start treatment, how is all of that flowing is just as important as the treatment itself because if they're not having a good experience, then I don't want to come back and they're not going to refer.

Kadie: Does your typical customer experience look like them calling you first or is the business partner their first communication?

Aliza: My business partner is the first communication in the sense of setting up a consultation. What I do as part of my program is I offer an intro because a lot of times with oral myofunctional therapy, everyone's heard of it, but they don't really know what it is. They're like, oh, my dentist referred me to you for this. It's speech therapy consultants because I am a speech therapist. They're like, but there's nothing wrong with my speech.

Aliza: The customer experience is when they'll speak with my business partner in a sense to find out information, but also after the consultation and they're ready to sign on, he deals with all the financial aspects of it.

Kadie: That's really nice.

Aliza: Yes. It leaves me to focus on what I do best. It's great because that extra time you can take courses. You can network with colleagues and even have some staffing on some tough cases.

Kadie: Absolutely. Yeah. Do you take insurance or is it a payment plan through private pay? What is it?

Aliza: I do not take insurance, but I will provide them if they have out of network. If they want, I provide them an invoice. Also with oral myofunctional therapy, I also provide some research for them, but it's a treatment program. I don't charge by the session. I charge by the program.

Kadie: Okay. That's really cool and unique, I feel like. Is it kind of like in this program, you pay this amount and we're going to work with you until it's complete?

Aliza: Yes. Until it's complete. In addition to that, there's other things provided. Whatever tools that they need for treatment, the treatment kit is included. We also have an app that we designed to track and monitor patient outcomes.

Kadie: Oh, wow.

Aliza: Yes. That's part of oral myofunctional. The exercises are important and it lets me know when there's low compliance so I can always ding them with a message.

Kadie: Wow. They're doing daily practice or stretches, whatever it may be, and they log in. Whether it's respiratory training, swallowing exercises, just basic oral myofunctional therapy exercises for strength and positioning, every week it's tweaked and I monitor that as well. That's part of the treatment.

Aliza: Very cool. You developed this app?

Kadie: Yes. Tell me more about that.

Aliza: That's a business in itself. The thing is, when I started out, it was like a spreadsheet. I was like, how do you track it and how do you make them accountable? Because with oral myofunctional therapy, the most success, I mean, they can come to me. It's just like any therapy. You can go, but the effectiveness is the practice.

Aliza: Being able to develop this for my practice, specifically for my clients, it helped me track. I just kind of thought it out. Like I told you, my business partner helped me in a sense of customer experience. What are they supposed to do when they go home and how to track it.

Kadie: Right. Right.

Aliza: So patient outcomes, creating a patient outcomes measure is very important, so they have to provide me patient outcomes as well, which is a survey, and they also provide any pain or discomfort levels during their exercises and which exercises, and they're allowed to message me for any of the exercises where they feel like it's better and things like that.

Aliza: So every time they come into treatment, I look at that and we can tweak and I do a dynamic, of course, a dynamic assessment every time they come in.

Kadie: Yeah, that's so helpful. Did you reach out and have someone develop this app? Does your business partner also know how to do this?

Aliza: No, he doesn't know how to do that, but he knows how to connect me with the right people.

Kadie: Right. That's so cool. And you've only been open for one year, did you say?

Aliza: One year, yes.

Kadie: Wow. And what a year it's been. Are you back to seeing in-person clients at this point?

Aliza: Yes. We're in Houston. I'm back. I've been seeing in-person for two months. Our intensive part of the program definitely has to be in-person to set that foundation. Our main part of the program is hybrid, so it's online as well as we do check-ins. They have a certain amount of sessions during the maintenance for check-ins as well as if they need to come in person for any particular reason. So the program is actually 12 months.

Kadie: Wow, 12 months. And so it starts out more intense and then might taper off?

Aliza: Yes, it starts out more intense and then I'm continuously tweaking over. You could say about for the first three to four months, it's more intense depending on the client because everybody's individual. And then after that, it's tweaking their progress over time because with oral myofunctional therapy, you see little to no relapse after 12 months.

Kadie: Oh, really?

Aliza: Yes.

Kadie: Wow. How many clients would you say is your max capacity and have you met that yet?

Aliza: Yes. Yes and yes. No, no. Yes, I've met that. Right now, to be able to give the full extent, you can say I have in-person or if you want to look at in-person clients, I do about 20 a week and then online clients, when you look at the time that's spent in there, it's about maybe another 10 hours.

Kadie: Wow. That's amazing that in a year, you have developed 20 to 30 patients.

Aliza: It's like I said, with a business partner and understanding marketing and going out there and really being able to focus on my stuff, on what I know, it's a good partnership.

Aliza: And for those who don't have a partner or sometimes consulting can be very expensive, it's being able to do that work prior to or getting systems in place because I'm a systems gal. I have a system and if it doesn't, we need to kind of work that first before we start anything new.

Aliza: So if you're starting out in any type of practice, whether it's oral myofunctional therapy or just speech and language, working pediatrics, get your systems in place because then you can hire the right people to work those systems. Don't expect them to create them for you.

Kadie: Do you rent a space?

Aliza: Yes, I rent a space for now.

Kadie: Will you eventually want to expand your team?

Aliza: I'm looking to eventually expand the team, but that takes time. I understand what it is. I've been a director before. I understand what it is to hire. And that's another thing with having a business partner, understanding how to hire quality people. That's very crucial.

Aliza: And then with oral myofunctional therapy, it's a specialty within a specialty. So providing that training inside and making sure, like I said, the customer experience, what our culture is here is being conveyed with expanding. So yes, I'm looking to expand. When is the question.

Kadie: Right. Right. And when you do expand, will you want to remain oral facial myology focused or would it be expanding services in general?

Aliza: Just oral. Just focus on this niche.

Kadie: Also being able to take the data for research because there's information out there, but there's growing information out there.

Aliza: How do people get oral facial myology certified?

Kadie: You can go through basically the IOMT. You can go there and just start with courses. Then there's tons of different programs out there. I'm not a canned approach person, but I'd like to look at the theory behind everybody's program. Because you can get a program, but you have to make sure that it fits to that client.

Aliza: So you have to be knowledgeable enough to know how everything is connected, to be able to fit the right exercises, know the right amount of time, understand that if a client is telling you information about pain or discomfort, what does that mean, how to communicate also well with the doctors.

Aliza: But to start that, I would start there. You can get certified there, but honestly, your training is as you go along to learn and to understand more and more how to really define, how to understand how to do an evaluation and assessment because that's very important for the treatment plan.

Kadie: Well, you can definitely tell that you're passionate about it. I understand why people are coming to you quickly and that you've been able to grow this in just a year. What was your experience in the 20 years before that?

Aliza: I did a little bit of everything. When I started out, I had a lot of adolescents and teenagers with autism. I designed a program actually doing hippotherapy and speech therapy together.

Kadie: Oh, wow. How cool.

Aliza: Yes. That was very fun.

Kadie: And that was your own program as well?

Aliza: Yes. That was my own program. And like I said, everything was clinical research going through and understanding what the horse does to the body and then how to implement language there. So we would do one time in the office and one time in the ranch.

Kadie: Wow. That's amazing.

Aliza: I did that for a while. I also worked with feeding and swallowing with pediatrics as well as with adults. So I did that for a while. And what's great about our field is that as you evolve and grow, you can actually choose what you want to do.

Kadie: Yes. Do you feel like it's all led you to this point now? Is this the ending point for you?

Aliza: I think so. I think so as of right now. I can only tell you that today. Five years from now, we don't know.

Kadie: Right. Right.

Aliza: But I think so for now because this is at the forefront and it's very necessary.

Kadie: Yes. Yes. And to be a part of that is very exciting.

Aliza: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kadie: Well, thank you so much for sharing your own experience thus far. You seem very positive. Has there been any challenges this past year?

Aliza: Oh, there's challenges all the time. When you own a business, I cannot tell you there's no challenges. You're seeing the end of the show for this phase. Of course, there's challenges trying to figure out how to connect, how to communicate with your market and then how to convey that with the clients. That's been a challenge. Also making sure that you're keeping your overhead low. That's a huge challenge to be able to do.

Aliza: That's another thing that I also do. And I advise this and she can work anywhere, but it's been amazing. I use this lady that I want to say it's bookkeeping, but she's not a bookkeeper. She is more like a financial manager when it comes to your business accounts and how to get to where you want to go and the goals.

Kadie: Oh, so you've utilized her to keep things organized.

Aliza: So she's part of our monthly meetings with my business partner.

Kadie: Wow. That's amazing. And so you have her. What are your other overhead costs?

Aliza: I have someone going out also some reps just going out and dropping off information.

Kadie: Nice.

Aliza: And then other expenses, I'm sure, like your rent and just your basic utilities and just making sure that where you're putting your money is where it goes for treatment, where your clients are.

Kadie: Absolutely right. Any words of encouragement or advice for all of the positives that you have felt over the last year? What would you like to tell our listeners?

Aliza: What I want to tell especially those starting private practice or who have been in private practice as SLPs, and I see this sometimes in a lot of the group chats, don't be afraid of your value. You know what you are worth, what your treatment is worth and put it out there and show the confidence because the moment you show that you don't have confidence in what you do, whether it's the price and things like that, people can catch up on that and it changes the attitude as well.

Kadie: So it could be stressful sometimes because like I said, in some of the group chats I've seen about when they're talking about either a client not paying and things like that, look at the way your model is for taking payment as well. So it has worked out for you that it's a program. They pay up front, is that correct? Or monthly maybe?

Aliza: No, they pay up front. Everything up front.

Kadie: Do people ever balk at that?

Aliza: No, actually no. The people that are here that have been with me have not balked at that, but I also provide them third party payment plans.

Kadie: Oh, you do?

Aliza: Yes. So what's great is if you utilize CareCredit, PatientFi, there's some charge to you as the provider and I split that cost with the client when they have to go for payment. So then they're set up with this third party, you get your full reimbursement and they're paying off the third party.

Kadie: Yes. And they have to deal with that. Wow. I did not know about that. How smart.

Aliza: So being able to do that. That's my business partner, by the way.

Kadie: Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I see the value. I see the value.

Aliza: But you have to have somebody that's there, like I said, invested and this person is invested and the success of the company is his success. He wants to grow too and like I said, we are planning to grow, but it's a matter of when and how. So we're working on that.

Kadie: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for all of your expertise and advice and sharing your story.

Aliza: Thank you for having me on your show.

Kadie: All right. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.

Aliza: You too. Bye bye.

Kadie: Thank you for joining me and listening to Clinic Chats, the speech therapist's private practice podcast. If you have a moment, please leave a five-star review for Clinic Chats to help other SLPs find our podcast. If you'd like to share your own personal journey through private practice, please email me at kadie at clinicnote.com. That's K-A-I-D-E at clinicnote.com. Bye bye.