Is AlohaABA right for your practice? Answers to the Questions Practices Ask

AlohaABA is an approachable, all-in-one practice-management platform for small and mid-size ABA practices, priced per staff member with a per-client data collection add-on. Boost is an RCM-first platform that checks payer contract rules, authorizations, and each provider's payer credentialing and scope of practice from intake through scheduling, so claims are clean before they are created. Across all clients in Q1 2026, Boost averaged under 2% payer denials, with a 99.4% clean claim rate. AlohaABA suits steady practices that want a simple tool. Boost suits practices that want to grow without adding overhead or chasing denials.

If you run a small or growing ABA practice, AlohaABA has probably crossed your list. It is an approachable, all-in-one practice-management tool, and for practices that want the core jobs handled in one place, that is a reasonable place to be. So why consider anything else?

This piece answers that honestly: what AlohaABA does well, where Boost takes a different approach, and how to decide which platform will improve the way your practice runs. The short version: both platforms handle scheduling, authorizations, and billing in one system, but they differ in how those pieces connect, and that difference shows up in whether your claims get paid.

What does AlohaABA well?

AlohaABA brings scheduling, authorization management, billing, accounts receivable, payroll, reporting, and a client portal together under one roof, with data collection available as an add-on. It fits small and mid-size ABA practices that want an all-in-one tool without heavy configuration.

Its scheduling offers day, week, month, list, and timeline views, recurring appointments, and authorization utilization checked during booking. Its compliance tracking prevents scheduling beyond authorized hours, pre-scrubs claims before submission, and sends reminders when a provider's qualifications are nearing expiration. Reporting covers profit and loss, aging, staff productivity, and cancellations, and AlohaABA also offers managed billing services for practices that want to hand off claims work.

If a simpler platform meets your needs and your processes are steady, AlohaABA earns its place on the shortlist. What it is built to do, it does approachably.

How is Boost different from AlohaABA?

Boost is built RCM-first. It connects the people, processes, and systems of an ABA practice so compliance is checked as the work happens, not reported on afterward, and it uses workflow automation and AI agents to take the heavy lifting off the people who run the practice.

Most platforms treat billing as an independent task: claims are built and scrubbed after services are delivered, and then software and people try to fix them and chase payment. Boost flips that. A compliant claim starts taking shape at the first intake, hiring, or scheduling step.

AlohaABA does include useful guardrails, like authorization-hour limits at booking and claim pre-scrubbing before submission. The difference is how far upstream the checks reach. Boost reads the payer's contract terms and each provider's payer-specific credentialing and scope of practice, and applies them from first inquiry and hiring onward, so the questions a scrubber catches at the end are answered before the session is ever booked.

How does Boost keep payer denials under 2%?

Boost averaged under 2% payer denials across all clients in Q1 2026, and it gets there by stopping denials before billing. Most denials start long before a claim is built. The payer's contract terms were misunderstood or have changed, coverage was not active, the authorization had expired, the provider was not credentialed with that payer, or the service code was not allowed. A clean claim is one the payer accepts on first submission, so those problems have to be caught upstream.

Boost starts with the payer's contract terms and the regulatory requirements and makes sure the software understands every detail. Those rules run across the client journey (first inquiry, intake, assessment, scheduling) and the team member journey (hiring, onboarding, training and credential tracking, scheduling). Before a session lands on the calendar, Boost checks that coverage is active, a valid authorization has hours to spare, the provider is credentialed for that service and payer, and the service fits the payer's rules.

By the time a claim is assembled, the hard work is done. It is clean before it is created. That is how Boost holds payer denials under 2%, with a 99.4% clean claim rate, on average across all clients in Q1 2026. For context, AlohaABA's managed billing page reports a 5% denial rate. Many practices track these details on spreadsheets outside

How does Boost handle scheduling when the day falls apart?

Scheduling in an ABA practice is not one job. It is two, and most platforms, AlohaABA included, are built for the first: a solid calendar you manage yourself. That is real value. The second job is what happens when the day falls apart.

Boost reacts to the day you actually have. A provider calls out at 7am and the entire day has to be rebuilt around clients whose authorizations, locations, and provider qualifications all still have to line up. Boost's Scheduling Agent re-optimizes around one cancellation or a dozen, and it does it the way an experienced scheduler does, reasoning in chains rather than one-for-one swaps. Move one therapist onto one client, which frees a second to extend with another, which closes the gap. Boost then partially publishes the optimized schedule in real time, so the changes that are settled go out immediately instead of waiting on the whole day to resolve. This is live in Boost today.

Boost drafts the optimized schedule and lets a human approve it. The system proposes; your scheduler decides. You get the speed of an optimizer without giving up control of the calendar, and bulk edits are interactive rather than a batch job you run and hope for.

Everything underneath those two is table stakes, and Boost does it too. The calendar only surfaces providers who can actually get paid to deliver a given service, checking for the right credential, an active authorization with hours remaining, and the right payer rules at booking rather than at billing. Authorization utilization is tracked live in the same system of record, so underutilization surfaces during the auth period rather than after it. And a healthcare-built communication service reaches families and staff, understands their replies, and threads them to the right family and child automatically.

The agent's logic came out of on-site field research with real schedulers across multiple practices, not from a whiteboard.

How does Boost handle credentialing and compliance?

Boost tracks every provider's credentialing status payer by payer in one roster, with expiration alerts so a credential never quietly lapses. It also tracks scope of practice (which services each team member is permitted to deliver), specialized training, certifications, and any payer or state-specific requirement attached to a provider.

Boost is built around defined process steps with proactive, event-based prompting. When an authorization is running low on hours or a credential is nearing expiration, the system raises it to the right person before it becomes a denial. Because all of this lives in the same system of record that scheduling and billing read from, Boost can refuse to book a session a provider is not cleared to deliver.

Most practices manage this on spreadsheets that go stale. Boost manages it where the work actually happens.

What analytics does Boost provide?

Boost treats analytics as a core capability. Unit economics shows what each service, payer, and location earns after the cost to deliver it. Caseload and performance management shows how every BCBA and RBT is loaded, matched to clients by availability, location, and authorization, and how that translates into utilization and outcomes. Operational reporting gives your team day-to-day visibility to run the week.

These reports share the same data as scheduling, credentialing, and billing, so the numbers do not have to be reconciled across systems before anyone trusts them. That is what lets a practice grow without adding overhead in lockstep.

Reliability, speed, and support your team can feel

The software your team relies on every day should disappear into the background. It should load quickly during your busiest hours, hold onto every session's notes and signatures, get new staff productive in days rather than months, and connect you to a real person quickly when you need help. These qualities rarely show up on a feature comparison, but they shape what daily use actually feels like, and they are easy to test. In any demo, ask how fast the system performs under real load, how quickly new hires ramp, and how responsive support is when something needs attention. The answers tell you more about the next year of use than any feature checklist will.

How does Boost pricing compare to AlohaABA?

Boost charges a percentage of claims, not a per-seat fee, so cost tracks revenue instead of headcount. AlohaABA uses per-user subscriptions plus add-on modules, which can climb as you grow. As of October 2026, AlohaABA's site lists practice management at $29.99 per staff member per month with unlimited clients, data collection as an add-on billed per client per month, and managed billing services priced by consultation.

The practical question for a growing practice: as you add staff and locations, does your software bill rise with headcount or with collected revenue? Hire a BCBA, open a location, or grow a caseload, and with Boost your cost moves only when your revenue does. Over a multi-year horizon, that changes the math.

 

 Is AI built into Boost or added on?

Boost's view is that the winning approach is hybrid: a solid system of record handles the predictable, auditable, rule-based work, and AI agents handle the tedious, nuanced work that is easy to get wrong or leave behind in a busy day. Knowing where to use a rule and where to use an agent is itself the expertise. Boost was built on a modern foundation from the start, so AI is part of how the platform works rather than something added at the edges later.

What should you test in a software demo?

The best software in this category disappears into the background. It loads quickly during your busiest hours, never loses a session's notes or signatures, and gets new staff productive in days rather than months. These qualities rarely show up on a feature comparison, but your team feels them every day.

What happens around the software matters just as much. Boost's RCM team holds a weekly call with customers, implementation and customer success hold another, and the Head of Product joins customer calls directly. Problems get solved before they become tickets, and the team is reachable in the moment through chat, not only through a queue.

In any demo, ask three things: how fast the system performs under real load, how quickly new hires ramp, and who from the vendor you will be talking to in month six.

Which platform is right for your practice?

Frame the decision around where your practice is headed, not just where it is.

If a simple, approachable all-in-one tool meets your needs, your processes are steady, and your goal is to keep a good thing running, AlohaABA is a reasonable fit. There is nothing wrong with keeping a status quo that works.

If you want a platform that helps you keep improving, lets you grow without adding overhead at the same rate, and gets claims right upstream instead of chasing them downstream, that is what Boost was built for. That is especially true if you are evaluating platforms for the first time,

opening a new location, or feeling the cost of stitching tools together. For a feature-by-feature breakdown, see our Boost vs AlohaABA comparison page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AlohaABA good for small ABA practices?

Yes. AlohaABA is an approachable, all-in-one practice-management tool aimed at small and mid-size ABA practices that want scheduling, authorizations, billing, and payroll in one place without heavy configuration.

How is AlohaABA priced?

AlohaABA charges per staff member per month for practice management, with data collection as a per-client add-on, so cost rises as you add staff and clients. Boost charges a percentage of claims, so cost tracks revenue instead of headcount.

What is Boost's denial rate?

Boost averaged under 2% payer denials across all clients in Q1 2026, with a 99.4% clean claim rate. Payer rules, authorizations, and credentials are checked before a session is booked, so most denial causes never reach the claim.

Does Boost handle credentialing and authorizations?

Yes. Boost tracks each provider's credentials payer by payer with expiration alerts, tracks scope of practice, tracks authorization hours live, and checks both before a session is booked.

Can Boost replace an existing billing setup?

Yes. Boost provides full billing and RCM support, with claims tied directly to the sessions they come from.

See Boost for yourself

The clearest way to see the difference is to watch the upstream compliance checks run against your own payer mix and provider roster. Focus on clients, not clerical work.