Mia Ivanko, a Michigan State University senior, completed an internship as a Practice Manager for Connections Speech and Language Center, which is a speech and occupational therapy clinic in Lansing, Michigan. Ivanko has a double major in Linguistics in the College of Arts & Letters and Communicative Sciences and Disorders in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences. She shared her experiences as a Practice Manager Intern in the following Q&A that originally was published by the Excel Network.

What were your internship responsibilities?

My position was hybrid, so I mainly worked virtually and only came into the office once a week. I absolutely loved 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?

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 was hybrid and evolving, no day ever looked the same. Due to this, it is easier for me to list out all my responsibilities daily, weekly, and monthly:

• The first thing I did once I clocked into work was check my email to see if there were any faxes that we received updating the Plan of Care (POC) patient tracking sheet as needed.
• After this, I checked to make sure all our POCs and appointment notes were up to date. If they were not, I contacted the clinician to complete these as soon as possible.
• Next, I checked our “Therapist Wish-List” to see if there were any items in the office that needed to be bought.
• Every week on Fridays I created a report for all missing POCs and appointment notes to send out to clinicians for completion as I couldn’t bill without them completed. After this, I filed insurance claims for the appointments that had completed notes.
• On Fridays, I also went through and counted patient appointments to make sure they were not going over their authorized amount of visits.
• Every other week I updated payroll for each clinician with each patient that they were seeing.
• Monthly, I counted all patient appointments and created a monthly expense report with each individual patient and clinician’s monthly average for appointments and payments.
• Along with this, every month I created a list of all POCs due for each clinician that month and added 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 the clinicians could focus solely on delivering excellent patient care. I found great satisfaction in this and my decision to pursue a career in the field of my colleagues.

What skills did you learn and/or build upon during your internship?

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 your career path as a result of the internship?

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 that 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 internship opportunities?

Some advice that I have for students seeking 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.