Alpaca Health helps ABA practices run payroll without the operational burden

Introduction

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy plays a critical role in supporting children with autism and developmental differences through consistent, individualized care. For the practitioners delivering that care – Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) – the operational burden of running an independent practice can be substantial. In addition to clinical work, they must manage scheduling, documentation, insurance workflows, payroll, and state-specific regulatory requirements.

Alpaca Health is an AI-powered platform built to support this work. Designed to help BCBAs launch, run, and grow independent ABA practices, Alpaca combines all-in-one technology with done-for-you administrative services.

As Alpaca expanded its platform, payroll emerged as a critical complement to its compliance and credentialing offerings. With clinicians and staff operating across multiple states and pay structures, accuracy and reliability in payroll became essential to day-to-day operations. Through its partnership with Salsa, Alpaca streamlined payroll, reducing administrative burden and allowing clinicians to spend less time on paperwork and more time delivering care.

Challenge

Payroll in ABA practices is uniquely complex. Compensation is often tied directly to session data, including billable hours, supervision time, and variable pay structures that differ by role and by state. BCBAs running independent practices must also manage state-specific tax requirements and programs such as Colorado’s FAMLI, which many generic payroll providers do not support out of the box.

Alpaca needed full control over the payroll experience to match the clinician-first approach of the rest of its platform. Existing options fell short: legacy providers lacked flexibility, and off-the-shelf embedded solutions were not designed for the operational realities of behavioral health. The team needed a developer-friendly partner that could move quickly, integrate cleanly, and support the specific needs of BCBA-owned practices.

Solution

Alpaca partnered with Salsa to embed payroll directly into its platform, without adding complexity for clinicians or engineering overhead for the team.

Using Salsa’s components, Alpaca launched a fully embedded payroll experience in under a month - representing one of our fastest go-lives to date! Practice administrators can now run payroll within Alpaca’s existing workflows, with no need to manage external tools or manual handoffs. The underlying infrastructure supports key payroll requirements for ABA practices, including retroactive pay adjustments, state-specific tax calculations, benefit deductions, and automated filings.

This speed mattered. Alpaca’s promise to BCBAs is fast time to launch, measured in weeks rather than months, and payroll needed to operate at the same pace. With Salsa, it did.

"We needed full control and fast execution. Salsa gave us both, as well as the flexibility to support ABA practices as we grow." — Michael Gao, CEO of Alpaca Health

Results

Payroll quickly became a strength of the Alpaca platform and a core component of its done-for-you services, enabling BCBAs to focus on clinical work rather than administrative tasks.

Manual processes were eliminated, payments became more reliable, and Alpaca’s operations team gained clear visibility into payroll and compliance, all without the need to build or maintain a system in-house. What began with a small group of early adopters has since become a foundational part of Alpaca’s offering to independent practices nationwide.

"Payroll used to be one more thing our BCBAs had to figure out on their own. Now it's handled accurately, compliantly, and without them having to think about it. That's exactly what we want." — Michael Gao, CEO of Alpaca Health