Episode 103: The Myo Membership Explained & A FREE Myo Screener Training

Quick Disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified orofacial myologist, feeding specialist and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, tethered oral tissue and airway space. I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to get this information out to the masses. Let's get started today. It's me, your host Hallie Balkan and I wanted to hop on here and chat with you guys about the MYO membership. Why? Because we get so many questions about what is the MAYO membership? How is it different from the other things that you you offer? You know, is it appropriate for me if I'm new to Mayo? And let's just go through all of this and talk about what the MYO membership is and who it's for. So first and for first and first and foremost, the MYO membership is a collaborative group of professionals in the myofunctional therapy space, right? So that might be SLPs, OTs, RDHs, DDs, and we are all hanging out together helping each other evolve and learn in the MYO space. Now, some of our members are brand new and some of our members have been certified for a while now. So there is a really good mix of what we like to call newbies and experienced providers in the MYO space, helping each other out within the group. Which is really cool because as we all grow, the more we learn, the more we realize we do know and the more we have to learn. And so the beauty of this group is that no matter how much experience you have or somebody else doesn't have, we it is a safe place to ask your questions without judgment and get a variety of responses that you know is coming from a place where people actually have the clinical knowledge to help you and assist you and also help you move the needle forward with your patient. So if you want to hop into a free training that we're doing this week, by the way, there is a free training and so we will make sure that is linked for you. But if you go to themyomembership.com that's going to put you on the wait list and that will also give you the information you need on the training. If you prefer to go straight to the training, we will go ahead and link that to the website or the show notes so that you can get to that as well. But is a five day challenge to screening your first orofacial myofunctional therapy patient. It's a free training series and it is prerecorded so it's going to be on a website. When you register, you'll get the link to the training and you'll be able to join us to one learn how to use my Fast MYO screening packet. So if you go to fastmyoscreening.com you can get the free Myo screening packet. And during these five days together this week, if you're listening, on the day that this podcast actually launched, on March 22, 2021, or sometime during this week or the following week, you will still have access to this free training. The free training will come down on April 2nd at 5pm Eastern Time. So make sure that you watch it. We will release one video per day between March 22 and March 29 and then again it will be up until April 2 at 5pm Eastern Time. All right, what are you going to learn in this free training? Well, the free training basically teaches you how to use my Fast Myo screening packet. There's a checklist in there. I'm going to let you use my 5 year old. You're going to get to observe her eating various different foods during a snack and then you'll basically complete the checklist on her. Make sense of the screening results and next step recommendations and really you'll learn the fastest way to launch yourself into treating orofacial myofunctional therapy cases after the screening is completed. So, so that is what we've got going on this week. But what is the bio membership? Well, this training is just a way to give you a little bit of a taste of how we do things around here. And we know it's just, it's so needed. And even if you're somebody who's not sure if you belong in the myo space or you want to, you know, get involved, this is a great way to dip your toe in because like I said, this, this training the week of March 22, 2021, this is a free five day training. And the beauty of this is that you get to experience it, figure out if it's for you and if not, please, please, please just take what you've learned. Do these screenings during your evaluation so that you can determine whether or not you need to refer out to somebody else in the MYO space for any patient that is on your caseload. And the reason I share this is because there's a really high incidence of individuals on caseloads that have myofunctional disorders and are going Unidentified because people just aren't aware of it. They just don't. They don't have the knowledge of how frequently orofacial myofunctional disorders exist in this space. So anywho, let's jump into talking about the MYO membership and what it is that you get in the MyO membership. Basically, the MyO membership is a collaborative learning opportunity where you get continuing ed every single month, you get research reviews, you get a virtual online study club, and you get business training and marketing materials as well, which is pretty cool. And I love it because for me, it's really been a fun blend of everything that I love all in one place. Now, when you look at the MYO membership, right, if you go to the myomembership.com it's currently going to be a waitlist page until the 29th, March 29th, 2021. We will, at 9am we will open up themyomembership.com to join. And that will only be open through April 2nd at midnight Eastern time. So if you want to join, make sure you're paying attention to your your dates or just get on the, you know, you can, you can add yourself to the wait list so that we notify you when enrollment opens. And you don't have to be sitting on a website or by your inbox or anything because it'll just pop in there with lots of reminders to join while doors are open. Open. What I want to tell you is that this is just not this is not just an average like CEU learning opportunity. It is the place to be. Okay? It's the community with the resources that you need to tap into if you want to achieve your MYO superstar status and you want to feel amazing while doing it. Because we really are that community that welcomes everyone regardless of where you are in your journey. And we support you, we elevate you, and we have a zero tolerance policy for any bullying or, you know, snide remarks. We just don't tolerate that in the My Own membership. It is a kind place with professionals who truly want to elevate each other. And quite honestly, it is everything I needed when I first started this journey and that that's truly what has inspired me to create the My Own membership in the first place. Right I wanted to offer resources and community that can transform your practice and create career from the inside out by giving you the confidence, the clarity, the capability to step into being that MYO superstar that you want to be. So doors will open, as I mentioned, on Monday, March 29, 2021, 9:00am Eastern Time. They will close at midnight eastern time on April 2nd. Do not wait, don't email us after doors close and you know, beg to get in. Make sure you get in while doors are open. But let's talk a little bit more about the MAYO membership and what it actually entails. Okay, so there are four pillars to the MYO membership and I've already mentioned them briefly, but let's just go a little bit deeper into them so that you can have a better understanding of what actually goes on inside the MAYO membership and what you get. Because when you join, you get access to the entire Mayo vault. What is the mayovault? The Mayo Vault contains every single single MYO study club with actual case studies, every single CEU event that we've done in the past, the training events. And you only get, I will say you only get CEUs for the month that you pay for. However, you can go back and watch any of the trainings that you want to watch from the past month and I will list out for you in a moment what's in there already from because we launched this last year and we do submit for continuing ed. We are both an ASHA CE provider and an AOTA CE provider and there are other organizations that we also are have been submitting to as well. So if there's a specific organization that you're curious about, email supporteedthepedes.com and we will be happy to give you a yes or a no as to whether or not we will be submitting to those other organizations. Now these trainings, I call them CEUs that matter and Mater Mat simply stands for Myo Airway Tots M A T Matter. Okay, I know I get silly like that, but these are trainings that are led by either my or other guest experts and you have exclusive access to them through the MYO membership. They are not available anywhere else. Right. These are two hour trainings with a 15 minute Q&A at the end. So 2 hours and 15 minutes and we have one focus topic each month and like I said, we get them CEU approved. Okay, so that is, that's that piece and that's that alone is what you're paying for when you join the membership. The rest of what I'm about to Review just bonus. But it's incredible bonuses for you because it's the collaborative learning environment that's really helping individuals go out and fully know how to assess and treat their patients. And that's really cool. The second pillar of the MYO membership is Mastering Myo. And Mastering MYO is your online study club. What better way to master Mayo than to link up with other myofunctional therapists, right? SLPs, OTs, RDHs, dentists, and collaborate on real cases. Okay, like, who's ready to network? Collaborate. Learn with a glass of wine from your. From your couch, in your pajamas. You know, like, hi, me. Sign me up. Like, this is why I created this, guys. I love this. And what's been really cool is we. We have a process for submitting case studies, and everybody does have to have a completed evaluation. So you get access to these completed evaluations written by different people in the group, which is really cool because you get to see how different people do their evals. But also, a lot of our patients have either. We've had some patients that are not group members or their children, but we've also had some patients on our study clubs that were group members and. Or their children. And that has given us some good opportunity to ask questions and have that dialogue like you might do in an actual evaluation, not just in a review of a case. So that's been pretty awesome. Now, the third pillar is know what you don't know. Okay, These are done for you. Research reviews in the MYO Airway Mat. You know, Myo Airway taught space. The mat space. And admittedly, research is not my favorite thing to dissect. So I'm bringing you a team of Mayo moderators who create this content for you. What we do is we select. We go through and we look at different articles, and we select articles four per month that are related to the topic, the CEU topic that is being taught in the membership. And. And we have our two moderators. Each person reviews two articles, and then they switch and they review each other's and each other's reviews so that we can make sure it's, you know, that we remove as much bias as possible. And really, the whole point of this is not to have a, you know, journal submission type review of a article. Our goal is to dissect it, make sense of it for you right as the practitioner, and give it to you as a tool if you want to share it with your patients, if you want to share it with other providers that are on your team that want to better understand the research or understand where you're coming from with what you do. This is meant to be a tool to help you, your patients, your providers, okay? Because if we can get this type of information into the right hands and we can help others realize that, yes, this stuff does not really typically exist in the speech pathology journals. We have to look elsewhere, right? We got to look into the journals that ents publish and we got to look into, you know, medical journals outside of the speech pathology and the OT spaces. You know, that's really what we've come to recognize was that the research, there is research out there. And yes, we always need more research, but there is a ton of research already available. And so it's a matter of finding it, locating it, and making sense of it. And that is why I say know what you don't know. Right? And that's what we're doing for you. We're helping, you know, give you those done for you research reviews. Now, the fourth pillar is niche down to up your income. And this is for those of you who maybe just want to go out and market your services. Maybe you work for somebody else, but you're not quite sure how to market yourself as a myofunctional therapist and, or you would love some marketing tools to be able to do that. Well, hi, that's available for you right here in the myofault and I'll go over in a second what's already in there. In addition to that, for those of you who are interested in seeing your own private patients on the side, or even if you're in business for yourself or you want to be in business for yourself, this can help you launch your MYO business. Okay. And yes, it is not the main focus, but it is one of the four pillars. And I am somebody who was able to launch a practice from zero to six figures in eight months as a solo practitioner. Then I built a team. I became certified in Mayo and I more than doubled my income when I became, when I started advertising that I was a myofunctional therapist, right? Because I became super niche in what I was doing with peed feeding tots and myo. And this was all while being private pay. Okay? And so I do coach other business owners. It's not just a hobby for me. It used to be more of a hobby a couple of years back, but I've been coaching other private practice owners now for the past 5 1/2, 6 ish years. And maybe it's been more than that at this point. Six, six and a half years. And business and marketing are my love language. And I absolutely, I absolutely love it. I enjoy it. It is super natural to me. And so it's something that I enjoy doing, which is why we have it as an added element in the MYO membership. Now, as I mentioned before, if you want to grab your fast myo screening packet, go to fastmyoscreening.com okay? The doors to the membership will be open, as I mentioned, the week of March 29th through April 2nd. March 29th at 9:00am Eastern Time through April 2nd, midnight. So, you know, midnight Eastern time. Think about what time zone am I in? But right now we have that free training going on. So you want to make sure you get the link to the free training. And that free training is going to be in the show Notes. It will be available if you're in our Facebook group as well or you get on our email list. We will make sure you've got that link or if you can't find it, just email supporteedthepedes.com and we will make sure that we get you access to the free training that's going on right now. Now, let's talk for a moment about what is in the MYO vault. It's so much fun. I love it. So when you join the MYO vault, the first thing I want to tell you is before we get into this, I have three amazing mayo mentors on the team. So it's not just Hallie and they're answering your questions. I have four other SLP comms, okay, four other certified orofacial myologists besides myself. One being the fabulous Autumn Reed Henning. And she's a certified and licensed speech language pathologist. She is also a certified orofacial myologist. She's also an international board certified lactation consultant. And she's just a brilliant mind. Okay? She is the brilliant mind behind the original TOTS training. And so she is. I always say she's my TOTS lady, but she's just brilliant when it comes to tots MYO airway. She is such a wonderful, wonderful resource and I thoroughly enjoy having her as with a friend and colleague inside the MYO mentorship helping to mentor you all and answer your questions. We also have Kayla Fontenot and she is also a speech language pathologist and certified orofacial myologist. I will also tell you that all of these ladies that join me within the MYO membership, they are also business owners. They all have their own private practices with teams that work with them and they are known for doing this work. Now Kayla is a amazing certified orofacial myologist as I mentioned, and she is also in the group helping answer your questions. And then we also have Vanessa Anderson Smith who is also a speech language pathologist and certified orofacial myologist who has a multidisciplinary private practice. As I was mentioning before, she is an instructor for Talk Tools. She is also a brilliant myo mind and treats a lot of these little kiddos in her practice. And so again, just another these ladies are just a wonderful, wonderful resource to have access to. Again, as a bonus, you don't pay extra for access to them, which is pretty cool. So definitely the place to be. And like I said, our goal is through the elevation movement, which is something I recently created, is to just elevate all of you in what you're wanting to learn and do with your myotots airway, you know, career. Now what have we had so far? In July and August I did deconstructing the orofacial myofunctional evaluation and taught you how to assess, right? And then in August I taught you all how to summarize your findings and treatment plan. I did evaluations on an adult, on a PDF, one in person, one virtually. And so you guys get access to all of that. Plus in the study club that month we did a self assessment and so you could even walk yourself through your own self assessment on yourself following along with what we did in that training. In September 2020 we had a crash course in orofacial myofunctional therapy. In October 2020, Ken Hooks presented on upper airway resistance, no rest for the restricted. And we talked a lot about sleep studies. November 2020 Autumn presented on options surrounding tethered oral tissue releases. You know, thinking about pre and post frenectomy, especially In December of 2020 we had Patrick McKeown, you know, teach on Buteyko breathing and he gave us some really cool exercises from an airway standpoint. In January 2021 of this year I had Dr. Jennifer Tipograph and Dr. Kimberly Baer. They're actually the dentist at Natural Dentist Associates that I have the privilege of working with. They came in and taught us all about growth appliances, what they are when they're used, how to use them. That was a really, really cool conversation that you all definitely want to go back and listen to. And then in February 2021 we had Cheryl Schaefer come in and present on the impact of orofacial myofunctional disorders on malocclusion, which is something we can all learn lots about now. In March, we had David McIntosh present on obstructive sleep apnea, sleep disordered breathing, tonsils, adenoids, all that fun stuff. And he's an ENT out of a stress. And he's also been on the podcast, you can go back and listen to that if you're interested. But he's just a phenomenal teacher and answered all the ENT questions that the group had, which was no easy task. But we actually submitted a ton to him beforehand to make sure he would hit on them in his presentation. And so this is, these are just really valuable presentations and learning opportunities that I want everybody to realize you have access to. You can come in and watch any of these on your own time because they're all already in there in April. Upcoming in April, our next presenter will be Felix Liao. And he'll be talking about, you know, sleep as well, obstructive sleep apnea. And he has a book that came out licensed to Thrive recently, which is basically a, it's a mouth owner's GPs to vibrant health and innate immunity. And he's also the author of other very well, well known books like Six Foot Tiger, three Foot Cage. And so he talks a lot about, you know, having enough space in your palate and how it impacts the airway and sleep and all that fun stuff. And so we're going to be learning from, from Felix in April and there's, there's lots more to come. So these are the trainings. Now we also have virtual case studies from every single month. We've got everything from an 8 year old to a 14 year old to adults. You know, we've got younger kiddos. We had, I believe there was a little girl who was maybe four or five, you know, so we've got a range already in there with more to come. And in your research review vault, as I mentioned, there are four research studies for every single month from July 2020 through March 2021. Okay, so what is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Okay, so we have nine months of articles or 36 articles already ready, readily available for you to download that have been reviewed, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Now we also have business trainings. I've done things, I've given a business startup guide, 30 second elevator pitch or speech teaching you how to do that. Three ways to use your MYO assessment report as a marketing tool, how to price your myo eval and common ICD10 and CPT codes super bill examples for out of network understanding who and how to network with related professionals in your area. Contact, talking about contractors versus employees, you know, also hiring admins, therapists, paperwork involved with that, promoting miles services via teletherapy versus in person. And these are all topics that have come up from our group members that I have created a business training on. Okay, these are not just random things I pulled together. This is what you all have asked for. So really valuable stuff. Now marketing materials. We also have a rack card and letter to market your mile services. A referral pad template a done for you lunch and lunch PowerPoint what I know you guys, I could charge a lot more money for all this stuff that you're getting for this small fee. And we also have a trifold MYO brochure and these are all things that you can use and put your own contact information on. Okay? Now in addition to that we also have forms and templates. So we've created a myofunctional therapy evaluation that you get access to. We teach you how to use that. If you go back to the July 2020 training, we've given you a homework sheet, a consent form. We have the MYO screener that's a fillable version of it. We have sample super bill, we've got Covid waivers and forms. We've got sleep screeners pulled together in there for you. I mean so much goodness inside here. And we are adding things every month. Every month we typically add a bonus, another bonus form or template and another marketing material in addition to everything else that I've already listed out for you. So by now you should probably realize that the value of what you're getting far exceeds what you will ever pay to be in this. And that is why we have about. Oh gosh, I don't even know what it is, but we had about 400 monthly members last time I checked and we are excited to welcome in more members and have you all join us in the MYO membership where we we really love on you. We help you grow as a myofunctional therapist and it is that safe place to ask questions, learn and meet other MYO colleagues, develop some friendships and you know, just learn. It's a fun place. So we welcome you in themyomembership.com we again, just quick reminder, the free training is going on as of today. If you are listening to this on March 22, 2021 it will be up and available through April 2nd at 5:00pm Eastern Time. So be sure to watch it before then before we we close it down. Can't wait to see you all in there. I hope everyone's having an awesome day and we will see you inside the MYO membership next week. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you want to hear more of these MYO Tots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or pledge a small amount on patreon.com UN Tethered Podcast if you found value, others you know in this space will too. So be sure to share this episode on your social media platforms and join us over on Facebook on my Facebook page at Halibalkin Biz, on Instagram at Ali Balkan. And you can head over to the untethered podcast.com to grab a copy of the Show Notes, where you can also subscribe to be kept up to date on the latest podcast episodes.