By Tamala Sammons, MA CCC/SLP, Therapy Resource
Elyse Matson, SLP has been with the organization as a treating clinician and SLP Clinical Resource. She has helped SLPs across the entire organization better understand working with dementia patients, navigating the sub-acute population, ensuring CFY supervision experiences are solid, providing education and support of the ThinkThin! initiative, ensuring SLPs are taking vital signs and providing education to ensure accuracy with coding the SLP Casemix. Thank you, Elyse, for all you do to ensure everyone has the support to ensure our patients are being taken care of. Elyse is the best!
“I brought Paula home from Carmel Mountain the day before we locked down for COVID. They had done a great job with her post the brain tumor removal. About midway through the COVID lockdown it seemed like Paula was experiencing a cognitive decline. I reached out to Elyse and she took the time to find out what Paula’s cognitive scores were at discharge and walked me through doing a cognitive assessment. Since Paula was actually even better than when she discharged, she calmed my fears and reminded me of activities to do with her to keep her improving. Thank you Elyse.”—Debbie Miller, Compliance Officer (photo of Paula)
Elyse is not just an excellent clinical resource for our speech therapists, but also a great overall colleague, friend and human being. Her passion to elevate and dignify long-term care is evident with everything that she does! We love you, Elyse! May you continue to spread your knowledge and positive influence to all! — Dennis Baloy, Therapy Resource
Elyse is truly an amazing lady, SLP and resource partner. She has helped every SLP in Iowa from answering billing and coding best practices to how to treat certain conditions to educating on goal examples for someone with esophageal cancer and other conditions. She’s always available by phone and has come to do onsite education many times. She has a wealth of knowledge that she does not hesitate to share. Elyse has gone above and beyond and presented to the Heart Stone Therapy leaders to help educate them as well on how to grow their SLP programs! She is a true partner and we love and appreciate her! — Candy Hardin, Therapy Resource
She did a training for DORs/STs for Bandera West in February; the focus was for LTC programming, and we requested all of the Therapy Leaders be on the Webex as well to help them support and understand the importance of ST involvement in LTC as well. The current STs really trust her and call her, which I encourage — as we are also really trying to increase ST involvement in Section K/BIMs as we have seen a very positive benefit of this in some of our facilities. She keeps me in the loop with who is reaching out to her, which I really appreciate, and she does a great job talking them through it. — Kelly Schwarz, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been a great partner to me as a resource and to our SLPs. She is very approachable and willing to help whenever asked. Elyse has come to our market and provided group training as well as one-on-one training to help build caseload and improve interventions for our residents. Over the last few years, our speech caseload has grown tremendously, and Elyse has been a major factor in this growth. Our SLPs, our market, and our residents are better off because of the support Elyse has provided. — Gary McGiven, Therapy Resource
There has never been a time that Elyse did not follow up and follow through when I needed her support. Be it a minor question or putting her on the spot for an impromptu training with an IDT, she always comes through. Elyse is a fixture on the LTC task force and she has brought so much awareness to the SLPs’ role in serving our LTC patients. I love her direct and objective responses to questions, and I appreciate her style when it comes to teaching. The passion that she has for all things speech is easily shown through her delivery. My love for Elyse is Big! — Kai Williams, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been such a huge blessing to me as I’ve moved into a full-time resource role. She always goes out of her way to help with any projects I’m working on, and has generously shared her expertise and training tools to help me grow personally and train others. I feel like she’s been one of my biggest cheerleaders and has a wealth of knowledge. She pushes all of us speechies to be better! — Tiffany Bishop, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been such an amazing support for our SLPs in Keystone and to me! I can ask her any questions as she is a wealth of information! She is so busy, yet takes the time to get back with us and is great with follow up. She is truly a Rockstar and is such an AMAZING asset to our SLP profession!!!! ~ Stephanie Winkler, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been extremely engaged in our market with welcoming, developing, motivating and educating our SLPs. She had a market SLP meeting last Friday with focus on section K involvement, cognitive assessment and proper coding, LTC programming, and documentation. She is passionate, patient (with my EDs), and is extremely available to field questions whenever they arise. I personally have learned so much from her in my short time as a resource. I think she is pushing us all to further value, refer to, and support all of the amazing SLPs we have in Flagstone. — Aimee Bhatia, Therapy Resource
During one of my visits in the first few months as a Therapy Resource, I had a specific speech therapy question. I quickly stepped out into the hallway and called Elyse. She was so helpful, so quick to respond, and supportive. I look forward to more interactions with Elyse and am grateful to be able to reach out to her. — Cory Robertson, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been a great asset to our market, as she was able to come to NE last year pre-COVID and spent a day with each of our FT ST. This included reviewing patient caseload, offering tips on documentation, and potential caseload development. She has also continued this support with new hires as of late by scheduling telephone/Webex training. This has created an environment of support that our STs have truly appreciated. We are starting up monthly/bi-monthly ST phone calls to foster a support system for this group. During this time, Elyse has offered to be a part of these calls to help get us up and going! — Ryan Hough, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been an amazing support for us in Bandera. She is always willing to help, and her excitement for what she does is contagious to others. She has presented over Webex recently at my DOR meeting regarding how DORs can support ST programming. She also has recently provided support with individual staff members regarding appropriate coding. I only have one negative comment and it is a BIG NEGATIVE: She is not willing to relocate to AZ! — Denny Davis, Therapy Resource
Elyse came to Kansas (pre-COVID) and visited each of our facilities, meeting the SLPs individually, and hosted a live education the same week. We had plans for a follow-up visit, then the world came to a halt with COVID. We had a few new SLPs at that time, and Elyse has acted as a mentor when they had questions — they were so appreciative of her willingness to be available. I know several of them have reached out and continue to reach out as they need assistance. Elyse has a gift for teaching her colleagues, as she is able to relate to their daily schedule and the challenges they face and speak their language. Her passion for her profession is evident in her eagerness to grow others, vast evidence-based knowledge and guidance with documentation. Elyse has also helped with the shift in the mindset in Emerald by helping the SLPs see how they CAN help our LTC residents. We are blessed to have Elyse as a Resource. — Madeana Galler, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been so welcoming to me coming in as a new Therapy Resource. She has shared presentations with me and spent time with me on the phone, discussing what I want to do within the CO market. I already know she has an impact on people because I’ve heard her name multiple times, in multiple buildings. So happy to work with such a dedicated SLP leader! #speechforeveryone — Whitney Warkentin, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been an amazing partner. I haven’t met many as passionate about her craft as she is. She is on Facebook groups and Instagram as it relates to speech. Elyse is connected with school programs, up to date with the latest regulations and trends associated with speech and language. I have watched as she has thrown herself into this role and created something special. She is not only a resource to the facilities, but she is a resource to the resources. I have seen her train SLPs on program development, documentation, taking on CFYs, and assisting with recruiting. You name it, and she does it as it relates to SLP. Most recently, Elyse reached out and told me she thought there would be benefits in providing trainings to SLPs within a market and then following up that training with monthly calls with the SLPs to help them feel like they are part of a community. Elyse has been involved in education as it relates to Abilities Care and taking that training to markets throughout the organization. I could go on and on. Elyse is an amazing partner and friend. You can determine the value at times of an individual’s contribution in the workplace by imagining what things might be like without them. Without Elyse, we would be far less off. Elyse provides immense value to this organization. We love you, Elyse, and are so grateful for you! — Sam Baxter, Therapy Resource
Elyse has done face-to-face training for us in Colorado. Many SLPs text her directly with questions! She’s helped us to analyze documentation as well as caseload utilization. She’s been so helpful for our Colorado market. — Maryann Bowles, Therapy Resource
We have appreciated all the support Elyse provides the WA market. She’s part of our SLP email group and answers all their questions. She responds quickly to texts and phone calls from DORs, SLPS and myself. She has provided at least 5 Webex trainings for us in the last year, whether specific for a building or for our entire group, then follows up with carryover of training. She has audited SLP programming and documentation with valuable feedback for us to improve. As an OTR, her support has been invaluable to me personally in furthering my understanding of speech operations. She really takes our SLP program to the next level. — Mira Waszak, Therapy Resource
She’s passionate about SLP and helping residents and developing SLPs! She’s always readily available. She’s incredibly knowledgeable and a good communicator/teacher. I can’t emphasize that enough. They are different skill sets, and not everyone can do both. And if you can’t teach, then you can’t share your knowledge effectively. — Dominic DeLaquil, Therapy Resource
Elyse has been amazing and supportive of the SLP program development. She is crazy smart and full of new and great ideas. I have appreciated how she is approachable and always willing to answer questions and support the SLPs in their development. She is a great “multiplier” for our SLPs as we continue to enhance the care of our skilled SLPs. — Kelly Alvord, Therapy Resource
Elyse Matson fun facts: 1) She has a sailboat and enjoys being on the water. 2) She stays active by doing sprint triathlons. 3) She’s great at goal writing… need help with a goal? Call Elyse! Elyse is truly an amazing partner. No matter what I need help with from respiratory, trachs and vents to PDPM ST CMI, she always comes through with valuable information that I can share with my market. I truly appreciate her and her skillset. — Heather Bjernudd, Therapy Resource
Thank you, Elyse, for everything you do! We are all so grateful for your contributions to help support and grow our SLP programs across the entire organization. We value your partnership and look forward to many more exciting things to come! — Mary, Tamala, Chad, Jon, Sacchin, Deb, Ciara, Mahta, Brian & Jamie aka the PitCrew