Community Highlights: Meet Kristina Snow of Therapeeps

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristina Snow.

Hi Kristina, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Since I started working as a speech language pathologist, I always wanted to have my own practice, I just wasn’t sure what it entailed or how much work it was going to be and I thought it was something I would do when I was older. I was initially working for a school district and parents started asking if I would see their kids outside of school. And they would tell me that they were driving over an hour away for 30 minute speech sessions. I started doing some research and realized there was a huge need in San tan valley for therapy services. I talked with my husband about it and he applied for a business license, got my LLC, tax ID, all of the back end logistics, and I jumped in with both feet. I was working full time at the schools and then seeing kids at Therapeeps after school and on the weekends. We started out renting two small rooms inside of a dental office and within that first year, I had hired two more therapists (who are still with us today!), we moved out of the dental office, and built out an entire clinic. My husband practices dental surgery at his own clinic in Casa Grande and he started to hear from his patients and the community that they didn’t have therapy services out there either. There was a large unit available and it kind of fell into place and was great timing for us to open our second location there. We currently have over 400 patients and have done almost 10,000 sessions since we’ve opened in 2023. We also have 13 employees, including an office manager, speech therapists, speech therapy assistants, occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants, feeding therapists, and an educational tutor! It is still mind blowing and amazing to me that we get to do this for a living! We are so incredibly blessed and thankful to be able to serve our special needs community!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Oh goodness. The road has not been smooth at all. I always thought that owning my own business would give me freedom and less stress but I feel like that is a huge misconception 😂 it is extremely time consuming and you have zero days off. Some of the biggest struggles I feel for us, have been insurances not covering services and having to turn families away and finding employees out here. Basically just dealing with insurance in general has been extremely difficult. Dealing with claim denials, authorizations, remittances, verification, eligibility and benefits. You can be on the phone for 3-4 hours for a question about one patient’s plan. It’s pretty crazy. And then we’ve been extremely lucky to find the amazing women that we have on our team right now, but we have a long waitlist and I’ve had the hardest time finding more therapists!

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Therapeeps is a therapist owned, pediatric private practice. We see kids from 0-18 with a range of different abilities. We see kids with autism, dyslexia, apraxia, articulation and phonological disorders, sensory processing disorders, apraxia, fluency/stuttering, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, pragmatic disorders, children that use augmentative and alternative communication devices (AAC), feeding difficulties, and SO much more. I am most proud that we have a variety of different therapists who each have their own unique therapy techniques and we are all moms ourselves and know/understand how much we have to advocate for our babies. We are a small family unit ourselves and everyone knows every family in the clinic and we make sure that we are all on the same page with their clinical goals and plan so that the child reaches their full potential, not only in the clinic, but in all other environments as well. We see kids for speech therapy, occupational therapy, and feeding therapy. We are hoping to add physical therapy and ABA in the future!

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Being a small business in San tan valley and in casa grande, I’ve been able to make some great connections with other professionals throughout the community. There are so many other small businesses that we’ve partnered with to do events and send referrals back and forth to each other. So I love that we have been able to make those connections! Also, the families have been amazing. Everyone is always so thankful for the services we provide and we have gotten so many patients just from word of mouth! The thing I like least about our city is the increase in the amount of traffic! It is amazing that we have such a growing population, but I feel like the traffic and construction has gotten horrible!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.therapeeps.com
• Instagram: @therapeeps_az
• Facebook: Therapeeps