Learn · Lesson 2 · About 8 minutes
RBT supervision: the five percent, worked out.
Every Registered Behavior Technician must be supervised for a share of the hours they work with clients each month. The share is small. The arithmetic is simple. The failure is almost always the same: nobody added it up until the month was over.
What is the rule?
A Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) is the person who delivers the treatment plan a BCBA wrote. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) requires that an RBT be supervised for at least 5% of the hours they spend providing behavior-analytic services each calendar month. That supervision must include at least two face-to-face, real-time contacts in the month, and at least one of them must be individual: one supervisor, one RBT.
Face-to-face can be in the room or on live video. Recorded video does not count. A group contact counts as one contact, but it does not satisfy the individual one.
Why it matters
Supervision is where the RBT's skills actually improve, so the client gets a better technician. It is also a certification condition: an RBT who goes unsupervised can lose the credential, and the supervising BCBA answers for it. Payers ask for the supervision log during audits, and a month with 3.5 hours where 4.2 were required is a finding, however excellent the 3.5 were.
How to do it yourself, today, free
1. Count the service hours, not the paid hours
The 5% applies to hours spent providing behavior-analytic services. Session time with clients counts. Drive time between homes does not. A staff meeting does not. If the RBT is salaried, do not use the paycheck hours; go back to the session notes and add the minutes.
2. Take five percent
Multiply the service hours by 0.05. That is the minimum supervision for the month, in hours. Turn the decimal into minutes so it is real: 0.2 hours is 12 minutes.
3. Check the two contacts
Count the face-to-face contacts. Two or more? At least one of them individual? If the minutes are there but the contacts are not, the month still fails.
4. Check it in the third week, not the fifth
Run the three steps around the 20th, while there is still time to schedule what is missing. A shortfall discovered on the 31st is a shortfall.
A worked example
Made-up RBT M. Alvarez, made-up month. No real person appears on this site.
M. Alvarez's September session notes add up to 84 hours with clients. She had one two-hour group supervision with two other RBTs on the 9th, and one 90-minute individual observation with her BCBA on the 16th.
| Step | Arithmetic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Service hours | From the notes, not the paycheck | 84 hours |
| Five percent | 84 × 0.05 = 4.2 hours = 4 h 12 min | Minimum 4 h 12 min |
| Supervision received | 2 h group + 1 h 30 min individual | 3 h 30 min |
| Shortfall | 4 h 12 min − 3 h 30 min | 42 minutes short |
| Contacts | Two contacts, one individual | Met |
On the 20th, this is one 45-minute observation to book before the 30th. On the 1st of October, it is a month that cannot be fixed.
Something to keep: the monthly supervision log
One log per RBT per month. The arithmetic line at the bottom is the whole point.
| Date | Minutes | Individual or group | Client present | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Service hours this month ______ × 0.05 = ______ hours minimum = ______ h ______ min.
Supervision received ______ h ______ min. Contacts ______ (need 2). Individual contacts ______ (need 1).
Checked on the ______ (aim for the 20th). Signed, RBT ______________ Supervisor ______________
Try it
Made-up RBT J. Park. October service hours from the notes: 62. Supervision received: one individual observation of 1 hour 40 minutes on the 8th, and one group meeting of 1 hour 20 minutes on the 22nd.
Is the month met? If not, by how much, and what would fix it?
Show the answer
Minimum: 62 × 0.05 = 3.1 hours = 3 hours 6 minutes.
Received: 1 h 40 min + 1 h 20 min = 3 hours exactly. Six minutes short. Two contacts, one individual, so the contact rule is met.
Why it still fails: the rule is a minimum, and three hours is under it. Six minutes is a real shortfall, not a rounding error. The fix is one more face-to-face contact before the 31st, and the lesson is to check on the 20th.
Where DRAGEN helps
DRAGENhours does this arithmetic from the session notes for every RBT, every month, and lists who is short and by how many minutes while there is still time to fix it. It is arithmetic, not AI, and it runs on your own computer. The BCBA still reads the list and signs the forms.
Source: the BACB RBT Handbook, supervision requirements, as in force in September 2026. The BACB revises its handbooks; always read the version in force for the month you are checking. Every example on this page is invented. Written by Chase Alexander Hought, M.S., BCBA.