Speech Therapist Fee (CFFa)

Speech Therapist Fees (CFFa/CRFa)

In Brazil, speech-language pathologists (fonoaudiólogos) fall under Law 6.965/1981 and answer to the Federal Council CFFa, while the regional councils (CRFa) put out reference fee tables. The math here is just total = sessions × rate. A single session usually runs somewhere between R$ 120 and R$ 300, and where it lands depends on the city, the specialty, and whether you're seeing someone in a private clinic, at home, in a hospital or at a school.

Those CRFa tables are guides, not rules. What you actually charge moves with your experience and sub-specialty, and with whether the patient is on an ANS health plan. Plans set their own reimbursement per session and cap how many sessions they'll cover in a year (under the Rol ANS that's usually somewhere from 12 to 96 sessions per year, per condition).

Applications

Clinicians use it to price therapy packages, and patients use it to get a sense of what they'll pay out of pocket. It covers the five main areas of practice: audiology (hearing assessment, hearing aid fitting), language (childhood language disorders, aphasia, dyslexia), voice (vocal hygiene, professional voice users), orofacial motricity (swallowing, breathing, dental-related disorders) and fluency (stuttering, cluttering). Bedside dysphagia work in hospitals and the ICU is normally billed on its own.

FAQ

Is the CRFa table mandatory? No. Think of it as a suggested floor. You're allowed to charge less, though the council would rather you didn't, and charging more is entirely up to the market.

How many sessions does ANS cover? The Rol ANS lists a minimum for each condition. Autism, for instance, is unlimited, while more common disorders fall in the 6–96/year range. Always check the version of the list that's in force.

Are evaluation and therapy charged the same? Usually not. A first evaluation tends to run 1.5x to 2x a regular session, since it bundles in the anamnesis, audiometry or instrumental exams, and a written report.