On this episode of The Swallow Your Pride Podcast, Theresa Richard sits down with Lindsay Iser, M.S., CCC-SLP, Director of Clinical Specialty for Powerback Swallow Solutions, who leads one of the largest in-house mobile FEES programs in the country.
Lindsay walks through how the program started with conversations before 2020, launched its first training in 2022, and has now completed somewhere in the range of 13,000 to 15,000 studies across multiple states. The bulk of the conversation is about competency: what it actually takes to make a clinician safe and skilled with a scope, and why Lindsay’s program runs six full days with only two or three trainees at a time.
They get into body mechanics and the home exercise program Lindsay built with an occupational therapist after her own shoulders and wrists started protesting, why she refuses to shorten the protocol even when clinicians ask, the research showing roughly 60% of patients aspirate on the first administration of a bolus type, and how much of the outcome we control without realizing it. Lindsay also talks about redesigning the referral form so treating SLPs stop asking “can my patient tolerate regular?” and start asking about physiology, plus the unexpected way PTs, OTs, and nurses have become some of the program’s biggest advocates after watching a single study.
If you are training clinicians, getting trained, or trying to convince your own company that in-house FEES is worth it, this one is for you.
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Lindsay Iser, M.S., CCC-SLP, is the Director of Clinical Specialty for Powerback Swallow Solutions, where she leads the clinical development of one of the nation’s largest in-house mobile FEES programs serving post-acute and long-term care settings. A FEES competency trainer, patient advocate, and clinical educator at heart, Lindsay is deeply passionate about advancing dysphagia care through high-quality education, evidence-based clinical judgment, and unwavering patient safety. That passion has driven her to develop an innovative FEES competency program focused on clinical excellence, consistency, and continuous growth, helping clinicians build confidence while improving care for the patients they serve. With a background in speech-language pathology and gerontology, she is committed to expanding access to high-quality instrumental swallowing assessments, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and empowering clinicians to deliver individualized, evidence-based dysphagia management.
