A best practice to follow when employing the fiberoptic endoscopic exam of swallowing (FEES), as with any medical procedure, is to be aware of the clinical evidence available supporting the use of the exam and the metrics used to evaluate the results. This allows the practitioner to objectively weigh the risks and/or benefits to the patient before proceeding. In order to accurately do this, it is important to have valid and reliable measures to guide the decision–making process. This rule of thumb is as true for the FEES as it is for any other diagnostic technique employed by the speech–language pathologist (SLP).