Navigating ASHA’s Fees and Membership: Your Options Explained

Dr. Jeanette Benigas and Preston Lewis, MS/SLP, announced that ASHA has responded to Fix SLP’s petition to amend its bylaws, noting a delay in the response despite the petition being received before the last board meeting. They shared Fix SLP's next steps and highlighted the challenges SLPs face with ASHA’s membership fees, emphasizing the need for better communication and transparency. Preston and Jeanette also reviewed ASHA’s membership options, explaining each in detail, and outlined practical steps for clinicians considering separation from ASHA, including formal resignation through ASHA’s resigned affidavit or adjusting renewal options to exclude membership fees.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP

Host of Fix SLP

What is Fix SLP?

Fix SLP is grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech-language pathology by driving real change—from insurance regulations to removing barriers to full autonomy like the CCC. This podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of SLP. We don’t wait for change, we make it. So let’s fix SLP!
Hosted by Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP

Jeanette Benigas 0:00
Hey, fixers. I'm Dr Jeanette Benigas, the owner of fix SLP, a grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech language pathology by driving real change from insurance regulations to removing barriers that prevent full autonomy like the CCC, this podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of speech language pathology. We don't wait for change. We make it so let's fix SLP, you

Preston Lewis 0:46
Hello, fixers, a very pleasant Good afternoon, good morning, good evening. Wherever you may be, Preston Lewis joining you today, and I've got Dr Jeanette Benigas with us. We've got a great episode coming up, because Jeanette, what happened?

Jeanette Benigas 1:02
Last night, Tuesday, October, 29 5:21pm, please note that is after close of business, I heard from Ms Vicky R deal Williams via email with a response to our petition.

Preston Lewis 1:21
Great, so they are in receipt. It has been transmitted to the Board for their consideration at their next meeting. Unfortunately, they already met after they got our petitions. So this is kind of a delayed action. And they meet. Is it quarterly, Jeanette?

Jeanette Benigas 1:40
They meet quarterly. So in a few minutes, when we start really digging into this, I will give some thoughts, I will give some facts, I will give some things that will be included in the email response I will be sending back, probably today.

Preston Lewis 1:59
Okay, that's to come. We've got also a meltdown in the minivan line. Or what do we call it, the meltdown in the minivan,

Jeanette Benigas 2:09
I don't know, cry your heart out. Minivan Meltdown?

Preston Lewis 2:12
Minivan meltdown. When you call and you've got to, you know, give us a clinical story. You've got to give us your Asha encounter story or anything. You know, it could be a bad insurance company, a funny story, but we want to hear from you, and we had a great one this week from Alabama, so let's hear it.

Minivan Meltdown 2:34
So I just want to tell you what happened to me. Most people don't understand what I'm talking about when I try to explain it. But anyways, I received my Cs the day my daughter was born. Actually, I had gotten an email from Asha. I had finally met that goal, obtained them everything. So that was in 2016 I know that New Year, I did not have to renew on Asha because I had just paid a lot of money for 2017. So I in 2018, I guess I went on Asha and paid the fees. This is where I'm kind of confused. But for whatever reason I was confused, I thought that you only had to pay your dues at the same time that you report your CEUs, which is every three years to Asha. Mind you, you know, I still receive my CEUs and turn them into the state of Alabama, which is 12 hours every year, and paid my due to the state of Alabama. So I still maintain my state life well. So it's the end of December, and it's that time to renew everything. I thought it was time for me to renew my CCC, so I go on Asha to pay that fee and turn in my CEUs and come to find out. The year before they took away my C's because I had not paid my dues, they never tried to contact me through the phone, through a letter in the mail, nothing I did. Eventually go through all my emails. I mean, you know how much junk email we all receive? Well, they did send me an email in March of 2020 or actually, it was January of 2020 saying I had until March to complete my CEUs, on top of paying like a late fee and turning in my monies, and they wouldn't take away my Cs, well, I didn't see that until December. So anyways, I was under the impression I still had my Cs. Luckily, where I was working did not require my CCCS, but I was signing CCC. I had no idea they were taken from me. You would think that take something like that for me. They would have called me sent letters after letters, because it is so much importance. I mean, it's not something you send one little silly email over anyway, so they take in it, and I'm ranting to you because it makes me angry.

Jeanette Benigas 4:56
Man, that sounds like our friend Zane in Arkansas.

Preston Lewis 4:59
Uh, similar, yes. And you know, it's, it's sometimes difficult, because a lot of us just, we don't live in that world where we sit there and consume all that we're busy trying to get that job, and especially with around the holiday time and misconceptions happen, because sometimes in our state, licensures have longer review periods or longer entry period. So these things don't always add up. And once again, it's just very difficult when you're dealing with or an organization that seems so far removed, but yet so heavy handed. And I hate that story, but, and you know, least in her case, it wasn't like our friend Zane back in Arkansas, where, you know, he had to look at either going back and taking the Praxis at an advanced age. She was able to catch up with some added cash. But, yeah, just another case of, I don't always kind of having a good connection there.

Jeanette Benigas 5:55
And it was during, it was in 2020, right? She said, January, right? COVID hadn't started yet.

Preston Lewis 6:01
Or she got her certainly, she got her notice letter in March of 20.

Jeanette Benigas 6:05
Yeah

Preston Lewis 6:06
That was a big month.

Jeanette Benigas 6:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It bothers me. That's why we picked this one. Asha could be doing better there.

Preston Lewis 6:14
And one of the things I tell all my fellow colleagues, or, you know, fixers that contact me, is, and I sound like, you know, I'm just this crazy troll under a bridge. Give me your delay denial letters. Give me more denial letters. But really, that's the evidence that I need often to find out if it's a regulatory thing, if it's your state license, or sometimes if it's just your private employer that wants to see that triple C card. I had somebody contact me this week. Jeanette kind of makes me think about this. She is somebody I used to work with in skilled nursing facilities. She's gotten into kind of the gig economy. She's a great singer, so she goes around and performs with bands, and she's kind of transitioned a good part of her working world to where she works, maybe, I don't know, maybe six hours a week as an SLP, and the rest of the time she's out performing and singing and doing a fantastic job. And she pointed out to me the other day that her employer wants her to have her CCC, and she said, You know, I'm gonna have to work for like, two weeks worth of pay here in order just to pay for that membership. And we are in a place now, especially with our wages being so stagnant in our field, being pressed so hard, where some people have had to get into other lines of work or a gig economy, all the more reason having some sort of conversation about how we do these things with membership versus this certificate. It's, you know, why? Why haven't these conversations been happening? And I feel for her, and I'd actually like to have her on the pod. Sometimes she's incredible, so that would be great. Yeah, I'm working on she has her own pod. She's kind of like a celebrity locally, so, yeah.

Jeanette Benigas 7:56
Kind of like, you Preston?

Preston Lewis 7:57
I don't know about that. No, nobody throws things at her. People smile when she shows up. They don't, you know, say, Oh my God, here he is.

Jeanette Benigas 8:04
We'll jump into it here in a minute. But I do want to start addressing this out loud to our community who is listening. We put in an immense amount of work. We are not asking for accolades. This is not a woe is me kind of thing, but it is clear that the amount of work that this team puts in in order to keep up this pace and to in order to continue the quality work that we are doing, to make changes, we have to get paid. And so one of my priorities over this next year is to find funding for Fix SLP outside of the SLP's pocket. We are not coming to SLPs to fund us. I am getting very creative this week. I cast a very wide net with that. We are looking at some advertisers. I want to make sure everybody knows that when you start hearing ads on this podcast, and it will be coming this year, very carefully selected ads from businesses that will make a difference for SLPs, the one that I'm working on now is a solution to a problem that many of you have identified. It will hopefully save all of us money if we choose to use the company I'm I'm hoping to hear from them in the next week, and so I want people to know that I am committed to getting our team paid for their work in a way that doesn't cost anyone money, and with solutions or ads that perhaps will help people. I'm committed to finding more funding for this movement so we can do more.

Preston Lewis 9:35
And like you said there at the start, I don't want to trace over it too much, but I added up when we had one or two pods ago where the free CEU tracker was offered up and has gotten a lot of traffic on the socials, a lot of clicks there. That's, you know, $38 a year. I guess if you add up...

Jeanette Benigas 9:59
No, it's free.

Preston Lewis 10:00
No, no, no. I'm talking about unless you if you were to pay for it, oh, right, right. No, if you go buy it from Big Daddy, you're gonna pay $38 a year, I think. And well, if you're not a member, so it's 38 for you. It's 28 if you are a national member. Oh, okay, well, yeah, that's why you see 38 because, yeah, you know. So okay, $28 for you know, typical person, or if you're, you know, walk differently down the pathway, like I do. It's 38 whatever. And then the other thing, which I won't give away, what it is you're working on, is a money saver. So I added this up in my head the other day. I'm like, There's $50 right there for, you know, an SLP, that can take advantage of this just by having the knowledge and engagement of, you know, being a fixer. So that's, that's what we're trying to do to help that working class. SLP, and I commend you, Jeanette, because I know every day my phone will blow up and she'll say, I'm going to do this. And I'm like, Whoa. That's great. That's great. And I'm like, Man, she's so busy. Well, she's doing everything so great job as always,

Jeanette Benigas 10:56
We just get that mortgage paid every month. There is not extra right now, but it's every month, it's just... we slide right in. So as long as I can maintain this pace, I will, but I know it's not going to last forever. The minute I have to dip into my savings to pay that mortgage, my husband's going to be like, get your butt back to work. Yeah, yeah. I'll have a responsibility. So I'm doing just enough FEESing, just enough PRN to just make it happen. But you know, Christmas is coming, so I'm afraid I'm gonna have to work, probably.

Preston Lewis 11:28
We teased it enough earlier, our 6000 petitions have finally earned a response from high on top of the Oracle. Vicki CEO sends us the email, and you're sharing that on our screen now. Jeanette, do you want to go ahead and tell us what Vicki, you have to say?

Jeanette Benigas 11:44
Dr Benigas, I'm writing to inform you that we are in receipt of your petition to amend ashes bylaws, and have now verified Asha membership of petitioners.The petition will be forwarded to Asha board of directors for consideration at their next meeting. Vicki.

Preston Lewis 12:05
Okay

Jeanette Benigas 12:08
I have so many things to say, but do you want to start? Because I have a feeling once I start talking, you will have to pull me back.

Preston Lewis 12:16
Okay

Jeanette Benigas 12:16
We will have to cut stuff, because I'll probably say things I shouldn't say publicly,you want to go first?

Preston Lewis 12:23
I'll take a few comments. First of all, you know, I am appreciative that we did finally receive a response. It was a bit outside of the 30 day window, and that's not going to try to pick at that, but it was a little belated. Also, as we might have previewed earlier, there has already been one board meeting since those petitions arrived. So I don't know if the minutes have been approved, or if that was even discussed, but the opportunity was there. So now it's going to be a while later until, you know, there is some sort of communication about that, or, you know, any agenda item, but we look forward to that. And the last thing, and I know you're going to bring this up too, but I want to beat you to it, which is, you know, the comment that we have confirmed that these are all ASHA members. And you know, this took about a 34 day response turnaround. Jeanette last night pointed out we did that in five days with like six people, or four people. It was a lot of work to go in and confirm all those Asha memberships, but... so we've heard from them. They're immense resources were worthy of the, you know, perfunctory email back here. And so thank you. What do you got? Jeanette,

Jeanette Benigas 13:43
Deep breath.

Preston Lewis 13:44
Big breath.

Jeanette Benigas 13:45
First. First of all, I am thankful that she responded, because I did not want to have to take the next action action. You know, we knew what was coming next. So good. Thank you. Thank you to miss Vicki Deal Williams for sending that response. There is no excuse for being late. I am sorry. I... no, I'm not sorry. There is no excuse. They received that petition via email, and she responded to my email that she received during business hours on September 25th, that was a Wednesday. I sent that email before I walked into ups and sent the 800 page document that arrived at 10:05am in Maryland on Thursday, September 26th.Thing number one, we asked for a 30 day response. We sent 5805 signatures. We collected just over 6000.There were more of you who wanted to sign who could not for... maybe you were a CF, maybe your student, maybe you had your CCC, or don't have your CC or membership. Maybe you tried to get in and we had already closed it. There are more people behind this petition than the 5805that we sent in in the last 30 days. This account has had over 1.2 million views on Instagram alone. There is no excuse for making ASHA members wait 34 days for that response. That response could have been sent on Friday, September 27th, "we have received your petition. We are verifying signatures." That's Thing number one, don't make us wait 34 days. Thing number two, you have every resource in your power to verify those signatures. We sent names, we sent Asha numbers, and we sent email if we were able to do it manually, with five people in less than a week, with over 250 emails that we sent out for follow up, sometimes back and forth with some of those, and we still got 5805 signatures out in under a week. There is zero reason. With 300 employees and access to everyone's name, Asha, number, email, whatever, they have way more data on us than that that you couldn't verify that. Give me a break. Okay, give me a break. This is them dragging their feet because they know if they do this, it will bankrupt them, period. Also, I don't know if she was trying to diminish our efforts. I don't know if she was trying to be petty or if she just didn't realize what was in front of her, but it has been forwarded to the board for consideration. Is okay because in their own admission to the bylaw that they didn't pass, they had a Q and A, and you know what? That Q and A said, the board does not vote on Bylaw Amendment petition. The Board does not have a right to vote on a 2% amendment petition. They don't have to consider anything per their own bylaws. We made the change. You don't send it to the board for consideration. You send it to the board for enactment. We're not idiot, and so for her to say to me, we've sent it to the board for consideration is Period, end of story. And she's not an idiot. She makes $600,000 a year. She got there because she's smart and she's savvy. Words matter here. We're speech language pathologists. Don't play me like I don't understand words. I've got a PhD. I understand words. I'm actually offended by this response, and last night we had to have the conversation. Do I put my feelings in a post, or do I give her a break because her fingers are probably iced right now because it hurts so bad to type that response to me that she got inflamed. Her fingers broke, her ligaments swelled up. Come on, give us a little more respect than that.

Preston Lewis 14:03
I can't argue righteous indignation. And I, you know, to kind of step back for a moment. I'm reminded I had a conversation with a colleague about two weeks ago, and she was, she's very intrigued about what we're doing. I think she recognizes, of course, value that's in Asha, we all do. But she made a point, and this is where I think it's great to think, you know, in one week, you harnessed over 2% of the membership in one week, and you've got this, you know, just incredible energy out there in this movement. Why would you not want to coalesce with that? You don't have to agree with every aspect of it, but why wouldn't you want to bring that in and say, wow, we've got people that are motivated to do things and are putting boots on the ground, who are contacting legislators, who are changing policies, who are advocating for the working class, SLP, in ways that Asha just frankly sucks at. And let's use that. Let's find a way to do that that's still, you know, perhaps congruent with our goals, but maybe we, you know, work on some things and change some things in a longer term picture. But there's none of that. It's just like, well, you know, we can't be bothered by the rabble out there. You know, that's that's run along children, and it's demeaning. And I think that the the principles involved, for me, it's not personal, but it's like you are. You're supposed to be the people at the top of the profession. You're supposed to be the leaders. You earn it, own it, act like the responsible adults in the room and the people that can say, hey, let's bring this together and work together and not just have this petty response, because this is doing the exact same thing you did with audiologists, and that didn't go well. That's my take.

Jeanette Benigas 20:19
Yeah. So here's my response. I haven't written it yet because it is 9:40am it has been just over 12 hours since I received this and I was sleeping for a lot of that time, but I did communicate with the lawyer last night.The response will be the next scheduled meeting is not until February of 2025, we aren't waiting that long. We're not we can take action, and we have a right to we can do the civilly, or we can do it not civilly. We tried to be civil 13 months ago when this movement started by sending letters to the board, and we were ignored. We had to get rowdy and a little less civil. So we are going to try to continue to be civil with this. If we don't get the response that the 1.2 million viewers of this movement want, then we won't be civil. But the next step is that the ASHA board can have conference calls and virtual meetings throughout the year. This does not have to wait until February of 2025. It can happen next week if they want to schedule a meeting. So I will suggest to Vicki that with you know, nearly 50,000 followers of this movement, a top 100 podcast, multiple views across multiple platforms, we are going to request that the ASHA board of directors have a virtual meeting or conference within the next month to discuss the next steps. We want it to happen before Christmas, because I don't want to hear that now, it's the holidays, and waiting until February is not acceptable, and if they don't honor that request, then we'll talk to the lawyer about what happens next.

Preston Lewis 22:16
Well, and it's it's salient as well, because memberships are due for renewal on December 31st. So you know, there are membership options. We can talk about that a little bit today, but this is all the more reason this is very germane to the conversation we're having. It obviously is relevant to that 5800, plus, which I use the number 6000 earlier, if we left that thing open for another six hours, we'd have bumped to 6000 but we had a target. But you know, over two, almost two and a half percent of the membership there is saying in a short amount of time that we need to look at some things. We need to examine how this is charged to us and is it equitable? Is it financially transparent? These are conversations that should have happened years ago, but now that it's here, you know, slow walking, this thing doesn't that doesn't do anybody any good.

Jeanette Benigas 23:09
And really, how this happened was the last lawsuit they were embroiled in. When they were sued for tying the CCC and membership, and so they flipped it, they flipped it, and this is the result. So listen, nobody wants a lawsuit, right? Nobody wants that. But, it doesn't appear to me that they win these things very often, right? Like the lot with audiology, you know this, this is these are things that they are not winning. So again, let's do it civilly. Let's save SLP, money, because who do you think that? Who's... if there's a lawsuit, where's the money coming from that ASHA has to use to fight its own members? It's members, right? Like, let's figure this out in a way that makes sense.

Preston Lewis 24:11
It's It's like we were saying earlier with the people that involved in this pod, everybody's got their own individual skills, and there are some things that Asha does elegantly and beautifully, and focus on those things, and find these other areas where you haven't done very well, and work collaboratively, you know, communicate proactively, have a conversation right now. I can imagine that there was advice it was given by council months ago that said, don't touch these people, the 39 and a half foot pole stay the course, do things the way you've always done, because, hey, let's face it, it's worked out real well financially for some people. But you have to face reality that your profession has got some things in it that are just withering on the vine. And you can either stick your head in the sand and just say, let them eat cake. Or you can actually say, hmm, maybe there's a way we modernize some things and bring this movement in and change this organization to something that's even more vibrant, that can accomplish goals that it's had out there for a long time, that, frankly, just are falling flat.

Jeanette Benigas 25:21
Yeah

Preston Lewis 25:22
Anyway, it's nice to get a response, though.

Jeanette Benigas 25:24
To be continued, It is, yes, that is thank you for the response. First, you can hit rewind and listen again

Preston Lewis 25:32
Right, right. So, but we got, we got a lot of things coming up. So did you want to talk any about those membership levels? It's kind of gets into the weeds about everything. But I know with those letters arriving, I got mine this week. We still have a lot of people who are new to this movement who have questions about, Do I pay the $250 outright? Do I switch to only having my Cs, which is like your friend Preston here, does? If you do have those questions, always feel free to reach out to us. We're very busy. We try to get back with everybody, but I think Jeanette and I can kind of touch on it in a very quick fashion.

Jeanette Benigas 26:06
Yeah. So the reason we want to do this now is we did do this a year ago, but what I shared with Preston before we started recording was that we had less than 10,000 followers across two platforms. The last time we discussed this, and we have put out a lot of content since then. So to ask all of you to go back and find it and look is just ridiculous when we can just go over it again for our 40,000 new folks who have questions. So now is the time to decide, and maybe some of you are waiting to see how this petition plays out, because again, if Asha does not align with your goals and values, and you're seeing how they behave here and handle themselves, maybe you want to separate, or maybe you want to separate as much as possible. So interestingly, I have not received a paper renewal, but maybe I've opted out. I did consider that, so we're not going to be accusatory here, but I did receive the email, if you have done things the way they are always done, you are getting charged $250 base for the CCC and membership. That's 221 for the CCC, $29 per membership. Plus Preston tell us about all all those check boxes that will be pre checked, whether it is on the paper form or the email, like if you lot, if you get the email, you log into your account, and then you go to pay there, they are also pre checked online. In fact, Preston has the paper in front of him while he's talking, I'm going to pull up mine online so we can look at that as well

Preston Lewis 27:46
Mine. It's like I said earlier, I am not a member, so I only carry the Cs. I've been that way for a couple of years, so my total is going to look different than some people, but under dues and fees, $221 for me again, I'm not a member. And then under voluntary programs, on this little funny invoice, it's $38 because it's 10 bucks more for me, if I want to do the registry, I don't. And then down at the bottom is this blank total due in dollars. They don't put the total down there, but it's sort of like they want you to do the math and then send them the added $38 Well, if you were listening a couple episodes ago, we have a free CEU tracker that is available for all you fixers out there. You can check out that pod or some of the links that we've had on the website, and then our

Jeanette Benigas 28:32
Speech therapypd.com, there you go. Where you need to go. Free, set up a free account, use the tracker for free. Brought to you by the company, Speech Therapy. PD.

Preston Lewis 28:41
Absolutely. We just saved you $28 or 38 if you're like me. And then, of course, there's all the special interest groups, of which I'm not eligible because I'm not a member. But Jeanette is pulling up some of those. And then you get into, you know, if you want to donate to the Ashoundation, some great things there, I'm sure, if you feel so compelled, ASHA PAC, yeah, okay. If you want to send everybody up to Washington and smile and get selfies, you could do that. Sorry, couldn't help myself there. And lots of extra little SIGs in here with $45 of whack. I don't know. Am I missing anything here?

Jeanette Benigas 29:14
Let me ask. Take a look at your invoice. Is Asha PAC pre checked for you? Is it even on there?

Preston Lewis 29:21
It isn't and again, I think that's because, you know, I am no longer a member. I think, yes, this isn't fun.

Jeanette Benigas 29:27
I looked into that. It was something that I was gonna post about, but then I did some research. Someone makes a substantial donation, has made a substantial donation to the ASHA pack every single year. And because of this movement, she let her CCC go, yeah, and she went to donate to the ASHA pack this year, and could not. And there are rules. And so we both looked into it together. There were rules and regulations regarding PACs and just for tax purposes the rules and regulations of PACs and donations. In this instance, because of the way everything is set up, you cannot donate to an ASHA PAC unless you are an ASHA member, which is why Preston does not have that option. So if you are going to continue on doing the way doing things the way that you've always done them. You either need your CCC or you want your CCC, and you wish to continue carrying membership, you should pay the $250 make sure you uncheck all of those extra boxes. If you do not want to donate or join a SIG. That is option number one. Option number two is doing what Preston has done, and discontinuing the membership portion. I have been getting a lot of questions this week alone about letting the membership go. Number one, letting the membership go used to be on the application or the renewal. I don't even like calling it the renewal, the repurchase. What you're doing right here, this is an order form. You are reordering your CCC. If you do not want to reorder membership, you have to call they took it off the form. We don't know when it wasn't on their last year either. You have to call, gear up. Buckle up. They've had 365 days to prepare their script, and they gonna give it to you guys. They are going to talk to you about forfeiting all of these years for the lifetime membership, they are going to talk to you about losing your car discount. They are going to talk to you, listen, if you want a car discount, I just said at the top of this episode, we can get you some discounts. Okay? I will find a car company who will give you a discount. If that is important to you, give me a ring. Okay, they're going to talk to you about those things. Be strong. You are a strong person. You are strong clinician. Be strong. Just say no to drugs. Okay, just 90s style. Just say no and move on with your life. So you have to call

Preston Lewis 32:18
And I think you can membership back at any point without any big hoops.

Jeanette Benigas 32:22
So that was number two.

Preston Lewis 32:24
Yeah, if you decide you miss the leader, or you want to look at some of the journals and you want back in at a later point, go right back at it, it's there. And that's that's a door that you can walk back into.

Jeanette Benigas 32:34
Yes, so I have received multiple DMs and emails about, what are the repercussions if I let membership go and then want to rejoin, there are none. Right now, there are none. Anyone can be a member of Asha. You don't even have to have the CCC. So if you would like to rejoin at a later time, you give them a call, have that added right back on. But a Bing, but a boom, done. So those are the two big categories we are looking at, pay the invoice, repurchase that cccn membership, or call and get the membership removed. It will save you $29. If you let your membership go last year. Please recheck your invoice. We are getting messages, emails that I let my membership go last year, they added it back on, and they want another $250. It could be a mistake. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a mistake. Next year it's not going to be a mistake, right? Get this fixed. So for now, check and make sure those are the two big ones.

Preston Lewis 33:41
And I'll jump in for those who make that phone call if you decide to drop your membership to keep your C's, I would suggest, while you're on the phone with them, and I have a belated phone call coming up with them that asked to get a letter confirming that you've had your C's, because that has come up in my home state, where, in some cases, some regulatory bodies just want to know that we attained our certificate of competence or clinical competence at one time, and that's a letter they can send you. And I would ask for that, because you may decide nine months later, you may decide five years later that you don't want to keep purchasing the girl scout badge, and you're ready to move on, but you're, you know, you may move to a new state, they're going to want evidence that you attained, you know, your clinical practicum, or, you know, your internship hours, and you had a passing practice score. The, you know, achieving the CCC proves that. So all the more reason, since this thing is so baked into the collective consciousness, get that letter now, stating that you have it or have had it from Asha, I think the more people that ask for those letters, I think that also sends a very salient and Clarion message to Asha.

Jeanette Benigas 34:57
It's call that verification letter. So not a bad, not a bad, not a bad piece of advice. So then here's choice number three. You don't want to do this anymore. You're not playing this game. If you live in Arkansas, if you live in North Carolina, if you live in Michigan, you didn't even have this choice last year. If you worked somewhere that was billing Medicaid. Now you do so we've got three states now out of the maybe 12 that we started with that now have autonomy and choice other than the employer, you're going to have to work on that. Hopefully by this time next year, we'll have opened this up even more. But maybe take this invoice to your employer and say, Hey, you see this? You see this invoice here for this repurchase. Here are the things, and we have some resources that fix slp.com Would you please consider taking this off my job description? We also have the fix SLP mega spreadsheet at fix slp.com the CCC requirements are pinned to the top. You can scroll down on your state, so your state then falls right underneath it, and you can compare, so showing the employer look, all of these things are the same. Or in our state, it's even harder, you know? So this is a redundancy. You can show your employer that, and then the regulations are linked up as well on our website, because don't ever take our word for it. There have been mistakes. We are very clear about that. Please double check for yourself, but that is a way to ask them to remove that job requirement. If they say yes, if you're able to go ahead and drop the CCC and you want to you have two ways to do that. Number one, just don't renew. I can tell you that people who did that last year were still getting letters in September of this year for the opportunity to renew.

So if you don't renew, and you you take that option where you just don't pay, you are facing emails, potentially some phone calls for the next year. If you don't want that, then your other option is to formally resign from the CCC. And you know what I told Preston, we'll get this linked up. I'm working from home today. I've got a lot of fixy stuff to do, but I will try hard today to get this up on our website. It is called, excuse me. It is called the certificate of clinical competence, resigned affidavit. This has been the form since 2018 last year. We saw a lot of confusion with this, so we're gonna I'm looking at it now. You fill it out at the top, you check the boxes that you want, and then you sign at the bottom. I want to point out number one that says, at the bottom, it says, I am not practicing clinically where an active CCC is required, I do not mentor or supervise a clinical fellow. I do not provide or supervise clinical services, that is. And then what it says is, I will pay annual annual membership fees upon receipt of the annual invoice that is very confusing. What you need to do is look at the bolded header above it that says, individuals choosing to continue as or become a member without certification must read and agree to the following statement, membership without certification is a another membership option that people can choose. But if you are listening to this podcast, the likelihood that that option is open to you is very low. That option is for people who want to belong to Asha, but who do not practice clinically. So it is meant for maybe our research scientists who work in an academic setting, who work in a CSD department, but have never been an SLP, and they want to be a member of Asha. They want to support, they believe in what Asha is doing, but they have zero reason to hold the CCC that is for them, that is not for you as a state licensed, practicing clinician. And so you're not choosing that option. It's it's the option in in section one, I wish to resign my certificate of clinical competency, CCC, and number one is continue my affiliation with ASHA as a member without certification. You're not choosing that box. What you're doing is checking the last box. Change my status to not certified. I do not wish to join Asha as a member without certification. That is the one that you are choosing if you fill out this form, the rest of it doesn't apply to you because you are still practicing clinically. Remember, Asha is not a regulatory body. They cannot stop you from being a clinician if you are not a part of Asha, if you don't hold the CCC, if you don't hold the membership, their code of ethics doesn't even apply to you. Your state has their own code of ethics. In fact, one of the state teams that we're working with right now are that we're looking at launching soon. We were going through their state regulations, and their state regulations said you have to abide by the ASHA code of ethics. That's not even appropriate. The state can't even do that if you're not a member of Asha and you don't hold the CCC, the ethics don't apply to you. So anyway, something to get cleaned up in that particular state is we need to get a code of ethics for the state. But anyway, don't let that last section scare you. It very clearly says above what it's for, and that is not for you. You can go ahead and sign it, date it, send it in, and then they will not bother you. So if you're sure you don't want to be bothered, fill out this form. We'll get it up on the website. You're good to go.

Preston Lewis 41:13
Well, Jeanette, before I have to go today, because I have some patients that are waiting on me. A little bit of a look ahead. Tomorrow, I'll be on a meeting, and I think you may be joining me in the state of Delaware about some of the licensure changes that are going on there. Fix SLP, is on the agenda there due to some correspondence that we've had. So we're continuing to follow that situation. Our state teams continue to meet Jeanette out there, finding people who can be sponsoring partners of the podcast, there are a lot of positive changes, and I look forward to updating on a few of those next time we visit.

Jeanette Benigas 41:48
Yeah, yeah. Membership week this week. This is a Monday. You're hearing this. We're going to be talking about these options that we just reviewed as always. If you have questions, let us know, if there's something you want to hear about, let us know. I will give one more thing. We have had a huge influx of requests from people asking us to post their petition or their effort in their state. We are here to support every effort. However, that does not mean I am going to share your effort if it is not well planned out. So by me saying this is the information I need for our team to discuss this, this doesn't mean that I don't want to the team has met. We have pulled together some questions and some standards that we want to look at before we share. So that way, our fixers know that when we do share someone's effort, even if it's not one of ours, that we've at least taken a look. And it was not that the others aren't worthwhile, but it was at least planned enough to know that this is something that that we're supporting that and that we're behind. So please don't be offended. It's not you. We're just getting a lot of those requests and and that would be all of our content if we shared those things all day long. It's all you would be seeing also at this time. And this isn't a we will never do this, but right now, there are state surveys going around related to Medicaid that ASHA has put out in conjunction with the state association. There are a lot of state associations who have chosen not to engage with us at this time, that's fine. We're not going to be sharing their stuff. If a state association isn't engaging with us, we're not going to be helping to promote them. This needs to be a joint effort. But number two, we are, at this time, not going to be sharing the efforts of Asha for all of the same reasons. And so these we have been asked to share some of these surveys, and while they are important, Medicaid does need to be addressed. Reimbursement absolutely needs to be addressed. ASHA has the ability to email 250,000 plus people. They can go ahead and do that. They aren't going to get to use our platform to reach all of you, because, obviously, we're doing a better job at reaching clinicians. They don't get to have their cake and eat it too. If they're not going to engage with us, they're going to diminish our effort. We will not be sharing their efforts. It's that's just how it has to be right now. That doesn't mean in the future, we can't join together and do something, but for now, until there's a conversation, until things are going the way that that clinicians want them to go, we just cannot do that. So hopefully everybody understands that. But again, we have been getting a lot of requests, and it doesn't mean we won't share some of those. We just I have a phone call today at 230 out of an issue that's happened for an issue that's happening in New York that I think is very valuable. So you may be seeing that, but again, we just need to do a little vetting and then we can put that kind of stuff up. Anything else? Preston?

Preston Lewis 45:04
No, I I'm excited about everything and um... It's just, I think when I hear from clinicians that I haven't heard from in a while, it heartens me to see people that are just learning about this still, and that's that's happening every week, where people learn about what this is. Wow, I've got choices. And I think it's just part of kind of engaging with our profession a bit more for some people who have just kind of been going through the motions for years. And we need that engagement because our salaries are stuck where they are, the productivity continues to rise. And if we don't start asking those questions, then we're going to expect the same results. So keep it coming. We love hearing from you. It's hard. Jeanette will get a huge inbox of emails and feel overwhelmed one of these days, I'm going to wrestle a few of those away from her, but I need help you guys to hire an administrative assistant, and we volunteer to do this. And so there are some weeks where I can really put my fixer hat on and just come at things with the charge. And then, you know, life happens, whether you know it's, you know, family or health issues or work just picks up. And so some weeks I don't hit it as hard as others, but keep that conversation coming. And you know, if you've reached out to us. Have a little patience. Sometimes it takes us a while, but we are earnestly trying as volunteers to bring you change that matters for the working class clinician.

Jeanette Benigas 46:31
Yeah, well said. Okay, so with that, our Fix SLP train is still speeding down the track. Can't wait to see where we're at next week. Have a good week, everybody. Thanks for fixing it.

Preston Lewis 46:54
It's all the more reason right now I'm excited to see SLPs asking questions, whether it's, you know, do I have to pay $250 a year for a girl scout badge? Do I what are my options for private practice? I love the conversations that take place here. Jeanette, it's ways to help the working class clinician.

Jeanette Benigas 47:14
Love that. Why I have ex mayoral candidate Preston Lewis on this podcast?

Preston Lewis 47:20
No, that was 10 years ago. I was holding ...

Jeanette Benigas 47:22
That was very mayoral of you!

Preston Lewis 47:24
10 years ago, and then got smashed in that election. One, one but, yeah, I still wake up in a cold chill now and then thinking about that. It's okay. Everything happens for a reason. If you would have won that election, you probably wouldn't be sitting here fixing SLP, today. Let's just, let's just reframe that.

And I noticed when I sat down here today, this is great. I have the safety speech for you know, her Jeanette, and welcoming the passengers board, showing where the exits are. I mean, this is great. I love this. So oxygen mask may deploy and make sure you secure your own before helping others. I mean, this is, this is the convergence of worlds here.

Jeanette Benigas 48:11
Does she have a flight attendant though? Who does the fingers? Does she have a flight attendant who does the fingers and points to the thing? And if she doesn't, would she like to hire me on a 1099, because that is what I do behind the scenes at Fix SLP. I've got two fingers up at all times, pointing forward, pointing back, pointing a diagonal, up down, sometimes I do a spin and a jump, and I can do this in real life because muscle memory and probably ligaments were damaged. Sometimes when I jump, I then land in my right split.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai