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We are discussing the biggest challenges that are currently holding back the field of speech-language pathology. We present the issues with facts and invite you to be a part of joining our movement to make things better, one conversation at a time. Let's fix SLP!
Hosted by Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP
Megan Berg 0:00
Hi, everyone. I'm Megan Berg
Jeanette Benigas 0:02
and I'm Dr. Jeanette Benigas.
Megan Berg 0:04
And we are here to fix SLP.
Jeanette Benigas 0:06
We are discussing the biggest challenges that are currently holding back the field of speech language pathology.
Megan Berg 0:12
We present the issues with facts and invite you to be part of joining our movement to make things better one conversation at a time.
Jeanette Benigas 0:19
Let's fix SLP.
Fearless fixers, you are listening to the voice of Jeannette. I'm saying that because I imagine we have plenty of new fixers joining us for this episode. So welcome back, or welcome. If you're new, we are so happy to have you. i I've turned it into a joke before that every time we press record, I start by saying Megan so much has happened in the last week. Um, I don't even know where to begin today, I've given a lot of thought it is about 1230 where I'm at. So it's been 22 hours since I got the phone call from Megan that something was going on. And I'll tell you what, I sort of look at our numbers every day. And I hadn't for a few days. But yesterday, I was just kind of compelled to do that. And we have grown our follow our following has doubled across Facebook and Instagram in the last 22 hours. And that that means a lot to us. I think Megan and I take this responsibility very seriously, we understand that people are coming to us because they're trusting us and they want help to make change. You know, they know they want to do something but they don't know what to do. So if that's you, thank you for being here. Thank you for trusting us with this. We can't do this alone. So we certainly need you here. And we need you to stick around. Yeah, I mean, I can't even process right now. Um, and
Megan Berg 2:05
I would say if you are new here, like take a listen to the first episode where you get to hear more of our personal stories and how we got into this and like why we felt so compelled to start doing research. And this is the voice of Megan, by the way, and I've got a sick toddler at home. So if you hear some music, we're talking, that's what's going on. But yeah, we've just poured, you know, at this point hundreds of hours of time into researching all of this because the system is set up to be confusing, because ASHA benefits from it being confusing, because if there's just enough confusion, then busy SLPs won't take the time to try to figure it out. So we're here to help get the facts straight and present those in a really easy way. So you can have access to information to make the choices that are right for you. Yeah.
Jeanette Benigas 3:00
So I want to start today by we often will start with a podcast review. And we have one that I picked yesterday. So I'm gonna read that. While I'm pulling it up. I want to say that Megan and I feel really strongly that we touch every single one of you, who reaches out to us in a positive way. We have even touch every single person who has reached out to us in a non positive way in the past. But we
Megan Berg 3:32
if you were starting to sound weird, we touched them in a non positive way. At that we communicated Yes. Yeah, these
Jeanette Benigas 3:44
communication, no touching without consent. Ah. Okay, so yeah, um, so if you have reached out to us, I just want to say that I spent the majority and Megan was on there, too. We were trying to respond to everyone on Instagram. We have not even opened Facebook yet. We will get to you. Thank you for your patience. And yeah, we want to talk with you. If you've taken time to reach out to us. We want to respect your time and get back with you. And we promise that we will it's but it's really a lot and yeah, okay, so for whatever reason, sometimes I can pull up our reviews and sometimes I can't like when I was here earlier it came right right up and now it won't.
Megan Berg 4:33
Just for context for people listening to this episode. The reason that our following has doubled is because ASHA raised their rates, which is what we're going to talk about today. Going up the review. Yep.
Jeanette Benigas 4:46
Okay, so this is from twirl girl 95117. Such a great resource for SLPs. Megan and Jeanette are incredibly articulate and discuss the issues with facts to bring light to the problems that surround our profession. And if you're ready to learn to be uncomfortable at times and have an open mind, this podcast will be an incredible asset to you as you navigate through professional issues. So thanks. Thanks for that. So if you haven't yet, click subscribe, we try to come to your ears at least once a week. But we drop a lot of extra fixes, which are our bonus episodes, we have an international series, we have a state by state series, we've got something else that I need to edit that doesn't fit into any of those. So we're happy to be here. So you want to just jump into the content, Megan, or anything else we need to say?
Megan Berg 5:36
No, I think we should just jump in and talk about ASHA raising their rates. So they sent an email yesterday kind of middle of the day, which was ironically, like a short, within hours after they closed nominations for the board of directors, and also after the deadline to pay the dues for 2024. So I know like everybody has different theories about this. I personally do not think that this is a reaction to anything we've done. I think ASHA is just doing what they do. They're a very slow moving organization. And they, you know, they plan years in advance these kinds of things. And like they were very prepared with their canned responses when people were writing in and saying that they weren't happy. And Asha made it clear that they hadn't raised rates in over 10 years, right. Or at least 10 years, something like that. Something
Jeanette Benigas 6:39
like that. We did point out yesterday and a quick live that we did that they were from, from the President's mouth. I am pretty sure that's who said it in the in the live the live the fall live chat. They did brag that they had not raised rates in X amount of years. It had been a long time.
Megan Berg 6:59
Yeah. And so we're going to dig into that a little bit today. Because the question two, the two questions that we're getting the most often is Why is Asher doing this? And what do they spend the money on? And so to answer the first question, why is Asha doing this, like they're doing it because they can like they can do whatever they want. They can raise rates, they can change the rules of certification, they can add on a an assistant certification, whether or not that's beneficial to the profession. And we can talk more about that in another episode. But like, they just kind of make their own rules. And because they're so reliant on CCC funding, like that's where the bulk of their budget comes from, they really don't have to be held accountable to members. And so this decision was approved by the Board at their last meeting, which was February 2 Third, so about a week ago. And I just want to clarify like Pasha board members are not paid. So I've been seeing a lot of comments about people saying like this is just the board members wanting to make more money and line their pockets. Asha is a nonprofit, that board members volunteer their time. So if you're taking your time to write a letter to the board, like they're just not going to listen to you if you accuse them of trying to make money because they make $0 volunteering for Asha. As far as like where the money goes, Asher has, you know, they have a financial report that they publish every year. So you can go online and read that they spend it on salaries, they spend it on travel, they spend it on their fancy LEED certified building, like you can see where they're spending the money. I think what SLPs need to understand is that it's not so much how they're spending the money, but how they're getting it. So they are artificially deflating the cost of the membership and artificially inflating the cost of the certification. So like in 2020, it costs around $2.4 million to run the certification program. But they brought in about 42 and a half million dollars in revenue from the certification. And so that money goes towards supporting the membership program. And so they don't have to be again, they don't have to be accountable to members. So the money that Asha brings in from certification feed, which again, like that is a that is a one time training milestone. So it should be a one time fee. But Asha has figured out that if They charge, if they say we're going to take away your CCC unless you pay every years it can sustain their budget without without having to be held accountable to members. So let
Jeanette Benigas 10:14
me jump in here, just because I have answered hundreds of messages and answered hundreds of questions. This is something I've seen come up just a little bit. And I want to be clear, and because I think most of us know this, but there are still people who who don't, that what Megan just said is, these things are required to purchase the CCC. It should be a one time milestone and it's not. So I'm getting I'm getting comments or seeing questions or whatever that say, Well, I earned the CCC, they can't take it away from me. Well, they take it away from you every year on December 31. The CCC is a product and you purchase it every year, just like I don't know, you buy bottled water, then you repurchase it. Or food if it expires, you repurchase it. Your CCC expires every year on December 31. And you can choose to repurchase or not. It is not a one time milestone. So if you are signing your name with the CCC, and you are not paying for it, that is an ethical violation. And it's it's a problem because you're misrepresenting yourself in your credentials. So I just want to be clear about that. Yes, you earned it. But what you actually did was you earned the right to purchase it with the work you completed.
Megan Berg 11:43
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Because I did see people saying I earned it, I'm just gonna sign my name with it. What are they going to do about it? Oh, they can. Yeah, you can hold you liable for ethics. Which is where the core problem is because you know, the CCC, it's like other professions. They get their degree, and then they're qualified to go get a license and work. ASHA has created a system where we get our degree, and it's literally worthless, unless we go get nine months of work done and pay for their certification. Now you can get you can take your degree and go get a state license. But because of the way that ASHA has lobbied that the CCC is required by 1.5 state licensing boards and 11 state Medicaid programs. And the vast majority of employers, especially in the education world, it's it's really hard to move in this profession without it. So the reason that Asha gave as their number one reason for doing this is due to inflation. And this is going to get a little bit granular. But I think it's important for SLPs, to understand that between 2011 and 2022, there's been a 31% increase in revenue. So in 2011, they were at about $52 million of revenue. By 2022, it was about 68 million. And even in 2021, it was at 71 in and it's projected to be higher. I mean, the reports aren't out yet for 2023. But it's probably the highest revenue yet. So that 31% increase when we compare that to inflation between 2011 and 2022. That's in line with inflation, inflation has gone up 30% between 2011 and 2022. Yeah. And so the inflation argument isn't really valid, because the revenue has kept up with inflation. Now, then the next question is, you know that the ASHA would come back and argue that costs have gone up. And that's really why they need to raise rates, because in their meeting in February, they had a budget. That was like they were gonna barely make enough revenue to cover that budget. But the problem with nonprofits is in order to be a nonprofit, not have to spend the money that you make. And if you don't spend the money you make, then you're a for profit. And so then the argument is like, as ashes revenue continues to go up, they're just having to spend that money to stay a nonprofit. And so the more they make, the more they have to spend. And so, from our perspective as SLPs we don't really Understand why their budget needs to go up and up and up and up. If it's keeping in line with inflation, then call that there's really no reason to raise rates, they haven't really made a strong case for doing that. So ultimately, the reason that Asha is raising their rates is because their total operating expenses are increasing. So the question is, why are their operating expenses increasing? And again, ashes response would be like, we're 100% transparent about where that money is going. If you don't like it, don't be a member. But then the problem is that it's not completely optional for all the reasons that we're seeing. And that's why we started that petition.
Jeanette Benigas 15:46
Yes, and I, this is where I will jump in again, to make some clarifications. Peep our petition, says Asha, stop lying that the CCC is optional. And that has confused some people, it whatever. Everything Megan has just said, explains that, but let me just put it into a few words. The CCC is optional. It is not required for us to do our jobs. But Asha has done a heck of a job lobbying to get it to be required in different situations, like the entire state of Nevada, or like 11 states where you have to have it for Medicaid, or like not bothering to update the public that it's, it's not required. And so employers still require it because they think it's needed, because prior to 2016, it sort of was needed because we didn't have a licensing board in every state. Now that we have a licensing board in every state, it's just redundant. The licensing boards are regulating the profession, not Asha and the CCC. So there needs to be a lot of work to update. And we'll get to that when we get to the next segment of this podcast is which will be what can we all do about this. But the the CCC is actually optional. And that was something else that they said in their fall live chat, right from the president or the CEO, or whoever I think it was the CEO. I think it was also the CEO who said the others do admit that they hadn't raised rates in however many years. But she said the CCC is optional. She said it came out of her mouth. So they tell us that it's optional, when it's actually not in some situations because of the work they've done to ensure that it's not.
Megan Berg 17:44
Yeah, and if you go to look at the February 2024, board, meeting notes, they have a lot of information in there about the dues increase, and then are the fees increase and then the renewal rates. So according to their meeting notes, as of January 2024 87%, of ASHA members and affiliates renewed their membership for 2024, which is a 2.9% increase compared to last year. And Asha knows this Asha knows that they're going to raise fees. SLPs are going to be mad as hell about it. They're going to bitch and moan on social media. And they're going to call it social media chatter. And Asha knows that it's gonna die down. And SLPs are gonna be like, like, it's just not worth it. It's not worth it for me to fight this battle to have just so I can be sure that I can have a job, I would rather just pay Asha to have job security, then deal with trying to fix the issue. And Asha knows that they 100% know that they're watching this movement. And they're patting themselves on the back, because they have more people signing up than they did last year at this time. So they're not worried about fix SLP they're not worried about anything changing there. They're never going to change unless they have a financial hit. And the only way they're going to have a financial hit is if SLP stopped supporting them.
Jeanette Benigas 19:15
And here's the difference though. They're maybe they're threatened. Maybe they're not these social media shatter topics that go on. I mean, that's, that's what they've called us to not what we call ourselves, but these things do die down. Right? The difference this time is that we are not going anywhere. Megan and I have endurance and perseverance. And we've been taking crap from people, you know, we we're here, we're here for it. We can't fix this alone. We keep saying that. But we can be here to organize and take everyone's ideas and that with lawyers what might be wise or what might not be possible. We're here to To help push this movement forward, it's going to take everyone having the endurance and perseverance to stick with us to make this change happen. So this is up to every single one of you listening and every single one of you who are finding us down the road, it's up to all of us to choose to stay, or become more apathetic and do nothing. And that's their waiting for the second point, become apathetic, do nothing. We're at a moment in time, this has never happened before. This has never happened in terms of advocacy for this profession. Never. And we're all a part of it. And we have a choice to make. And the choices that we make today are going to change everything. For the generations behind us for this field. It's time to stick our you know, stick down and say no more, no more. And they can underestimate us if they want to. But we're gonna frickin prove them wrong. Because that's what Jeanette does. Fine. When I started med SLP advocate, it was for this very reason. Did I know it was going to be for the whole profession? Absolutely not. But I've said over and over there needs to be a place to flow advocacy efforts through and I thought it would be for the field of medical speech pathology. And you can look back at my med SLP advocate account and I have a tile that says, if Asha won't do it, fine. We will. So are we going to do it or not? It's up to us. Are we going to prove them? Right? Are we going to prove them wrong? Okay, I need to come down. Yeah. And what?
Megan Berg 21:42
What I've been noticing is, you know, we had the conversation with Dr. Humbert in our last episode, which if you if this is the first episode you've listened to, you definitely have to go back and listen to episode 23. But, you know, we're having these conversations about like, why is it that we have a culture of fear, and a culture of complacency around changing things? And what I've noticed on social media in the last 24 hours, is a lot of SLPs questioning, like, Why did I feel so compelled to renew my CCC this year, even like people who know like, they know all of the information that they do not need it. And yet, they feel compelled to support the system. And I think that's the that's the really juicy point that we're trying to get at with fix. SLP is like, we can't change Asha. We can't, I mean, there's avenues to like, try to hold them accountable legally, that, you know, we are continuing to pursue and consider, but ultimately, the cleanest, fastest, most effective way is for STL SLPs, to sit in that discomfort for a while. And just really think about like, why am I doing this? Why am I supporting the system beyond the fact that your employer requires that because the fact that your employer requires that it's something that could change, and it could change with a conversation that you start, or you start that conversation with your other colleagues and you collectively go to your employer, but SLPs have, we have a lot more power than we give ourselves credit for. But because we're in this system with ASHA, it starts in grad school where we are conditioned to rely on Asha, for the answers and for the permission, and not, not every academic SLP does that. But that's the culture of academia and SLP is to promote Akka as this overlord that's watching us and judging us and about to punish us if we make one wrong move. And that's a culture that, you know, has held the field back from a lot of innovation, because we're scared to take risks. And that limits us in all of our clinical practice and our research methodologies and everything else. But ultimately, it limits us because we feel so attached. And that's what's so interesting about this conversation, is that attachment. And we've talked about because I was thinking about like, is this the what's the syndrome, where you're attached to your captor, Stockholm syndrome. And I thought, like, maybe that's what it is, but it isn't. And that's where we kind of put our finger on this organizational identity syndrome. Like when we're so attached to the identity of the organization and the benefits and the privileges that that organization gives us, including just being able to have a job. It's really hard to let go of that and
Jeanette Benigas 24:53
Alright, Megan, so I think people are largely listening today because we've just like thrown a lot of, are you because you're Rain is amazing. You've learned a lot of numbers and you know, statistics and facts. But I think people really want to know, what can we do about this right now? And even why should we encourage these things right now. And it's because ASHA has given us a warning. This is coming, right? December 31. And so if we don't do some of these things right now, in December, even though it's optional, some of us might be forced to pay the $250 for the CCC. So what is the first thing that clinicians can do right now? Yeah,
Megan Berg 25:40
so one thing that people can do today is to sign the change.org petition that's asking Asha to stop lying that the CCC is optional. So again, this is ashes go to message when SLPs have concerns about the CCC instead of listening to those concerns, and adjusting accordingly. Asha just tells certification holders that it's an TOTALLY OPTIONAL product that they don't have to opt into. So you can sign the petition to ask Asha to stop lying about that. And you can find that at fix slp.com.
Jeanette Benigas 26:19
Again, I've been fielding questions on Instagram, do we actually think that this petition is going to make a difference? Maybe it might, probably not. Because it's Asha. And they are doing what we love to say they are just over there. ashing, right, they get to do what they want. But what I'm going to do is it's going to make a statement. And so if we can get 50 or 60,000 SLPs, to sign this baby, it's going to say that we're serious, it's going to add to that thing that we said at the beginning, like they think we're just gonna go away. Again, we're putting the stake in the ground and we're saying this time, we've had enough, we've gone through your communication avenues, we've tried to contact you which PS, Somebody just wrote to us and said they have their phones off. They're not even answering the phones right now, as of February 8, at 1:11pm, Eastern Standard Time, they're sending everything straight to voicemail. Okay, so we've tried the avenues, you're not listening to us. And now we're going to put it in writing that isn't enough is enough. The other thing that this will help us do. And I'm not saying that we're going in this direction, but a lot of people have asked in the last 22 hours, if we think a class action lawsuit is appropriate. We don't know we're not there yet. But if it ever becomes appropriate, we have a list of people who might be interested, that we can show a lawyer that we might be asking to work pro bono for us or do something contingency or whatever. You know, if we have a list of 10,000 names, awesome. If we have a list of 75,000 names, that speaks volumes were more serious. Today, on February 8 2024, we put our stake in the ground and now we're serious. And so that is one reason why it is important to sign the petition is because it is we're making a statement today. This is our statement and this is an easy way to do it. That other stuff will come later, you know a lawsuit would take years. What can we do today? Sign the petition.
Megan Berg 28:29
Sign the petition and think of five SOPs that you know and send it to those five SOPs. You can unfollow Asha on social media.
Jeanette Benigas 28:40
And we put that out last night it wasn't our idea I so thank you to the fearless fixer Who threw that out to us. Oh, amazing. Um, I wish I would have looked at their numbers when I posted that. So many people have messaged to say we just did I just did it and their numbers on Instagram are going down. So it started in the 57,000 range. It was 57,000 point something. And last night when I looked at was 56 Something I haven't even looked today because I've been trying to answer people. They have a lot more on Facebook but so make sure you unfollow on every platform. You can even unsubscribe to emails. Just get them out of your life.
Megan Berg 29:29
Someone else also recommended leaving them a review on Facebook so you can go and leave a one star review and that'll because I think the last time I saw it it was that 4.1 Which is probably like all the actual staff members leaving five surveys. You do that and then I'll just say if you unfollow Asha, you won't be able to leave a comment. So people have been commenting on like the tinnitus post which is funny because Ash has been tone deaf. So if you want to leave a comment you have to All of them and then leave your comment and then unfollow them. But something you can do, or Asha
Jeanette Benigas 30:06
games, just playing games. Okay?
Megan Berg 30:11
What else can they do man, you can join Bumble. So Bumble is our free community that's organized by state. So you can go to fix slp.com, click on Quick Links, and find the humble link. If you download the app first and then go to the link, it's a little bit easier if you're doing it from your phone. And then you can join the different state channels that you're interested in and meet other SLPs who are working to get the CCC out of Medicaid regulations and licensing board regulations. Scott, Oh, sir,
Jeanette Benigas 30:45
this is a great place to be gathering to approach employers regionally, we would encourage you to take a look at applications for the state because usually there's an order like you could do all of these things, or submit your CCC, we need to get anything that says CCC off of that kind of paperwork. So approaching the board and asking them to just be clear as to what the requirements are. And taking the CC off is very, very helpful to support choice. Because those are then things that you can show to your employer to say, look, here's a link to our state regulations for licensure. It's not required to be licensed in the state. Here's the link for Medicaid. It's not required to bill Medicaid. And so that's very important to do over again, start today, we have 11 months, we aren't going to make change if we started this on December 31. And may Megan and I can't do it. We're not constituents of every single state out there, we can help in our own states. But there's a lot of work to do and every state has their own issues.
Megan Berg 32:01
And if you're looking for the link to those regulations, you can find them at fix slp.com under quicklinks. Okay, the other thing you can do is stop supporting Asha. So you can stop asking companies to offer Asha CE use. You can stop paying for the ASHA CEE registry. If you have to keep the CCC, you can become a certified non member, it's not going to save you very much money, but it will send a message to Asha if enough people do it.
Jeanette Benigas 32:33
And I'm going to pause you there because again, lots of new followers who don't know what that means I've answered that question quite a bit. A certified non member means you maintain the CCC, but you are not a member of Asha. So you lose the benefits in quotations that they offer. So the big one is access to the journals, but that it's like you will lose the leader that you put in the trash anyway and you lose the the car rental discount. And we do have an episode where we read through some of those benefits before. There's not a lot of them.
Megan Berg 33:10
Yeah, so. And this is where for people who are new here, like the ASHA quote dues are two separate fees, Asha files them to the IRS as dues. But you're paying a membership fee and you're paying a certification fee. And so if you're a certified non member, you're only going to save it to 50 you $29 in 2025. But again, you're you're sending a statement to Asha, side
Jeanette Benigas 33:43
note, you do have as of this year, you had to call Asha to make that happen. It was not part of the renewal application this year. So the other thing, I'll just throw this out there, Megan, you can cut it if you want to. But there I don't know if it's on tumble where this question has happened. But someone sent us a screenshot and said, do the folks in California have a potential lawsuit or complaint? Because there is not a place to click to cancel your quote subscription to Asha since it's an optional product that you purchase? I don't know that. But I'm just throwing it out there something to just be discussing on Bumble. If you're in California, I mean
Megan Berg 34:33
my because it doesn't auto renew, they probably don't have a case.
Jeanette Benigas 34:38
Good point. Good point.
Megan Berg 34:41
Lots of good let's but that doesn't mean there's lots of other questionable legal avenues to pursue. But those are the kinds of questions like we just need to get our Critical Thinking brains on and ask why for all of these different things. Okay, instead of going To the ASHA conference, you can seek out alternative conferences and I just have a very brief list here. And we would love it if people would DM us or email us and let us know the conferences that you'd like to go to. So the dysphasia Research Society does one and I think they picked like a really fun international spot every year, don't they?
Jeanette Benigas 35:21
Yeah. I mean, I
Megan Berg 35:24
already Yeah, or they have done. And then the National Black association for Speech, Language and Hearing as conferences. The Mayo Clinic puts on really great conferences, there's the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, I've heard incredible things about that conference. And it's especially helpful if you're, if you work somewhere that has a lot of interdisciplinary collaboration, and then seek out small businesses and state associations that are offering conferences. There's just, there's so many ways to connect with other SLPs outside of the ASHA convention.
Jeanette Benigas 36:00
Yeah, and that something when Megan said, stop supporting Asha, one thing I don't think she mentioned was the ASHA Learning Paths stop using that. They don't even pay their educators ethically. So we already have a ton of issues. But then that's another one that I had is they don't pay their educators ethically. So lots of problems there with the actual learning paths. Yep. And then I added the question, Megan, someone asked this on social media, what can we tell our non SLP coworkers and friends who ask how they can support us, especially those of us who work on teams like rehab teams with PTS or OTS or teachers? Or what do we think? And we're not experts on this, but how can these folks best help us?
Megan Berg 36:51
It's a great question. I know that. Like, I've seen people signing the petition, in support, and somebody was asking if that's fine. And that's completely fine. Like this is the petition is like everybody has a stake in this, whether you're an SLP, a consumer, a family member, like this affects all of us. So signing the petition would be one way that they could help.
Jeanette Benigas 37:18
I think if we are part of teams, or rehab teams, and I know in I'm a, I'm a medical SLP. So I know that in settings like hospitals, or skilled nursing facilities, well, especially skilled nursing, facilities, directors of rehab, are often Kotas, or PTAs, or OTS or pts. And so a way that they can support us is to help us educate administration that, hey, we we aren't required to buy certifications like this from our optional membership bodies, and understand the rules and regulations of this, I guess they don't really have to understand the rules and regulations of the state, but they just need to be able to have the words that this isn't required anymore. We have a state licensing board who's regulating our profession or the speech profession. So so please stop requiring this of our colleagues. So that's, that's a way that you know, if you're talking to your SLP colleagues, that's great. And you should advocate for that. But your OT and PT colleagues could be advocating in a similar way by saying this kind of stuff isn't required by us. And theirs is optional. So stop it. Really? Yeah. And
Megan Berg 38:39
adds a great way. In the school settings. That would be school Sykes that could step up next to you. Yeah. Better match there. Yeah. And I had another thought. And oh, I was just gonna say, I think some of the most favorite emails that we've gotten are from rehab directors that are PTS like, they always are. And they're like, Hey, I've been hearing about this, or SLP staff has been talking to me about this, can you help us clarify, and we will send them will forward them all the emails that we have from CMS to clarify that the CCC is not required to bill Medicare and give them all of the information that they need. And so just know that like, it might take bringing it up once for for the idea to get planted in your boss's head or your team's head. And then it's going to take your co workers to also say something and then your non SLP co workers to say something and it's just going to take a lot of consistency. And so if you hit a wall, like go back and listen to episode 23, and get inspired and and feel supported and just keep going because it's just going to take time and it's going to take consistency.
Jeanette Benigas 39:55
I want to say one more thing. And you can cut this So I'll let you decide Megan. But what I'm gonna say is going to be very controversial right now. And I'm probably going to piss a lot of people off. But I think it needs I mean, we're good at that. Yeah, I think it needs to be said, because this is where I'm at in my life and the people that this is going to harm, just know that I love you. But this is for the betterment of our field, and it might get tougher a minute. I think we need to stop keeping the CCC to supervise students in TFS. Because that is the last stronghold that ASHA has on us. And it is the thing that will keep some people supporting Asha forever. And we are a group of people who care. And we want to give back to the field. We want to support our students. Listen, I'm an educator. I've done externship coordination, I get it. But for as long as we let this go on, it's never going to end. And we needed to force the hand of the CAA. Well, the CAA does not require that, that a supervisor have the CCC, it's Asha that requires it for the purchase of the CCC. So for as long as, as we are available to do those things, they have no reason to change it. And until until we force their hand again, like me, Megan said, until it hurts them in the wallet, they're not going to change anything. It's a lack of supervisors, to supervise students is going in creating that problem will change things very quickly. What they need to do and what they could do, literally, with one Zoom meeting is changed the requirement that any licensed SLP can supervise a student or CF, because every state, except for Hawaii, has requirements of licensure that are equal to or more rigorous than the requirements of the CCC. So we just need to stop, we need to stop and I'm sorry, students, I love you. But But that I mean, that's the last, that's the last step is we have to stop holding on to the CCC to have that privilege. And that hurts. Yeah, and I
Megan Berg 42:25
I mean, ASHA is not going to change that rule. And it's it's literally going to take one university to say, You know what, it is almost impossible to find clinical placements for all of these students at this time. And we can't, we just can't do it anymore. And if we open up our, our field of supervisors to be those that are that are not wasting their money on the CCC, we're going to drastically improve and expand our the number of supervisors that we can pair with students. And it just takes the university being transparent with students and saying this is our reality. And we're being completely upfront with you, that you when you are supervised by someone who doesn't have the CCC, you can't eventually pay for it. And then universities need to get involved in dismantling all of these things. But the reality is that universities aren't, they're not going to be the first ones to do it. Because they are the ones that are the most protected by ASHA, and the CCC and they have the most to lose in this conversation. And that's why we've we've faced such harsh feedback from academia. Yeah, in many ways,
Jeanette Benigas 43:47
many ways. It's just so important. And yeah, I just, I feel really strongly and I feel like I could say that a little easier these days. So, um, yeah, I know, that's hurt, that hurts to think about but you want it and start thinking about if you want to keep supporting that system, or if you want to help push towards change. And then Adam, and one
Megan Berg 44:19
more thing that you can do is like, just read through all of our content. I mean, there's, I think there's, like 200 posts, so it's not like 1000s of posts, but you're gonna learn a lot. There's a lot of information packed in each one. So you'll learn things like the board isn't paid. You'll learn things about how nonprofits are organized. You'll learn things about how we compare to a OTA and a PTA. There's just lots of facts that you can use when you're talking to your employer or talking to your colleagues.
Jeanette Benigas 44:53
Yeah, and I interrupted you. No, no, that's okay. A lot of people probably don't even realize this. We've only been around for As of today, I was laying in bed couldn't fall asleep. I counted in my head. We have been around for exactly as of today, four and a half months. We're new here. Okay, we're new. Yeah, so there's not a lot. There's not a ton of content, but it is jam packed. Alright, man, is there anything else that we feel like? We need to say today?
Megan Berg 45:27
I don't think so. I think that, you know, people have been asking what our thoughts are about this. And I'm like, this is the best thing. Or it could be the best thing that ever happened. SLP. This could be a watershed moment where everything changes.
Jeanette Benigas 45:40
So at this moment, you guys and girls and everyone this, this is it. This, this is the moment for which Megan and I were created. Right now. I mean, you know, we started this platform just because we thought we were gonna educate. And we've been doing all this research and putting all this stuff out there. And here we are to serve and to help and to organize and to cheer you on and to like, turn our own lives upside down a little bit. Yeah. So what are our thoughts? I don't even have them yet. I were just right. We're just riding this wave for the moment. And hopefully we can get that content. We're thinking of getting you some content to be a little more helpful out sooner than later. Bye. Yeah. So I love to sign this off every week by saying thanks for fixing it. So yeah, thanks for fixing it. Thanks for being here. We'll see you guys next week.
Megan Berg 46:42
Bye, everyone.