From Fees to Freedom: Changing the Continuing Ed Landscape for SLPs

Dr. Jeanette Benigas and Brooke Richardson, MS, SLP, break down the complexities of continuing education requirements in speech-language pathology, focusing on the costs, challenges, and the need for broader professional development choices with fewer restrictions for clinicians. Brooke, an ASHA CE provider, shares her insights into the rising financial burden of maintaining ASHA Approved CEU status, with fees set to increase to $1125 annually. Together, they explore why ASHA transparency is crucial and discuss how these growing costs affect small CEU providers and clinicians. They discuss the push for state licensing boards to accept all related professional development hours instead, promoting better access to high-quality, affordable education.

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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!

This is an add on for anybody listening. We felt like our team, we, as in our team, felt like we needed to go one more week with the continuing education, because some of you get it, and that's awesome, but there are still a lot of people who still don't quite understand. There's a lot of questions, what do I need? What don't I need? And so when we added a week, I immediately asked Brooke, and she immediately said, Yes. So here she is, Brooke, why don't you tell us about yourself?

Brooke Richardson 1:18
Hello, hello. Thank you for having me. First of all, I'm super excited to be here. Yeah, I'm a clinician, and I also have my own continuing education business called the modern med SLP, and that's actually going to be branching out very, very soon to another platform called Breathehab. So all of my respiratory muscle training stuff is going to be heading over to breathehab, and all of my SLP stuff is going to be staying at the modern med SLP. So I have a lot of experience from being an ASHA CE provider. For the last I don't know. I guess my five year review is coming up. So I guess it's been three or four years. I feel like my review came up really, really quickly. So I am an ASHA CE provider, but I have never earned an ASHA CEU in my life. That's my fun fact today. So I still have to fill out the compliance I just did it the other day, acknowledgement. I think they call it a form, but I swear it's just like a little box you tick saying, tick saying, Yeah, I completed my professional development hours, and that's what I've always done. People have talked about the ASHA CE registry, like Bill that you get in the mail. And I remember when I took my first continuing education course outside of my clinical fellowship, and I had to tick the box, yes, send my information to ashes, CE, because I thought you had to. And then I got that bill in the mail, and I was like, oh god, wait, I owe Asha money. And I think of that really every time I teach a class and every time I take a class, did you pay the money? I didn't, because I've never earned an ASHA CEU in my life. I don't know this was many, many years ago now, so I don't know what in me made me realize I didn't have to pay it. Well, I don't know if I like found fine print, because I'm definitely a fine print reader.So maybe I found that, I'm not sure.

Jeanette Benigas 3:26
So it's interesting. You brought this up because we did no pre planning, but the week that this airs so probably the day after we post your podcast, we are going to have a post about this. Oh, you're listening, Oh, it's coming. Or if you're listening late, it's go. Look for it. Early on in this movement, we heard from a lot of people who received those letters and at the time, and still, they look like a bill. They're very, very deceptive. It looks like a bill that you have to pay so early on in this movement, we were calling that out, and now there is a companion letter that comes with it. So we will be posting that companion letter so everyone can see it. But I like to think that that's a result of our movement, because that companion letter was not happening before we started calling out the shady business that was happening with these invoices, because the amount of people we were hearing from that said, Hey, I got this bill from Asha, and I paid it. Did I not have to pay it? So many people pay those things, and it really it's just a reporting error. Either you checked a box or because you thought you had to, or someone reported it when they didn't have to, because they didn't know the difference. And it's just a way for them to try to continue to make more money.

Brooke Richardson 4:57
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Because the guidelines that you are required to follow as an ASHA CE approved provider, they're changing a little bit for 2025 so I think there's some new compliance things that are coming due. I want to say it's July 1, 2025 but don't quote me on that. But one of the things is where already you're supposed to be giving people the opportunity to opt in or out of Asha CE reporting, but they're adding something where, if people opt into Asha CE reporting, you should also have a disclosure that says, By checking this box or by saying that you want Asha CE reporting you are giving permission for your information to be shared with Asha. So there is a little bit more transparency there as well, I guess. But I don't, I don't know that that is the time or the place for people to really be trying to learn, Oh, should I, or shouldn't I have my information to the to Asha, and what does that mean? Right? I would hope that there would be more direct communication from Asha about this. There's information on the website that, of course, you have to dig for. I've shared it with people many, many times, but I wish there'd be more transparency, sort of upfront,

Jeanette Benigas 6:22
So maybe fixed, SLP, could create those resources. And I keep promising resources because I know we're getting a better website in the new year that's coming. So that's something I can add to the list, because something that I would like to provide to CE providers or PDH providers, especially those who are not Asha approved providers, I'd like to have a resource for them that they can pass out, you know, post on their website, pass out in their courses, pass out or post when they're asking people like someone like you, do you want to report? Do you not want to report? Having just a very clear handout where all the information is so people know, I that's a goal of mine to to especially, really support PDH providers who aren't Asha approved to help them do that. I guess marketing or education as and really one less thing they have to think about.

Brooke Richardson 7:22
Yeah, and I have a resource like that. I haven't looked at it for a long time, but it's called like Asha CEU alternatives, because even my own husband, who's an SLP, and whose wife is an ASHA CE provider, for a very long time, said, No, I need Asha CEUs, and I said, you, you don't, and there's all of this confusion that I know you've talked about with other people on the pod, but there's just all of this confusion about CEU versus Asha, CEU versus PDH, even even people who are very, very close to It get confused. And and that's obviously very problematic, but if you don't have my resource, I'd be happy to send it your way.

Jeanette Benigas 8:06
We don't have to recreate the wheel. We'll take your resource than just a resource. Shout out. Brooke is actually the one who wrote the employer education template that we have available on our website. So that has been hugely popular and useful for getting people to remove the CCC requirement from job descriptions. So if this is the first podcast you're hearing, continuing education, continuing education unit is a globally accepted term for professional development, and a unit just means it's not measured in an hour. It's measured in like point one. So if you take one hour of professional development, that is a point one unit. So that is point one. CEUs, and almost all professions have that, and it's called continuing education, but we have to over complicate it, because we have continuing education, which anybody can do, but then we have Asha approved continuing education, which means they went through the long, crazy process of getting that, which you can listen to other two of our last podcast to listen to that story, we won't repeat it, But then people start to get confused. So what we tend to say in our field, if you are not an ASHA approved provider, while saying CEU is still acceptable, a lot of people tend to lean towards the term PDH, just to keep it very clean so the consumer, you all, as the clinicians don't get confused, and PDH stands for professional development hour. And just to drive it home, we've been saying it now for this is our third week Asha to repurchase the CCC every year. Does not require Asha approved CEUs. That is something that is required by some of the states. Again, if you listen to the podcast with Lindsay Hochul from rock the R, we talk a little bit about how she's in Texas, and Texas requires either Asha approved CEUs or Texas approved CEUs. You guys. This is a money making scheme. This is a money making scheme because there is no oversight in terms of quality for these things, except for maybe the inclusion of five citations when you're submitting the course.

Brooke Richardson 10:31
Right, right? And the oversight thing is interesting. I think it's interesting because there are Asha CE approved courses, right? And that's how you earn Asha CEUs by also paying for the registry, which the CE provider also has to pay for the honor of offering a course that is approved for Asha CEUs. But the the oversight there, or the regulations, you've already talked about them, and there's not a whole lot like you said, there's maybe going to be this new thing with something like five references. But then at the same time as I was listening to that pod, I was thinking, how would regulation even work, or how would oversight of this even work? Because who knows more about the topic I'm teaching than I do. Is there someone at ASHA who knows more about respiratory muscle training, for example, than I do, or about acute care than I do? Is there someone who has more clinical experience that's current and who understands and knows the literature intimately like I do, and I'm gonna guess, probably not. I don't wanna say 100% that's not the case, but that's my guess. So then who is going to be reviewing what I submit and deciding if it's quality, whether that would be Asha or, you know, anybody else? So that the oversight thing is a little bit tricky to me, because if we're saying that something is approved, then there's sort of this assumption that there is an oversight or there is this vetting process that's a little bit more rigorous than it currently is. But then, who like do we really want a whole lot more regulation and oversight in that way?

Jeanette Benigas 12:15
No, no

Brooke Richardson 12:17
yeah

Jeanette Benigas 12:18
My call to action is, let's get everyone accepting professional development hours. Yes period, yes, like Asha does for the CCC repurchase. See, they can't require you to take Asha CEUs. That's a conflict of interest. It's an FTC violation. Like, there's so many things there. So what did they do? They dug into their states. They got not their states. Our states. Got their claws into our states when they were developing the state license and then developing continuing education stuff. Oh, let us help you. Let us. Help you. Include us. Is what happened. So while they can't require their CEUs, your state certainly can, and that's how this came about. So we need to be going to our state licensing boards and asking them, not just writing a letter, but actually presenting a good case. I think in the last episode, I gave a pediatric example. So this time I will give an adult medical example, taking a CEU from a pulmonary doctor. If you treat swallowing, attending a pulmonary conference, or like me, I do scoping, or if you're a voice person attending an ENT conference or an ENT course to help you learn information that hasn't yet been brought to our field. Yeah, another example. I'm a dementia person. I have been following someone's research, and I'm not going to put this out who or what, because I want to bring it to our field. It's on my it was on my like five year list, and now it's on my 20 year list, because I'm fixing SLP. But he is literally reversing mocha scores, reversing mocha scores, the only researcher in the world who's doing it. If this continues, he will likely win the Nobel Peace Prize someday. I am all in on his research. Why can't I go take a course from him? And actually, in Ohio, I can. But Why can't someone in Texas treating dementia go take a course from him to learn more about this? I'll tell you what, as someone who teaches CEUs all over the place, or, I'm sorry, pdhs, or whatever I'm teaching all over the place, on space retrieval and dementia. I'm going to sit here right now and tell you, you go take a course from him, and is going to be way more quality than something I'm offering you. Don't listen to my stuff. Go listen to him.

Brooke Richardson 14:56
I've never taken one of your courses, but I'm sure you're underselling yourself, but I know exactly what you're saying. And I went to a really great conference at Johns Hopkins. It was the early mobility conference. I'm trying to remember the exact name of it, but it's a great one for any acute care. I see listeners out there, and that wasn't approved for Asha CEUs, because apparently it's a much more difficult and expensive process compared to think it's APTA, AOTA, I don't remember who could earn CEUs for their discipline. I went anyway. And fortunately, in North Carolina, I can earn PDH and have that count toward my license. But it really does burn me up that there are people in certain states who don't have that choice, they don't have that option, and that's part of the reason that I'm a CE provider, as well as it being a business choice, like Meredith Harold was talking about the other day. But if people stopped being Asha CE providers, and the states continue to provide or to require Asha CEUs for license for renewal. That's a huge problem of access, and that's going to affect quality of care for the people that we serve. And it it also makes it where it's like we're saying with this research, your researcher you're talking about, and with this big interdisciplinary conference that I went to, we are narrowing the field. We're narrowing the voices that people can learn from, and in my opinion, we need to be learning from multiple voices that is only going to make things better for our field and for our patients and clients and kids. Yes, yes, and that's the fight. It's not a letter to the board saying change. This is writing a comprehensive letter to the state board that lays all of this out, right?

Jeanette Benigas 16:54
And says this, this is an access this is creating an access to quality care issue for the consumers in our state right where we can't continue inbreeding the same information over and over and over again, because we know this is a problem. We don't have enough researchers in our field to research every single thing that we treat across the scope, we need to be borrowing and and using information from other resources or other well known researchers to make our practice better so we can serve the people in our states better. And if we are being limited by state approved or Asha approved, CEUs only. We are limiting the knowledge, because I said this before. We only have so much time and we only have so much money, right? So if you're limited in one of those states, you're going to choose the thing that's approved, right? Spend your time. You're not going to pay $600 to go to a conference that you can't even count.

Brooke Richardson 18:06
Yep.

Jeanette Benigas 18:08
So fix SLP, there's a method to my madness in everything that we're doing, and so we recognize that we can't tell people or encourage people or ask. We can't first of all, we can't tell people to do anything, but we can't encourage that. People who are like you, people who are providing Asha CEUs, it's not really wise at this point to say maybe consider not doing it anymore. Number one, because there are still so many people to educate on this topic who don't know the difference that you would lose business. But number two, in the states like Texas, like you named, they don't have any other option, right? And so it's, it's one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other. And it's the same thing, which we'll be talking about when we circle back to education and teaching issues with students. You have to first hit the smallest problem or the biggest problem, however you look at it, but the first problem we have to fix is changing the regulations in these states surrounding CEUs. That's thing number one, until every state, or almost every state, like if there's a state who just refuses. Okay, now your clinicians are going to lose out, but then those clinicians need to get even madder and louder. So until every state, or almost every state,is allowing everyone to have PDH, we can't move on to the next step, which would be stop paying Asha. Right?

Brooke Richardson 19:39
right, right.

Jeanette Benigas 19:40
One thing and then the next thing. And so if the ultimate goal is autonomy, full choice for ourselves, we have to take baby steps. And this is going to take a long time. I think we've made you know, if you looked at our cheers the one year post or whatever we've we've made some moves this year.

Brooke Richardson 19:59
MmmHmm

Jeanette Benigas 20:00
but it's going to take a lot of years, with a lot of moves, to really see this thing through. And so that's one of the things that's on the list, is start with these states.

Brooke Richardson 20:09
Yeah, and I think for individuals, it can even start in smaller and more bite sized, more palatable areas, but they're things that people still cling on to it's this is for people who have a choice. You know, is just not paying for the ASHA CE registry. And um again, I'm not telling anyone what to do or what not to do, but if you have the choice and you don't want to pay for it, then don't pay for it, right? But then there's also this interesting stranglehold that I see with the ACE award, where I'll see people posting pictures of their ace awards on social media. And it's funny, because we're such a field of high achievers, generally speaking, that for some people, and I'm not saying it's not an accomplishment, but like, gosh, what? To me, it's just kind of this funny thing. Like, wow, there's a piece of paper that shows that you took the CE use the ashes hours. Most people are paying for that for double what you needed, plus the certificate, right? Don't you have to pay for that certificate? I think you can now print it, but if you want the nice one, you've paid for that. Plus you've paid for the tracker, yeah, and possibly paid for having your Asha CE, or having your participation in a course reported to Asha CE, right, like some businesses charge a little bit more, kind of like a service fee or something, because it is extra labor to go through every month and submit people's participation to Asha CE so there, there's a whole lot of financial stuff going on there too, but I don't know, maybe some people's Employers cover that or reimburse it. It's an interesting thing where, like, we have some of these choices, right? Do we? Do we really need this piece of paper hanging on our whiteboard in our office or at work that says that we took a whole bunch of continuing education, right? That that one is just fascinating to me. That is, that's something that's a topic for another day. I think I won't go too far down that rabbit hole. I'll pull myself out of it.

Jeanette Benigas 22:31
I disclosure, I am a three time ace award winner. But here's the thing. The first time I got it, I was like, What is this? I had no idea. The second time I got it, I was like, What is this? And so I finally looked it up and saw but when I've earned those things, it's because I was in academia, and I had an employer who paid not only my Asha dues, but paid for me to be in a SIG, which you can get CEUs for, and paid for me to have the registry, and paid for me to go to conferences. And then when I when I teach somewhere, like if I've been invited all over the place, I've talked in many states, every time I give a talk, I can have those reported, and I've not paid a dime. I'm getting paid to be there sometimes, right? Yes. And then, you know, when I teach, when I certain platforms, like the step platform, will open up their platform to the educator. So I take free stuff, you know, that's free to me during that time, I'm an educator on Northern speech services, they have an amazing program where anytime I want to take a course, I just call and say, I'm an educator. Will you add this to my cart? I got MBS imp training for free. I'm a northern speech services educator. So I mean, I paid for your course, but I think your course is the first course I've paid for and it's years.

Brooke Richardson 24:03
Well, don't forget, I gave you a few free courses for the educator thing. I think they just kind of fell by the wayside.

Jeanette Benigas 24:09
You did?

Brooke Richardson 24:11
Yeah.

Jeanette Benigas 24:12
Did I take them?

Brooke Richardson 24:13
I don't think you did.

Jeanette Benigas 24:14
Let's circle back to that!

but yeah, I mean, I so I went to everybody. I went to Brooks life, live, course, not because we're friends, but because I wanted education and respiratory training, because I use that kind of treatment in my therapies, and had never been formally trained, I was either calling her making making it up as I went, which isn't ethical. So I just wanted to make sure I was on track, which I was. But so anyway, I've continuously gotten this thing, not on purpose, just because I was doing my job and trying, you know, as a professor, you should be keeping up with the research and going to the talks and

Brooke Richardson 24:53
but also, I would argue that that's true for clinicians too, and I think this shows a little bit more of the dichotomy in our field of what some employers promote because of the culture and finances and what some employers say, Well, if you want to go to that conference, that's on you. You know, I even worked for an employer once who wouldn't renew LSVT allowed certification for $40 and it only benefited them, because I was seeing patients for them. So I let it lapse, but it, you know, I'm just saying there's some extreme here with access to different things, depending on where you're working and what, even from hospital to hospital or school district to school district, or university to university, and then, of course, across that whole span, there's a whole host of access issues.

Jeanette Benigas 25:52
Another, I don't know where I learned this, either, but it was something I negotiated from the beginning. In my very first job, we must have had a professor who told us to do this. Some companies make you use vacation days to go to CEUs. My very first job, I negotiated CEU days that that would not cut into my pot of PTO.

Brooke Richardson 26:18
Well. Now negotiation, this is a whole other thing. And this is probably great for Meredith Harold to listen to with informed jobs coming out, but a lot of times you can't negotiate anymore, at least in healthcare, it is. This is the PRN rate, whether you graduated yesterday or you've been working in that setting for 20 years, and you're an expert. This is the PRN rate. This is the base salary rate, no matter how much experience you have. And it's you can't negotiate PTO, you can't negotiate stuff. So as much as people try that room for negotiation, and I've been working for 15 years as an SLP, so I've seen it in our field, that room for negotiation has all but disappeared, and it's really, really wild.

Jeanette Benigas 27:13
If you're working for a hospital or a clinic that's owned by a private equity firm, the likelihood that you'll be able to negotiate that stuff is really low

Brooke Richardson 27:22
but still ask

Jeanette Benigas 27:23
Absolutely

Brooke Richardson 27:24
still try, but yeah

Jeanette Benigas 27:26
because advocating for what we're worth is really important, really important

Brooke Richardson 27:31
absolutely.

Jeanette Benigas 27:33
I want to hear your story. Have you offered CEUs? Asha approved CEUs from the beginning, or did you start out as a PDH provider and then make the decision to get approved?

Brooke Richardson 27:47
So I am an accidental instructor, and I got pulled into this by very supportive people at the very beginning who said, Oh, you should, you should teach, and ended up doing the cooperative offering for Asha CE stuff. So I have been either doing the cooperative offering thing from the get go, and then when I went into my own business thing, because I been doing so much for the ASHA CE reporting and I was fairly familiar with the process, thanks to those people that it was like not financially worth doing the cooperative offering anymore, because that's like 400 something bucks just for our listeners. Cooperative offering is when you're offering your course through someone else's company in a cooperative way. Yes, you are offering your course with an ASHA CE provider, right? So, rather than you having to go through the provider approval process, which I know was outlined by, I think, Lindsay and Meredith, rather than go through that whole thing and pay all that money if you want to offer a course just once, for example, or just a couple of times. Financially, it might make more sense, and time wise, it might make more sense to go through this cooperative offering thing, versus becoming an ASHA CE provider yourself. So that's where I got my start. And then, because I started to offer more courses, because, again, accidental educator here, and then it became a little less accidental. The more people asked me to come and teach, and the more money I was paying, because these cooperative offerings are very expensive, so I was just paying, I don't know how many dollars a year, but it finally was like, well, people want these Asha, CEUs, some people need these ashes. CEUs, of course, I didn't have nearly the understanding that I do today, thanks to fix. SLP, but I said I and business wise, if people demand it and expect it, then this is something that I need to do, and I need to find ways to save money, versus doing $400 or whatever it was for every cooperative course that I put on. So it gave me the freedom to offer these Asha CEUs that people want and or need, while also giving me the freedom to teach more things, because I love teaching, and I want, if I could put my brain out into my website, I would have, like, a billion courses. So it's good that I don't, but it does give a little bit of freedom in that sense. But that is only there because people think they need Asha CEUs, or people really want Asha CEUs for the ACE award, or because the registry is convenient, or because they actually do need them in. It sounds like maybe just a couple of states.

Jeanette Benigas 30:49
So when you I just want to clarify when you said it gives you freedom to teach more, teach whatever you want. I want people to understand that Brooke has the freedom as an educator, to teach whatever she wants and put whatever she wants on her website and sell that product however she wishes to sell that product as an educator, as someone who cares very much about niche topics that she has become an expert on she has that freedom. What she means is now she has the freedom to do it without paying as much money, just to clarify and say it again, instead of using the cooperative, which is upwards of $400 every single time you teach by becoming an ASHA approved CEU provider, you pay the registration fee, the upfront fee, the five year fee. If you haven't seen those fees, we have a post about it. Those are the fees, and then under those fees, you can teach as many courses as you want, yes, whatever modality you want, yes. So it's more expensive than just PDH, but it's less expensive than doing a bunch of cooperative courses. The cheaper option becoming an ASHA CEU provider is the cheaper option than using the cooperative. That is by design, because Asha wants people to be approved providers to keep their machine running.

Brooke Richardson 32:35
Right. So then, that way, if I'm an ASHA CE provider, all of my courses show up in the CE find. So they'll show up there if people go looking for CE courses. So ashes website is probably, I'm going to guess, one of the first places many people look if they want a course that is approved for Asha CEUs, right? Because that you can choose to not have your course included in Asha CE find, of course, I always do, because it's advertising, and if people are looking for it, I want them to find it.

Jeanette Benigas 33:07
I did not even know that this thing existed until Meredith was on my episode two weeks ago and she was talking about it. Had no clue. I have never looked at CE find to get my high quality CEUs.

Brooke Richardson 33:21
I haven't either. I haven't either, but I know that there are people who do. But anyway, it's, it's this interesting machine where Asha can say, look at all of these Asha CEU opportunities we provide, right? Because Asha CE find, I don't know how many. It's like 1000s, I'm sure, because it's kind of the five year lookout to like, I have my course registered for the whole five year life that it's approved for, so they've got that. And then they, of course, get paid 900 and it just went up to, what, 975 I just paid it like, two weeks ago, and I am still recovering 975 for being an ASHA CE provider for next year, and then it's going up to 1125 so it's going up 25%

Jeanette Benigas 34:06
$75. When we were looking at that cost to make the carousel that we posted, Asha did not have 2027 on the chart that they published in the text It said what was going to happen. And so when we were making the tile, I said to Elizabeth, our content coordinator, oh, we need to include 2027, in this screenshot. And she said, It's not on there. And I said, Well, where did you get this information then? And she's like, I think the website. So we went back and looked, and that is where the information came from. So we just put a little disclaimer, like, Asha doesn't have this, but, yeah, it was $75 a year between now and then. So I think, yes, like, what $1425?

Brooke Richardson 34:48
$1125, yeah. So that's the lowest end, right? That, like, depends on all of your compliance and all of that kind of thing. So for me, for the last however, many years, I've been a CE provider. It's been $900 this next year, it's 975, then it's going up and up again until it hits $1125, so it's going up 25% for me as a tiny one clinician, business owner who is trying to serve all of the people, but who is also looking at this and saying, how on earth is a little person like me with low volumes compared to these really, really big companies. Going to how am I going to afford to continue to offer Asha CEUs? I want to continue to offer them, if that's what people need, like, if I can get my education to more people, that's that's really important, right? Being able to improve patient outcomes, if it's, if the only ways to do it through Asha CE, that's just how it's going to be for now. Maybe that'll change in the future. But then, how can I afford to not be an ASHA CE provider? Because, again, there's, there's so many huge businesses that are very successful and have a lot of people involved. And as somebody who's like a little CEU boutique, sort of, I'm competing with the Amazons who can afford this fee. It's it's really wild, but it's not based on volume.

Jeanette Benigas 36:21
So I talked to someone through one of our platforms who said they reached out to Asha about that exact problem, and the response from Asha was, the reason they do that is to encourage you to put out more courses, which is ridiculous, because you are these small business, providers are also working clinically, and you probably want your provider working clinically, just like you would love to have a professor who's still practicing, who has stories to bring to the classroom and who has engaged in troubleshooting the issues that arise in real life situations. Those are the kinds of educators, in my opinion, who teach best, because they can say, look, here's an example. This happened to me today, and my you know. And so why it's, it's basically Asha saying, like, overtax yourself even more, because putting a course together is a lot of work.

Brooke Richardson 37:21
Yes, yes.

Jeanette Benigas 37:22
And then I was so naive, hosting my own first bees course with Dr Tim Stockdale, like, oh, we'll just show up. Well, you know, no, oh my gosh, the work that's involved, the work I know, I know, for someone like you, who's doing it yourself, who isn't contributing to a big company like medbridge or Northern speech services like I have, in that case, you really do just prepare and show up. But as a provider, you have so much more to do that cuts into your family time and your personal time and your self care time and your work

Brooke Richardson 38:01
What's that

Jeanette Benigas 38:05
I was telling Brooke before we started recording, I had some self care yesterday and ended up with a bruise in the middle of my forhead. I'm done self caring. It's that's just wild. It's just we keep those fees high so people will offer more courses and and so let me ask you, Brooke, because we do have to wrap up shortly. You had a hard out as a provider. Then, Brooke, what I want to know is we've already posted this. Asha is saying now that with all of these increased processing fees and fees that they're now charging that you you cannot pass those along to the learner. Yes, they strongly discourage it. Yes, you're supposed to be absorbing that cost. So as a singular Small Business CEU provider who is engaging in the system already and figuring out how to barely make it work, what are your thoughts on that statement?

Brooke Richardson 39:02
Well, I have some complicated thoughts about that statement, because I'm also a clinician who has not gotten sort any sort of pay increase in a very long time, right? So I have that perspective, and I've I feel like the folks who take my courses are probably in a similar boat, right? So there's this tension of not wanting to pass on these fees to people who are just like me, but also acknowledging that it does take me extra time. It does cost me extra money in order to provide Asha CEU courses, in order to report to Asha, I have to make separate spreadsheets, like it's it is a whole lot of work. So I do. I've been trying this year to have just a very nominal charge to help offset some of the cost, just of my time for reporting to Asha. CE and I another perspective I have about a statement like that is,is it appropriate for a company to tell another company how to run their business? And you know, I, I have feelings about that as well that I won't get into because we have time limits. But should Asha, for example, in this case, be telling me how to run my business? That's continuing education. And my perspective of a statement like that is, oh, this is going to make it look like Asha CEUs are even more expensive, and that's going to look like it's an ASHA problem and not a business owner decision, right? So it's, it just feels like optics to me, big picture.

Jeanette Benigas 40:53
You know what three words come to mind, as you said that when you, when you said, should a business be telling another business? You know what just popped into my head? Big Daddy Asha. I went hard with that at the beginning of this movement. Big Daddy Asha. I mean, this is a big daddy Asha scenario right here.

Brooke Richardson 41:14
Yeah, yeah. And it feels also maybe like a conflict of interest, where, if, let's just say I am charging somebody, I'm just gonna say $5 to report their participation to Asha again, just to kind of help, help offset some of my labor costs every month. But ashes own learning platform, I imagine, tracks your participation and doesn't charge you extra to report your participation within their own platform to their Asha CE registry, but you would still have to, of course, pay for the ASHA CE registry if you wanted to earn Asha CEU.

Jeanette Benigas 41:55
It is multi level marketing at its finest. I it didn't occur to me to look something up until the other day. I just want to put that plug this in there. The level of bureaucracy and and one hand, the right hand, not knowing what the left hand is doing. I'm going to say this now, so the minute they hear this, they're going to go fix this. But I looked myself up on the learning pass, because I have a very old course on that learning pass, until I wised up and realized that Asha was robbing me blind. They paid me very little money for what I did, and this was just under five years ago, I think, and they're still selling the learning paths and providing my course and making money off of me. I'm still on there. So just some I just thought when somebody said something to me about Well, well, I should track me down. And I was like, There's no way they don't know. One department doesn't know what the other part department's doing. Let me prove this to you, because I was quite certain my course would still be there. And I looked it up, and it was, I said, See, don't you think by now Asha would have taken me off their platform?

Brooke Richardson 43:11
Well, if they do now, you'll know that they're listening to your podcast, I guess.

Jeanette Benigas 43:15
So. Yeah, yeah. It's just a money making scheme, right? And businesses are set up to make money, but this just feels very layer under multiple levels.

Brooke Richardson 43:32
Yes, multiple levels.

Jeanette Benigas 43:34
CEU requirements for the CCC are really only 20 years old.

Brooke Richardson 43:38
You mean the PDH requirements for the CCC?

Jeanette Benigas 43:41
Any continuing education requirement, any continuing education at all was not required until the early 2000s.

I wouldn't really 2003, four, but 2005 is what's standing out in my head. So I will look it up. Someone pointed this out to us very early on in the movement, and there was an article in the leader about it that I was able to find to get the exact implementation date.

Brooke Richardson 44:06
I want to know if state licensing boards had CE requirements or PDH requirements before Asha did. then.

Jeanette Benigas 44:15
We'll look it up. We do like to give solutions, so let's wrap up with that. Because this podcast is going to wrap up the CE week. We probably won't add another week. We've introduced a free CE tracker through speech therapy. PD, it's open to everyone. Everyone has access. You do have to set up an account, but it is a free account. You do have to upload the certificates that you receive when you're done with a PDH course, and that takes a few extra minutes. We recognize that, but without extra fees, you're going to have to do that work. Just do it as soon as you receive it. And what I love is it saves the certificate, the image of the certificate for you, which this. See Asha CEU tracker does not do that. When you print your transcript from speech therapy. PD, you can print it with or without the little certificate thumbnail, because some states require that, I guess so that is free, that that is a solution to a problem that we identified, we commute. They already had it for their subscribers, but we communicated that to them, and they they made it happen, which

Brooke Richardson 45:30
that's awesome, yes

Jeanette Benigas 45:32
This isn't paid, it's not sponsored. It truly is like this was, I don't want to say it was a partnership or collaboration, because we didn't do anything other than say, hey, our clinicians need something free. So that is one way that you can start saving money, if you would like, and this is a joke, but if you would like a fix ace award, if you reach out send me a letter, and I'll whip you up a little certificate on Canva, and I'll send it to you for free. Okay?

Brooke Richardson 45:59
Is that for people who listen to a certain number of podcast episodes?

Jeanette Benigas 46:03
No, but you do have to try the five star rating and review. So that's one way to save, save money and not put money into the machine. Is if you have to have Asha CEU, Asha approved, CEUs, just don't pay for the tracker. Just use the tracker with Speech Therapy. PD, so that's one way.

Brooke Richardson 46:25
I just track my own PDH. I have a folder in my Google Drive that's just for all of my PDH, and then within that folder I have folders for my What do you call them? Renewal years? Is that right? The renewal cycle? So everything, every certificate, I just toss in there for the appropriate renewal cycle. And then if I get audited, then I've got it to show I don't keep a spreadsheet. I'm just not. I am not an organized SLP, I am so not that person, but I can at least take a picture or a screenshot or save the PDF of my certificate and put it right in that folder so it doesn't get lost. And that's F, R, E, E.

Jeanette Benigas 47:14
That feels like a lot to me, because what if your crashes? It's on the cloud. What? No, okay, you don't understand both of my computers until I just got this new one in front of me. Wouldn't communicate with the cloud anymore.

Brooke Richardson 47:29
Okay, but now you have a new computer that does

Jeanette Benigas 47:31
No, I'm going to use Speech Therapy PD.

Brooke Richardson 47:34
Didn't you have a phone that communicates with the cloud? I just live in Google Drive, that is, I don't know

Jeanette Benigas 47:40
All right, so go set up your own tracker, or set up your own system. You can save money that way. Support these PDH providers. Support that take their courses. I'm not saying don't take courses from big providers either, because shoot some of us do a lot of work to be on those platforms. But when you can, and if you can, start taking courses from people who aren't offering Asha CEUs

Brooke Richardson 48:07
Yeah

Jeanette Benigas 48:08
they need your business too.

Brooke Richardson 48:09
Yeah. And look for people outside of the field. If it's relevant to what you do, you know, don't let the lack of an ASHA CEU emblem scare you, because there's really high quality stuff with and without that emblem.

Jeanette Benigas 48:23
Yep. And then you can join your state team to help undo these regulations related to CEU requirements in states where it's required. So you need to email team@fix slp.com we have 10 teams launched, we're looking for strong leaders to help launch teams in other states, because we can't do all of it, and one of the things we're taking on with these teams are these CEU requirements. So again, baby steps, one state at a time, one regulation at a time, the slow undoing of ASHA's intertwined web where it's like, everywhere you look, it's just there, slow and methodical. We're doing the thing,

Brooke Richardson 49:13
yep. What did they say about eating an elephant? One bite at a time?

Jeanette Benigas 49:18
Yep. All right, everybody, I'd love to tell you what's coming next week, but I think we're going to change it, so I'll just say we'll see you next week, and thanks for fixing it. Bye, everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai