Money Talks, ASHA Whispers

Dr. Jeanette Benigas, SLP, Preston Lewis, MS/SLP, and Elizabeth Nielsen, MA/SLP, examine the financial landscape of speech-language pathology, highlighting ASHA's $65 million in cash reserves and $71 million in investments. They critique ASHA's spending priorities, including minimal investment in lobbying, and question how these funds could better support clinicians and the profession. Jeanette provides updates on the Fix SLP team's CCC and ASHA membership status, illustrating the team's commitment to autonomy and professional choice. This episode emphasizes the importance of systemic change, transparency, and grassroots advocacy to build a stronger future for SLPs.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP

Host of Fix SLP

Host

Preston Lewis, MS, SLP

Co-host of Fix SLP

Guest

Elizabeth Nielsen, MA/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!

Preston Lewis 0:46
Hello again. Fixers. Preston Lewis, the government affairs shot caller, whatever you want to call me that is happy to bring this message to you again in this holiday season, joined today by our founder and leader, Jeanette Benigas and also Elizabeth Nielsen, our content creator, is with me today. Guys, what another busy week in the fix SLP world, and we continue to hear from a lot of you out there, the social media traffic has been huge. That Post this week about the contact with the lawyer and Asha. You know, I know I was hard on lawyers last week, but wow, that got a lot of response, didn't it?

Jeanette Benigas 1:24
Oh my gosh. I don't think I have gone to bed before 1:30am in the last week, I've done really good at keeping up with DMS, but people are excited. People have a lot to say. People have a lot of questions, lots of engagement. Now, if you've sent us an email, there were over 200 just a few days ago yesterday, I had it down to 161 I go in order as they come in, I respond to everything. So if you've filled out a form to get in contact with us, or if you've sent us an email, I will respond. But it takes time. It's been an exciting week.

Preston Lewis 2:03
It has today we're going to talk cash, assets, investments. Elizabeth's got some more numbers from the IRS filing with ASHA, and we'll talk a little bit about some of the chatter this week that we've had from some fixers out there, and we have a great minivan meltdown to start out the program as well. Am I missing anything?

Jeanette Benigas 2:23
Well, yes, we're going to start with the minivan meltdown, but before we do that, we also a little teaser here. We have a big announcement, or a big announcement for us. We think we're excited about that. We're just going to talk about briefly at the end of the episode. So make sure you stay tuned for that. And also, I don't know if everybody knows this, because I can see the drop off on our statistics for our podcast, I will often give little Preston isms after the outro music. So if you are a Preston fan and if he makes you laugh, there are many episodes where I will do outtakes at the very end, just for fun. So if you don't stick around for those, always look at the time to see if there's like 20 seconds left, or 10 or whatever, because if there is, that means that we've got something at the end that I thought was amusing. This morning, we dropped a bonus episode with Colleen Ashford, who went to the ASHA Q and A at convention, and there was a discussion by an ASHA member who really experienced microaggressions and a really difficult time in her student placements as a grad student. So our meltdown today goes along with that. That's why I chose this one. I just thought it was a good continuation of the conversation. So let's hear it.

Minivan Meltdown 3:47
I'm a graduate student, and I just completed my first externship. I would love to say that it was a lovely experience. However, it was anything but that my supervisor gained my trust in the beginning, and then as soon as I confided to her that I had a learning disability, that I was neurodivergent, she quickly used that against me, and because she had never that she knew have worked with a neurodivergent individual before, and that somehow made me Like ill, equipped to be an SLP, and that I was not meeting her expectations. Following this, I was met with lots of passive aggressiveness, and even when speaking to my university's coordinator, she pretty much told me that I need to suck it up and meet my supervisors expectations. So that was very challenging, because it was a very toxic environment. I often felt a lot of anxiety, and I wouldn't eat. I became very depressed. I felt like I couldn't trust anybody, and it made me scared that there was nobody in our office that I could turn to. Yeah. My supervisor often spoke ill of everybody, all of her colleagues, my program, my programs, coordinator and staff me, it's like when you'd walk into like lunch and like everybody suddenly stopped talking when you're there because they were obviously speaking ill about you that happened to me often felt very uncomfortable all the time. I felt like I didn't belong, and that's because I didn't belong in that space. The kicker is she would often hide my back record Snapchats of me when I was trying to manage, struggling to manage a behavior instead of helping. So she gets done did and make fun of me and the patient, and she was often caught doing this, like, taking recordings and sending them of patients, which is highly inappropriate, but it was happening as I mentioned, like I was very depressed, like, I'm still trying to process it all, and it's like, I feel very strongly about this, like, I don't want another student to have to go through this, because it's awful.

Preston Lewis 6:07
We kind of touched on what I would call the toxic world of academia, because I think it exists. I felt it. I felt like all of the professors in my department were just constantly pissed off at me because I was from a different world. I didn't think the same as they did. I wasn't, you know, I don't know if I'm neuro divergent, but I felt that. And then any if you complained, then there were going to be reprisals. The retaliation was real. Jeanette touched on that last week, and gosh, I mean, we keep bumping into this right now with neuro divergent people being ostracized by our profession, it's unthinkable.

Elizabeth Nielsen 6:51
Yeah, I started tearing up listening to this as someone who's neuro divergent themselves and works with my neuro divergent population. It's just so disheartening that these students that are passionate to help these clients are being treated this way, and like, I'm like tearing up right now just thinking about it, because it's what are we doing? We're turning these students away from the profession. We need better support for these students in supervision this one to two credits that we take to supervise students doesn't cut it. It's almost like we need a whole like supervision class in grad school. This is how we should be treating our students with kindness and respect during grad school. It's stressful time, I don't know.

Preston Lewis 7:40
All right, Dr Benigas, weigh in. Let's hear it.

Jeanette Benigas 7:44
So, Dr Benigas has already gone off about this in today's bonus episode. So if you're not up to date with the podcast, this was the podcast that was released on December 19, 2024 entitled The ASHA convention that changed everything. If you're interested in this topic, you're going to want to hear that story. And if this one didn't make you cry, that one probably will. I've already said some things there, but this one just reminded me of an article that I would give to all of my students. I always did article discussions in my dysphagia class, which is one of the last classes I had them for. And this one is a perspectives article. It's called how it works in the real world, helping students navigate clinical placements. And this is written by two of my colleagues, Ed Bice brilliant man, Dr Pam Smith just retired from Bloomsburg and Pa but we've collaborated on some med bridge courses together, or a med bridge course together, both great educators. It's a really good article. I am more than willing to share it if you reach out, but it just talks about these issues in clinical placements, the possible causes for these things, a couple practical solutions for students so they can get benefit from their experience, while it's just a band aid. This doesn't fix the systemic issues going on, at least it's something that a student could take a look at and potentially benefit from. So it's a good article. Let me know, if you need it, this is a deep, systemic issue, and I feel like our university programs have a responsibility. I said this in the last episode, to listen to students and take them seriously. They are not children. They are not all complainers. Yes, there's always a bad apple in the bunch, but a professor can usually pick those people out pretty quick. If you've got a great student doing great things, and they're coming to you saying, I have a problem. We need to listen. I'll point this out again in case you didn't listen to the other episode. I said there's a power dynamic between a professor and a student, so when a. Student has a problem that is serious enough where they're going to speak up and talk to you, that's a risk. They are taking a risk to speak out. That risk outweighs the other option of continuing to go through whatever they're going through and not speaking up. And it drives me wild when these faculty protect their placement their contract so they can send students there again, protect externship coordinators who behave badly or who haven't kept up for the sake of having a placement. Because placements are hard to find, it's not appropriate. We owe it to our students who are paying us 1000s and 1000s of dollars to train them and train them well, we owe it to them to take them seriously. So if you are one of my colleagues in academia, open your ears. Have these conversations. Talk to the students about ways they can come to you with concerns, and then when they do, do something about it. Things are changing. Now. This has to change. It cannot continue. It can't Everybody wake up. We are falling apart. We are in a crisis. And the students that we do have coming into this field need to be here. We need them anyway. We'll keep talking about this we mentioned in the last episode, students, just like this one, call in. Give us your meltdown. You can talk to us. It's always anonymous, unless you say in that recording to me, you can say my name, or I'd like you to say my name, we will keep you anonymous. Always in Show Notes is the link, and towards the top of our web page, fix slp.com, you can find the link there as well. So, Elizabeth, what do we got today?

Elizabeth Nielsen 11:56
So we've covered expenses. We covered revenue. So our last money talk is ashes assets. So there's some big, big, big money here in the assets. The first thing that jumps out on their 990 form from 2023 is the cash that they have. So at the end of 2023 they had almost $65 million in cash that's in reserves hanging out. And then they also have about $71 million in investments. So that would be stocks, bonds, things like that. Now it's common for nonprofits to have investments, common for cash to have reserves for operating costs, things like that. That's completely normal for nonprofits to do that. It's interesting too, because ASHA has $65 million in cash. So there's two categories, there's cash, and then there's savings. They don't put any of that in savings, so it's all just liquid cash that they have available for again, to pay for operations, things like that. I was kind of looking at PT and OT too, because I know we kind of like to compare with those associations, just to kind of see how Asha is spending and saving their money. PT, in comparison, has 41,000 in cash and 17 million in savings, and they, because they put money in savings, it went from 15 million to 17 million. So they've gained interest that way too. But Asha doesn't put anything in their savings, which I find kind of interesting, because why wouldn't you want to get some interest on some of that cash, I think because it's easy for them to get that cash to pay off things that they need to pay off, but that's something that we need to start like asking them, like, Hey, you have, between the investments and the cash, you have over $137 million in reserve, and we are being asked to spend more money on our dues, and we aren't really getting an explanation of where that money is going. They gave us the paper like, yeah, we need more money for paper and more initiatives. But what are these initiatives as an association? Wouldn't you be excited to share, like, what these initiatives are, where this money is going towards, but we're not...

Preston Lewis 14:28
Let's not forget also the big investment and asset of the building that in itself has a value now it has a liability that's still being paid. But real estate is an investment. So there's also that.

Elizabeth Nielsen 14:44
We kind of touched base on the building stuff. Over the summer, they spent $48 million on their building in 2007 so they own their building. They own the land. The land, I think, is like worth $7 million Uh, so between the land and the building like that's all worth 71 million because of depreciation. That's reported at 36 million on the 990 form. But 71 million for a building that is staying empty for the most part. Yeah, most of them are working from home. They have a lovely Yoga Studio in there and a gym in there, while most of us are working in closets, there's a...

Preston Lewis 15:25
The kitchens are well stocked.

Elizabeth Nielsen 15:26
Yeah. Uh-huh.

Preston Lewis 15:29
You know, it was interesting this week, and I always appreciate those comparisons. OT has t wo organizations with AOTA. And then was it

Jeanette Benigas 15:37
NBCOT

Preston Lewis 15:39
NBCOT

Jeanette Benigas 15:39
Yes.

Preston Lewis 15:40
And then

Elizabeth Nielsen 15:40
so that's their certification.

Preston Lewis 15:41
Right. And then APTA is out there. It was just fascinating this week that we brought back. It may have been updated a little bit as well the tile, which was just great. I mean, it's so actionable and informational about what the percentage is for expenditures on lobbying. For those that didn't see that, it's very starkly different, because ashes all the way down to like, what is it? 2% and then you see numbers punching up into double digits for a PTA. I can't remember what OTS was, but it's it's substantially different. It's a lot more dollar per dollar amount. And yet, these are pretty small organizations, when you compare them to Big Daddy ASHA.

Elizabeth Nielsen 16:26
And that's the problem with Asha is they have certification in the associate and the membership bundled into one package. OTs and PTs have a completely different certification program from AOTA, APTA, like they're completely separate. If you want to be a member of the PT and OT associations, you can, but you see the benefits. You see that they're spending that money on lobbying when we're being forced to be a member, and membership is only $29 how much of that is going to lobby? Not a lot. And that's where we're asking for that reversal for the petition of, hey, charge more for that membership so more of that money can go into lobbying.

Preston Lewis 17:07
That slide. It just absolutely blows the mind of the ASHA toadies. We heard from one or two of them this week. They sort of slide into those messages and those responses, and we heard from retired academia Asha toady that came in, and immediately it's like, you know, just puts misinformation out there. Blatant. Asha can't stand dues on lobbying. No, illegal, no, yeah, it's illegal. And it's like, no, they can. And we point that out. And Elizabeth says, Here, here's the 990 yes, they can do that. They have a pack as well, which is a separate thing, very small by contrast, probably wouldn't even, you know, cover the tips on the catering but yes, you can give them that information and supply it, and as soon as you set down the facts or you cite the financial disclosures, there is a silence as the Tumbleweed blows through the windmills of their adult Asha worshiping minds, and I can't decide, is it just this deep love of Big Brother Asha, or is it just, you know, like Reagan used to say, it's not that they're ignorant. It's just so much of what they think isn't so what is it the toadies that are out there that are coming back eventually, when you're presented with information, when you're said, you know, I don't think they spent $1.3 million in catering. Where did you get that? It's right here. And then there's that silence. What? What is it about the facts that just befuddled you? You know, I know you've seen data before. You worked in academia, for crying out loud. But you just want to come in there spew some misinformation. Judge Asha by its intentions, not by its facts. I don't get it, and I love it. When they come in there, they bump our algorithm way up. Thanks a lot. Keep coming back.

Elizabeth Nielsen 18:53
Yeah, but what are they doing then, with that information that we give them? Are they just ignoring it then, or are they coming to that realization because they don't respond to it.

Jeanette Benigas 19:02
Also, like this person on Reddit who fights with us, I know exactly who he is, and it is taking everything in me not to call him out and identify him. He's deep in academia. He doesn't have a PhD. He has a CsCD, which is like an SLPD. It's a clinical doctorate. It's not a terminal degree, but he loves to try to cause divide.

Preston Lewis 19:31
Yeah, I wish I could appeal to the scientific nature, because I don't think there's a lot of science with some of these academians. I think you've just kind of sold out. You're basically more a cog of institutional group think. Must protect the organization, must protect the profits, must protect the continuing business model. And isn't the nature of science to ask questions, to think differently, to. To challenge the status quo for the betterment of your profession, and not just because you want to keep the good ship lollipop afloat. And that's the thing is that you know you want to have a discussion, but when you just come in and you know an academian toady comes in and just drops a piece of misinformation on the table. And that's one thing I really appreciate about you, Elizabeth, is that you say here, here's the data, and then the professorial side just kind of slowly fades into the background. And, you know, goes back home, and I guess they're back there watching the annual whitewash update from Tena McNamara, that was fine yesterday. You know, it's kind of interesting. If you look at all the ASHA post over, like, the last couple of weeks, you know, let's face it, they stepped in shit pretty much two or three times during their convention in Seattle. And since then, most of the posts have, like, puppies and little, you know, little soft, little children, cutesy little pictures. And I think there was a kitten at one point. But it's all very it's like their PR people finally stopped day drinking for a minute and said, hey, you know, we're going to have to kind of go with the soft stuff here. I can't help but think, as you look past the you know, years of ASHA presidents and she will look back on this, and congratulations, Tena, you were Nero playing your fiddle while Rome burned. You didn't respond. You didn't have a conversation. In terms of communication, I'd probably give you an F there, Professor, so you know, you will move forward. And as the person who didn't want to have that conversation, didn't want to ask the tough questions and try to grow out of the shell of which it is you'd rather say that we're causing you problems and, oh, it's so terrible, and we're so mean, I wish you well, it's not personal, but I really don't see a distinctive record there.

Elizabeth Nielsen 21:55
Yeah, the one line that stood out to me was committed to listening to your needs and focus on your priorities? Well, we had about 6000 members reach out within a week. What about our needs?

Jeanette Benigas 22:09
They want to hear from us, but then they they do whatever they damn well please.

Preston Lewis 22:13
I was reminded of that reference. And the band played on. When times of change are there, you can try to be part of that change, and it doesn't mean you have to radically, you know, rip out the guts of Asha. In fact, we never really advocated for that. We're like, let's, let's have a conversation. Let's move towards something. 35 years ago, a different version of Asha. Yeah, it was a different version. Probably at that time would have been the time to have said, hey, there are a lot of states out there with licenses. Maybe we need to sort of start changing what this CCC is about and really differentiate it. And that would have been hard, because, damn, the money sure was good. So they kept doing the same thing, and now we're here. The reality is there job postings are now coming out, and they're not mentioning the CCC. States are changing, and rather than be part of that conversation, rather than recognize that, oh, shit, the Titanic hit an iceberg. Nope. Keep playing. The band played on. And that's the response that institutional thinking will get you. Shame on you for not thinking like a scientist and responding to events around you, not in a knee jerk kind of way, but just in a way that doesn't ignore reality. You know, for the socially conscious folks out there, all the investments that they've made, I don't think it's out of bounds to ask Asha to make a statement regarding the types of investments they're making, not specific, like a portfolio, but it's not uncommon for organizations to now make a disclosure for ESG investing, and for those that are not in the investment sphere that's environmental, social and governance, companies are rated. Sometimes hedge funds or investment. Mutual funds can be rated for their ESG, and, you know, as a socially conscious organization of clinicians, it's, it's important, you know, making sure you're not investing in companies that manufacture weapons or gambling other things that are considered a little less savory. My guess is they probably are in that space and pretty clean, but, you know, it's worthy of making a comment on that or some additional transparency. I think the members would appreciate that, since we're sitting on what 70, roughly $70 million in investments, why not? That's a common disclosure.

Jeanette Benigas 24:35
Something else Elizabeth and I wanted to bring up that we certainly don't yet have enough information to talk about. We're definitely not making any type of accusation of something nefarious, but something that has been brought to our attention is that ASHA has another company, another entity called the Falls Grove Holding LLC, and they pay rent for their building to that LLC, which is an interesting situation, certainly legal, they wouldn't be doing anything illegal. But why are they doing that? And what's the transfer of money there? And obviously they wouldn't be doing it if there wasn't some kind of financial gain or benefit. So,

Preston Lewis 25:31
Yeah, tax advice, whether they're taking some kind of depreciation with their building or some sort of gain there, you know, could be some legal things. I'm not saying it's out of the norm, right?

Elizabeth Nielsen 25:42
And it's a way for them to write off that expense. And that expenselast year was over $500,000

Jeanette Benigas 25:49
But when you write off expenses, it's because it's a tax liability. They're a 501c6, do they have tax liability? So why do they need to write something off? I would love some education on that. So if somebody's out there who understands how that all works, let us know. Please DM us or email us team at fix slp.com, again, we are not indicating something nefarious is going on. They wouldn't be doing it. You know, it's, this is a big oversight, right? If, if it was illegal, so it's certainly legal, but we want to know why. And we're talking about revenue. What is the gain there, and where is that reported? Is it something we're missing on the forms we have? Or is that revenue not reported because it's an LLC outside of the 501c6, that's ASHA, and so that's what we want to know. Is there additional revenue there that we don't even know about?

Elizabeth Nielsen 26:54
Right? Because in at the end of the day, between all of the assets, there's over $174 million in assets in the company. And if we were to compare that to PT, their total assets is $76 million ot has $38 million in assets, and ASHA has significantly more money in assets. And where is that money going? You know, they say they don't want to tap into these reserves. There's so much in reserves.

Jeanette Benigas 27:30
And why aren't we using that money to lobby and gain more power in the medical and educational space, instead of, quote, showing value of the CCC for teachers to stay on the frickin teacher pay scale and then get a bonus because they hold your product, how about you use that money to lobby for every educational SLP, to get off the freaking teacher pay scale and have their own or be on the one with PT and OT. Don't tie it to your product that doesn't have value. Or lobby to increase reimbursement on our coats. Put more money into it. Money talks. You know that ASHA, you're the ones collecting it.

Elizabeth Nielsen 28:24
We're struggling now. We need this money now. Make up for future investments. We need it now. Invest in us now.

Jeanette Benigas 28:33
Stronger. Make not we are. ASHA, not value the CCC, we are SLP, use the money to make SLP stronger. Stop with your stupid initiatives that none of us want, and do something.

Elizabeth Nielsen 28:52
Yeah, OTs and PTs don't have to be members, but those associations are fighting for the field, not for just their members. They're fighting for the whole field.

Jeanette Benigas 29:02
You know what else I was thinking about as I was listening to that, the whitewash summary, yes, from Tena is she was touting, how many legislative meetings there were? Like? It was a lot. How many have we had this year? Three? How many times did we meet with that state representative in Michigan? Preston?

Preston Lewis 29:25
All told we'd had about four unique meetings. I think.

Jeanette Benigas 29:28
Okay, four, four total, one representative in one state. We made change in three states. You don't need all those meetings to make change.

Preston Lewis 29:46
Well, and it's it's a matter of what kind of lobbying you want. If you want the group think lobbying, where you send out these canned responses and everybody you know takes. Cute T shirts, and they put those on and they pose out there at the National Mall. It's, it's all smiles and selfies and probably some expensive box lunches and catering. You take the selfie outside the congressman's office. So, gee, so nice. Yeah, we got this bill. We're working on this and, you know, we're also working on a bill banning, you know, flag burning. And, you know, okay, great. Not to say that Washington and some state capitals have not operated that way for a long time, but there is a new way that this can be done where you have an engaged population, and that's the thing. You have fixers in every state which are sending out unique points of contact. They're not afraid to go to a town hall meeting where a local rep is running for re election. They're not afraid to go testify at a local committee hearing in their state capital about why a bill is important. They're not afraid to reach out to friends and family that have had. I mean, we've had so many local state reps and senators say, hey, you know, my daughter or my niece was in speech therapy. And I know those kind of things happen sometimes in the gleeful smile, you know, get the selfie sort of meetings. But this is about a seriousness of business, and it's about doing things differently than everyone else. And yeah, that's great. Tena, you got 18,000 letters that went through your auto generated software where you send out an email. It says here, click here, put your name on this and sign this, and we'll just boom, spam this out, not saying that that's not something. It is something, but in terms of unique engagement that is targeted, that is pinpoint, that is thoughtful and gets to the crux of our field, and not just sort of, you know, spending money for money's sake. There's an opportunity here to engage so many incredibly gifted SLPs that want to make a granular difference, and don't just want the selfie. Don't just want the cutesy little, you know, poses. You know, look, I I'm not trying to individually say that that's a waste of time, but there's a hybrid and new way of doing it. Don't be afraid to wrap your hands around it.

Jeanette Benigas 32:22
I'm glad I caught you as the whatever your title is before they did.

Preston Lewis 32:27
You think I could survive five minutes in that group think environment? I mean, oh no, I wouldn't have made it past the door. Frankly, it's because I'm not one of the consultants that's likely making, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars of our money to tell them to keep doing the same damn thing, and I'll take your money every year. I'm not interested in that. I actually would like to, you know, eventually say that I made some kind of difference for my profession, rather than just kind of getting onto the self serve ice cream machine that keeps coming out there every year and just money in, money out. I have recognized to some of those toadies, that's offensive. But what are the results that you've been able to really hold up in the last few years? How many SLPs have left the field? Where are our salaries, terms of scale and growth? How have we defined ourselves in pay scale? How are the rehab companies treating our people now versus how they were treating them 20 years ago. Do you think that's a distinctive record? Well, okay, you just keep shoveling it then, because it's going to get pretty deep. So Elizabeth, let's make a let's make a commitment next year at 990 we're going to be ready for that next release, aren't we? Oh yes, I'll be waiting. Who thinks the catering budget is going to go down? Of course, you know, we're running a year behind. Yeah, yes, yeah, really, it's already spent. Yeah, they've already, you know, that budget. So let's see where it is in two years. If we're still, you know, doing this, and we're not all scattered to the winds.

Elizabeth Nielsen 33:56
Oh, we'll be here.

Preston Lewis 33:57
Okay. Year after year after fiscal. Never take a risk a year.

Elizabeth Nielsen 34:05
Oh, Preston, you cracked me up.

Preston Lewis 34:07
Nobody's ever seen How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It's a great play, musical.

Elizabeth Nielsen 34:12
No, I haven't, but yeah, let's see these numbers change year after year. Let's see if they're paying attention to us, and think about how, how can we be responsible with this money? Where can this money go? How can it benefit SLPs? I think that's it for the assets, 174 million. I think that's all the numbers. I'm tired of looking at numbers. I'm taking a break for the next couple weeks.

Preston Lewis 34:41
So we are headed into the Christmas season, and I think we're going to have one more episode.

Jeanette Benigas 34:47
Yeah, we would love everyone to send us a minivan meltdown. But don't melt down. We want to know what's your holiday New Year's wish for the. Profession, you can give us your name. So if you want to be anonymous, don't say your name, but give us a call, let us know. So we're going to just do a fun little, short, sweet episode recorded next week. So that'll be out in between Christmas and New Year's. So send us your holiday New Year's wish, and that'll be, that'll be our next episode. But we do have that big announcement. Before I give that announcement, I want to address one thing that I've been getting a lot of questions about. Some people attack, but some people are genuinely interested and want to know. So I keep explaining it, but I'm going to explain it again. A lot of people are interested in this team, what we do, and if we hold Asha membership or the CCC. And so we'll start with me. I am an ASHA member. I hold the CCC until February of 2024, I was a full time college professor. It was part of my job. I had to have the CCC for supervising. I supervised in the clinic. My employer paid for it fine. We have talked to a lot of lawyers this year, so I have had multiple lawyers advise that someone on the team hold the CCC and membership for the purpose of action. So to file that petition, someone had to have the CCC and membership to have this lawyer engage with Asha. Part of this is action on the petition. Somebody has to have the CCC and membership if a lawsuit is filed, the person who files the lawsuit is the one who is deposed. It makes sense that the person who has been here from the beginning is the one who's deposed, that leaves me. I'm the last man standing. I'm the one who's going to have to do that, and so that is why I continue to hold the CCC and membership. It is not because I want to out of everyone on this team. Since February, I've been in the best position to let it go because I work for myself and my PRN companies don't require it, but I think until every clinician has a choice, I'm probably going to have to hold on to it, and so hopefully everyone is understanding of that, and this is about choice. I'm choosing to be that person, so I'm choosing to continue to pay it and hold on to it. So I'm the only one who's been here from the beginning. Elizabeth Preston, Alexa and Michaela have all joined this team since March. They didn't all come on at the same time. It was kind of a slow process, but I had a co founder who walked away from this movement, and I was alone and had to rebuild a team. So slowly over time, I invited the people who were doing work independent from this movement. Elizabeth just told you she was doing her own research. She got a story in NPR. Preston was working on Medicaid issues in Arkansas. Alexa and Michaela were working on Medicaid issues in Michigan. These were people who were taking action on their own, without the help of fix. SLP, most of them were talking to us, and we were walking beside but really doing very little hand holding. So that's how they ended up on this team. But last year, at this time, they weren't on this team, and three of them were in states that you needed the CCC to bill Medicaid. So then that takes us to Elizabeth. Elizabeth owns a very unique private practice in the state of Illinois, where she doesn't need the CCC to practice or bill Medicaid, but she has a contract with a local university and regularly takes multiple students, and so she needs to keep the CCC, but she's also Going a step above and has started to design an educational campaign for universities to hopefully start putting out some students who maybe aren't pursuing the CCC. So maybe someday, if we can't get all of this worked out, and it has to end up choice, maybe someday Elizabeth does let the CCC go and only host the students who aren't pursuing the CCC. We don't know where this is going to go. We have a whole year to make more change, and we're dedicated to that. Elizabeth is going to let membership go. Then we have Alexa and Michaela. They did a ton of work in Michigan. Okay to undo the requirement to bill Medicaid and Blue Cross, Blue Shield, that went into effect six weeks ago. So there's going to be a trickle down effect. It's not like Medicaid changed these policies and then everyone's like, Oh, yay. CCC not needed. Most of us live in states where the CCC isn't needed, and we still need the CCC, so we can't expect them to be CCC free immediately, because Michigan changed, they're in the same position as all of you. Their employer has to say, go for it. And so far, they are not in those positions. We are still waiting. Both of them have multiple employers. They have both requested the ability to drop the CCC. I can almost guarantee you, Alexa is not going to be able to because she works for a major contract therapy company that has dug in and has said you will have the CCC nationwide. We'll see. We'll see. Maybe she'll leave that job, I don't know, but they will both be dropping membership CCC yet to be determined. So that leaves Preston. Preston is not an ASHA member. Preston let his membership go in 2021 before fix. SLP, ever existed. Preston, you want to talk about that? CCC?

Preston Lewis 41:28
Sure. Yeah, it's real simple.

Jeanette Benigas 41:31
It's our announcement! Everybody get the confetti ready!

Preston Lewis 41:34
Yeah, it's gone. You know, it's it's got a few days left, and it's going to wither away. And I feel very positive about it. It's something that I did, put a lot of thought into. I called Jeanette last night, and I said, Yeah, I think I'm out. And I, you know, I'm not hide the fact that I am somewhat spiritual. From time to time, I prayed about it. I also spent, this is going to be kind of peculiar, but this morning, before the pod, I reviewed ashes, code of ethics, and I looked down each of the I think there are four tenants, if you will, or however they call them. And one of the things, one of the elements, that's a common theme, is that, you know, we can't misrepresent our services and our products and what we do. And it struck me as a bit of an irony, because I think the CCC has been misrepresented for some time as a license. It's not. It's a certificate. And in the spirit of being Crosby in the Christmas season, I'm reminded of the old song, Don't fence me in.

music playing 42:50
Oh, give me land. Lots of land under starry skies above, Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love. Don't fence me.

Preston Lewis 43:11
I have a state license. It's been real. You've got probably over three grand of my money. Bye, goodbye. And I know that there are other SLPs out there this season that are asking those questions, do I drop membership? Do I dare drop my CCC? The water is going to get warmer for these autonomy decisions. It really turned up a lot warmer in some of the states this year. And that option, we want it to be something that's available to you to embrace that freedom, but it has to be on your timeline. I'm not telling anybody to do anything. I can tell you, though, from my perspective, yeah, yeah. I don't need this. And for those SLPs that are out there saying, Oh my God, I'll have to retake the Praxis. No, I'm not going. I could. I could retake it, and I think I could pass the sucker, but I ain't going back. Okay, it's been real. I'm gonna take my state license, and I'm gonna be on my way. And you know, all the folks there with their catering and their self, you know, licking ice cream cone and your little misrepresented product, you enjoy, you keep that, because I'm going to go advocate for my profession as I have been, I'm going to continue to serve my patients in the best way possible, with, you know, good evidence with good conviction with vigor, and I'm going to do it with my state license, because that's what defines me as an SLP, so it's been real. ASHA, peace out.

Jeanette Benigas 44:44
I also want to mention, because you didn't say this, you aren't being like bullheaded. You did the responsible thing, and you talked to your employer, and not only have you done the work to get yourself to this. Position this year by getting that stuff changed with Medicaid, but you've also been educating your employer off and on all year and having some intelligent conversations.

Preston Lewis 45:13
Yes, I mean, I did speak with my employer and I had some doubts at the start of the year. Here's the thing, I dearly respect my employer. We are friends. I look up to this person. This is someone who is in academia. This is someone who is one of the best professionals I've known in the field. They aren't going to be dropping their CCC anytime soon, and that's great, because we all add value in different ways. And if you're an SLP out there, and you value that sucker, and you think that it's got some intrinsic meaning for you, and you enjoy presenting at Asher, or you really are passionate about supervising students who are working toward that certificate, great. You keep doing that. That's awesome. But in the spirit of having a profession where we can have open minds like scientists should. That's what I value about who I work for, is that they have an open mind, and we had a conversation so good communication, scientific thinking, autonomy, respect for our professionals. These are the things that went into my choice, and I've made it, and I feel very comfortable.

Jeanette Benigas 46:24
Here's my call to action. On this last February, Asha told us they were raising dues, and throughout the year in our content, I continued to remind you, Asha gave you a 10 month warning. What are you doing about your right to choose in December, eight months left, Asha gave us a warning. What are you doing to make a difference for yourself? Five months to go. Don't forget, Asha warned us. What are you doing? So I'm going to say it right now. You have a 12 month warning if you are someone who would like to let your CCC go, whether you're in a state that requires it or not. Right now you're not in that position. What work needs to be done between now and 12 months from now that will allow you to make the choice in December of next year. Elizabeth, Preston, Michaela, Alexa, they all did the work. They've all put themselves in the position where they're at now. Preston, Alexa, Michaela, they have the choice, because they didn't. We don't wait for change. We make it. They didn't wait for fix SLP to do it. They were doing it. And then fix SLP came beside them and got them over the finish line. And really, I don't even think we got them over. Preston just did it. We didn't have anything to do with it. So go do that. You don't need us or our permission to go make those changes. The great thing is now we have a little money to support you. If you need to do a letter campaign, if there's something that needs to be funded for that type of advocacy, we can walk beside you on this. We've now changed this Medicaid thing in three states. Same thing in North Carolina, they did it. We didn't tell them what to do. They did it, and we walked beside them. Go do it. If you're in one of those eight states, go do it. Don't wait for us. I can help you launch a team. You need more people. Let's launch. But don't wait for us. Just go do it. You have 12 months. This is your warning. December comes again next year. It comes every 12 months, every 365 to 366 days. We have another December, 31 and another Asha deadline. Go make the change we want to see. Go make the choice. Go make the opportunity for your colleagues to have choice in your state. With that we're going to get out of here. Colin, What's your wish for? 2025 for this profession. Thanks for fixing it!

Did you order the new one?

Preston Lewis 49:28
No.

Jeanette Benigas 49:28
Did you say no or Yeah?

Preston Lewis 49:30
I said no. I wanted different color options. What color do you want I want, like a hunter or forest green.

Jeanette Benigas 49:37
What size you want? Preston?

Preston Lewis 49:38
um, I can get back with you on that today.

Jeanette Benigas 49:41
What do you have on right now?

Preston Lewis 49:42
I have on the shirt that you gave me. I you know...

Jeanette Benigas 49:44
Take your clothes

Preston Lewis 49:46
Huh?

Jeanette Benigas 49:47
I said, take your clothes off. Take your clothes off.

Preston Lewis 49:50
How much, how much money do you have left in that fix budget? You know...

Jeanette Benigas 49:53
Not enough.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai