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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
Jeanette Benigas 0:00
Hey fixers. I'm Dr. Jeanette Benigas, one of the cofounders of fix SLP. Our platform exists to discuss 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 this movement to make things better one conversation at a time. So let's fix it.
Everybody, welcome back. It's Jeanette. We've got Preston today, I would say, I've got Preston as my co host. I just think Preston is going to be hosting today, because he showed up with like an 18 page outline. Clearly, if you're following us on socials you saw last night, instead of preparing for anything in life, I was on the couch with my children doing nothing. And so... I think Preston saw that he's like, somebody, somebody needs to take charge here. So Preston's got a great episode for you today. I'll chime in. I also want to say, I know that on September 2nd, 2012 The first thing I thought when I woke up was, I'm getting married today. And I want to record a podcast. No, I didn't actually think that but that is what Preston thought Preston. You're getting married. By the time people hear this. You will be a married man fixers. You thought the market.
Preston Lewis 1:32
Yeah, I uh...
Jeanette Benigas 1:34
First of all, you your fiance drives your daughter to work or to school. You can record a podcast right on your wedding day. What this is commitment.
Preston Lewis 1:46
It's a sign that I've got a really great partner. And so when you know, you know, and so yes, we are getting married. It'll be a very small ceremony this evening at sunset right along the banks of the Arkansas River and I'm thrilled and excited but yes, I did get permission somewhere around Tuesday. I said Could I do a pod with Jeanette early in the morning on Friday and they got the thumbs up saying
Jeanette Benigas 2:11
Congratulations Charla and Preston Charla thanks for sharing them with me.
Preston Lewis 2:16
And now is if it's not scary enough, Jeanette I have a work wife at the hospital that I have been friends with for you know, 15 years or so. And then I've got you as my fixer wife I mean, that actually have Charla is my you know, day to day want.
Jeanette Benigas 2:33
You need three women. That's what you in line here for it. Charla I need to get her on, she has to find you a photographer or some official fix SLP
Preston Lewis 2:43
You know and I love those photos that you did early on with all the power tools. And one day I started trying to put some of those things on and you know, I guess I'm better in that political meeting setting debates and you know, suits and ties. And I put the stuff on and I just looked bizarre, but I promised that I will try to give you something there. You know, the orange vest the hard hat.
Jeanette Benigas 3:04
Is there a photographer tonight just slip on 50 extra bucks. And say I brought us I brought a drill, and you catch me and this drill?
Preston Lewis 3:14
Right? Along with remembering the marriage license and the rings and the vows. I also need to get my cordless drill. Yes. A Bridge Too Far.
Jeanette Benigas 3:26
All right. I want to read since you have a 97 page outline for the day, we're gonna read a really short and sweet review. This is from AlleyCat100589. Alley Cat says grateful for your advocacy. Thanks. We're here for it. So what do we got today? Preston, where are we? Where are we starting on your list?
Preston Lewis 3:51
Well, I think before we dive into some of the recent events before we get into those, I want to come back to something when fix SLP started taking the sustaining partners. What do you call them Genet? I call them sustaining partners. Yeah, sustaining partners. Great. When you guys started bringing those on board. There was also one of the features of being a sustaining partner is being able to participate in something called the construction zone. We've had one meeting so far, and a lot of personal issues in your life came up. That made it kind of difficult for the scheduling and we're still getting on our feet. This is new. And you and I talked about the construction zone the other day and bringing that back to the forefront. And so that's going to be an upcoming feature. And I thought you might want to visit a little bit about that. Jeanette.
Jeanette Benigas 4:40
Yeah, so we planned those construction zones. And then we plan the first one and I was sitting in an ICU with my mom. You know, that happened without me and a lot has happened. I rushed my mom to the ER on February 28. And a lot has happened since then. And we We're at the Cleveland Clinic all day two days ago. So we're still doing this thing coming up on 15 rounds of radiation. So I don't, I don't know where I'm going to be during those three weeks, but it's coming, she's being treated for breast cancer at the Cleveland Clinic, which is about 75 minutes from us. So it's quite the thing. But anyway, I do take this sustaining partnership seriously, I want to be a good steward of the money. And so something that we said we would do when we started it was have these construction zones. And so now it is time to get back into that I'm on my feet, I've got all of the accounts transferred to my name, and all of the business stuff that really needed to get taken care of is done. So now it's time to start jumping into the sustaining partnership a little more and taking care of that. So in order to attend a construction zone, you actually don't have to be a sustaining partner we'd prefer you to be but we promised that all of our resources would always be free, and that the sustaining partnership would help fund all of the things that need to be funded. So when that gets scheduled, we will email those times out because we don't remove content from our social. And we don't want our platform to get jammed up with a ton of construction zone announcement times, especially on Facebook, because if someone likes that, it bumps it back up to the top and the algorithm and it could be three months old. So we will email construction zone times when that happens. You don't need to be nervous about our email list. I very rarely send emails, so sign up for that email list, you can go to fix slp.com to get subscribed to that. And there will be an email coming when we nail down a date and time.
Preston Lewis 6:43
So along with that sustaining partnership, I think it's important because you talked about it early on that this is a firm, and this is what we're working on that just to reinforce. First of all, thank you to the sustaining members that are out there. Really appreciate you guys. The work that goes into this on a daily basis, sometimes it goes in different directions. And I'll talk in a moment about some of what I have done over the last couple of weeks. Now. I'm not taking any money from this Genet you aren't taking any money from this, there have been some expenses that have come up that had been paid. And we can talk a little bit about that. But I wanted to put some information out there just were the sustaining partners that are out there. This is what we're doing. This is what your investment is going toward, and also to encourage others to help us keep this momentum alive and gain new sustaining partners. Jeanette, tell me about the last couple of weeks, what are some of the things you're doing that you can talk about?
Jeanette Benigas 7:39
I'm a woman of many hats. I feel like in terms of how I'll break this up for state advocacy. First, I've been a support person and a collaboration person when you want to take an effort in your state grassroots effort. Often that comes from either people contacting me via email team at fix slp.com or messaging me on socials. If you message me on socials about anything, it's always going to result in a please email this to me because I will answer your social message wherever I am. So if I'm driving, or if I'm standing in line somewhere, or sitting in the pickup line, I just hit those messages whenever I can, sometimes with texts, sometimes with voice, but because I get so many when I want to circle back, those messages are impossible for me to find. I go to the email, you request some advocacy efforts, or you want to know what's going on. And then I make the connection. So sometimes I can help you with resources that I already have. Sometimes I check in with Preston to say, Hey, do you want to be a part of this or I connect you with like, in Michigan, that's a big push right now people are messaging me about sending letters to state representatives in Michigan. If I get an email like that, or a voice message or something like that from you, I'm going to connect you with Mikayla from Sandy speaks therapy because she's heading that up. So I feel like I'm I feel like I'm the train station where I just are the guy with the airplane who says which way to go with the orange stick. So I've been doing a lot of that lately. I really feel like this first part of fix. SLP was all about education. And I think we've sufficiently educated we're to the point now where people get the point in the picture. And as things come up like earlier this week, I put out a post about some things that were brought up at Capitol Hill that has been going on in terms of Asha telling people to do things, but there's not a ton of education at this point left to give. I feel like at this point in time fix SLP is all about action. We've learned what we need to know now what are we going to do about it because it's not productive for me to keep attacking Asha or attacking the CCC or attacking these problems in posts. We already know the problems so now we need to start fixing them so people can have choice when it's time to Renu the CCC. So that's where we're at. So my role behind the scenes has been organizing and directing all of these tiny grassroots movements. So that's thing number one, then supporting. So with Michigan, these women are like bulldozers, they are not messing around. They're sending out hundreds of letters. And I thought, you know, I have this sustaining partnership money. This is the kind of thing that we're raising this money for. Maybe I send them some money, and I'm so nervous to spend this money that I didn't do it. And then Preston, you message me and you said, Hey, we ought to send the people in Michigan postage for all these letters. And I was like, Okay, this is my site, I had already been thinking about it. But I was so afraid to spend the money that I didn't do it. So that day, I got stamps out. So Mikayla has extra stance, and I can always send her more. So as people are volunteering to send stamps, she's now like dispatching these stamps to people. So that's, that's one way that I've spent the money. I've also communicating with a law firm in Chicago, and that will be the bulk of how this money is spent. And this is what I can't exactly talk about, there have been a lot of questions about how are you going to get a lawyer, they're barred by the state were all over the country, the purpose for this first round of hiring a lawyer will benefit everyone, regardless of where the lawyer is from, I've been trying to kind of vet a powerhouse. And I just haven't found the right fit yet. And I want to be very careful because this particular kind of lawyer can be up to $1,200 an hour. And so I'm just kind of squirreling away this money, because once it's time to go, it's time to go and that money is going to drain pretty quickly. But the purpose is not to like drain this money. It's to be a good steward. Use it for keeping up the website hosting fees, and things like that to support the state advocacy, and then really just take good care of it. Because we don't know what's next. Does that make sense?
Preston Lewis 11:57
Totally. I was trying to think, you know, recently you have been trying to give me a title within fix SLP You sound like the conductor?
Jeanette Benigas 12:06
Well, I did give myself a new title. Its Director of Operations. And I think we're gonna make you Director of Public Policy. I threw that out in a text message. And no one answered me.
Preston Lewis 12:16
I know, you know, those are great terms. Those are very...
Jeanette Benigas 12:20
Shot caller!
Preston Lewis 12:21
Hey I like shot caller. I do you keep calling me the sho caller. I actually signed it in an email recently. And that, that instilled some laughter.
Jeanette Benigas 12:28
I mean, how's that gonna look on a business card?
Preston Lewis 12:31
I think it's great. You're the conductor. I'm the shot caller. I don't know.
Jeanette Benigas 12:35
So I mean, for anyone listening I have formally invited Preston to be part of fix SLP team. I would love to make this huge splash about it on social with him in a branded photo. That's what we're all I'm waiting for his Preston to take a picture. Which I said I would pay vorse okay, you did go get the anyone with kids knows you can get a lot of good photos in a 20 minute mini session with a good photographer. do is go do it. So there'll be a formal announcement at some point where I put his photo up online but for now - shot caller.
Preston Lewis 13:11
Dragging 43 year old man to a photo session. That's, you're the conductor if you can pull that off.
Jeanette Benigas 13:18
finding - I'm a good I'm good at finding people online. I'm finding Charla, I'm messaging her and I'm gonna be like, get your man in line.
Preston Lewis 13:27
So, you know, I even though I've not used any of the sustaining partner resources, I did think it was important to say, along with appearing on the pod and making sometimes kind of little Facebook posts on Asha, just to try to keep that conversation stirred the things that I've been working on in the last few weeks, putting together a list of key state representatives and senators in Michigan, putting together a template letter. That's one of the letters that's going out right now in Michigan, I owe another series of letters and another Excel spreadsheet of different state reps and senators in North Carolina that's coming up as well. I spent maybe two or three hours the other day combing through state law about Rhode Island and where they are in the CCC and the SLP. Starting to look at Nevada. I had questions going back to Rhode Island about gosh, I all of a sudden I realized they'd get the CCC so intertwined, even within their state license, and I was just rubbing my head like how did this happen? Look back to 2004 they didn't have those regulations in place. So when did it change? So I went through each state legislative session found the bill from 2007 where it changed, found the bill sponsor. My thought I want to know why this guy did this. So he's retired from the legislature. Where is he now Williams a funeral home in Rhode Island. I thought I still want to talk to this guy. So I contacted the funeral - were you the state representative Back in this year, and he responded, and so he's looking over to some of his notes as to where that Bill began. But 2007 he sponsored a bill that put the CCC in place in their state law. And these are the things that I'm doing right now. They're strange sometimes to figure out how to the state gets so intertwined with something, and then how do you get out of it. And along with that research, when SLPs from different states, and we're hearing from some from like I said, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Minnesota, they keep coming in from different directions. And that's what we want, we want you to bring us those questions. We're also trying to get, like a very clear cut path forward. And this is how you do this. First of all, all we have to know is that the state law that concerns the license, is it the Medicaid board and regulations within itself, sometimes we even find that, like our map shows, Medicaid isn't required in many states. But some of these states have gotten, I don't want to say a little bit sloppy, or they've relied upon the CCC to kind of gatekeeper and do some of their homework about your credentials and your qualifications. So they're using it, but they're not requiring it. That's, you know, a nuanced difference. But we're finding that in some places, so figuring out where that hurdle is, to practice without having to buy proprietary product, is what we're doing right now. And often one of the things that we're telling a lot, SLPs Genet is that it's great, we're glad you contacted us, we'll do some of this research. But we need like three or four of you within that state, it's really hard if there's just one SLP that's tugging on that rope there. Because it's if you're going to contact state representatives and senators, if the more SLPs, we have to reach out the better. So that's a little bit what I'm doing right now contacting funeral homes, researching arcane laws, and it's things it's work that I like doing, but it is it's work its time,
Jeanette Benigas 16:55
I posted about that in stories and got so many questions. People are like, What is even going on? At that point, too. And I started getting these questions. You know, ASHA is following our content. And I actually thought at one point, I wonder what ASHA thinks we're doing.
we're doing everything we can, everything
we are, we're
Preston Lewis 17:20
digging, too distant that we won't kick over,
Jeanette Benigas 17:22
literally pulling up graves.
Preston Lewis 17:25
So I want to talk about some of the things that are going on right now, Jeanette, it's, it continues to be it's like every week more things are happening, the momentum continues. And we've talked about those letters in Michigan, my goodness, hundreds of these letters have been going out. And already responses are being received, a meeting has been set with one rep. This this thing is moving fast,
Jeanette Benigas 17:50
Yeah, because here's the thing, this is an access to care issue. And state representatives are there to represent the constituents in their state. And what we're asking doesn't cost anybody anything. So this is low hanging fruit for these people that they can say, Oh, this team has these women in Michigan, fix SLP has already put together all of the information for us. They have the statistics, they have the information, they're very clear about what they're asking what they're asking makes complete sense, which is don't make your SLPs in your state buy a proprietary product to build Medicaid in Michigan, they don't really need to pass any laws or change anything because it's already there. So again, very low hanging fruit. And because of that they're responding because they want to do good for the constituents and the consumers in their state and the professionals who are practicing in their state. And so it really just makes sense. The response has been pretty quick. They haven't been sending out these letters for very long, and they've already meetings are scheduled. They're hearing back, there's been several meetings which one got scheduled yesterday. It's just it's going fast. And to think this was the state, we thought we'd see action from first and we already have action in North Carolina. It's huge. Well, maybe you're going to talk about this, that there's a meeting happening in Nebraska.
Preston Lewis 19:14
There is and there's an SLP there that I am going to have a phone call with tomorrow. And she
Jeanette Benigas 19:21
Wait. You're gonna have a phone call with tomorrow when you should be on a honeymoon. Hey, babe, put down the bahama mama, or here's a drink. I've got to go take this call
Unknown Speaker 19:32
We're not doing the honeymoon yet. That'll come later
Jeanette Benigas 19:35
Being in the sand talking to fixers love this.
Preston Lewis 19:38
No, I've got a phone call tomorrow with a fixer in Nebraska. And she has reached out to her state organization. And they have a subcommittee that's going to visit with her about some of these things. I think they have more just questions and that's good. That's, you know, it's a conversation that she wants to have with our state organization. You know, we encourage a lot People if unlike some nonprofits, and some organizations, if you want to take the questions straight to your state organization or straight to your state reps Feel free. We're here is, you know, people that can help guide that path. But we do not demand that you take all questions back to us.
Jeanette Benigas 20:16
Yeah. And this is another example, Preston said, we really encourage like a team, a small team of three to four people, she's going into this meeting alone next week, had she been going into this meeting with a team of two or three friends, I'm sure she's feeling nervous, and a little intimidated, because she's doing this alone. So yeah, this is why we need that team. So you can go in virtually holding hands and support each other. So it's not quite as scary. So if this is something you're interested in, taking on, I can get you connected, probably not in time for the meeting. But this is going to be an ongoing thing. These things are taking months and months. So let us know Nebraska, and you're up next.
Preston Lewis 20:56
You could be the SLP out there. I mean, this it was basically me I was that working class therapist, I don't really mingle in a lot of the SLP circles. I just go in there and do my thing every day. And then I found out about you Jeanette and fix SLP. And I'm like, Whoa. And Jeanette is great. And that's where she's such a networker within the community or you're such a networker is I started telling Jeanette about this. And she said, Well, you need to talk to this person. I'm like, Who's that and to talk to this person. And if you are that SLP, who's out there just doing your thing day after day. But you're thinking, Gee, I really would like to lower my cost to practice speech language pathology. But I don't have a big team because maybe I do telehealth, or maybe I just work in a really remote sniff and I don't really encounter a lot of SLPs. That's where it's good to reach out to us. Because if Jeanette doesn't already know somebody that's in that region or state, she will put out the clarion call from on high on top of the fix SLP social media sphere, hey, you know, we need help here. And often we hear from two or three people, and we'll try to connect you with them. And that's just part of networking.
Jeanette Benigas 22:02
Yeah, and I just remembered something else. I did this last week, there was a team from a rehab company that invited me to talk with them at their lunch. So they want to do some, at least a couple of them want to take some action in Colorado. Yeah, so I've been doing that, too. They didn't pay me I just I showed up at their virtual lunch meeting and popped off in the middle of my workday at a coffee shop and had some coffee and chatted with them. And I am making these kinds of connections to like, two weeks ago, I didn't know them. But now if someone from Colorado contacts me, we're trying to grow that team just a little bit before we start taking any actions.
Preston Lewis 22:40
So yeah, I mean, you're, you're connecting people, which is, I dare say, and I'm gonna try to segue into this. And I don't want to sound too snarky. But wow, that's a lot more valuable than a brainstorming tool. In this effort, I think to try to put the fire out right now that is fixed. SLP. And the, you know, concern that therapists out there have regarding what they're $250 a year is going toward ASHA has rolled out all of these products. The advocacy key buzzwords keep showing up. But this brainstorming tool and playing up the job portal that got a lot of social media traffic genetic, there was a lot of I think, a little bit of righteous indignation over that post when you say,
Jeanette Benigas 23:19
Yeah, and it's funny because it already existed. So they rolled it out, like it was almost as a new thing. But they're doing it to show quote, this is their words, not ours, the value of the CCC. And my main question with this is the value of the CCC that is a certificate product. It's just a certificate that is supposed to mean something. This tool that they're hyping up is a membership benefit. And it costs money to make a tool like that and sustain it. And so if they're using money from the cost of the CCC, which they absolutely are, to me that almost feels like a misappropriation of funds. Is that the right word?
Preston Lewis 24:05
It just it feels kind of like a shell game.
Jeanette Benigas 24:07
We continue to say this on this platform, they inflate the cost of the CCC because that's what everybody has to purchase. And they deflate the cost of the membership. And then when they need to make create, sustain membership tools. They're pulling money from the certificate product to pay for the membership. And this is a problem. They're not allocating their funds in the right way. We've exposed before that I think the cost of this CCC product is actually like $12 a clinician or something extremely low. We all know that this membership association costs more than the $26 or the $29 that it's going to be to run and sustain and whenever you have a product like this, that's a membership benefit. That's not a benefit of a sir tificate the certificate is about competency and they say it's the highest level of what? No, it's not what let's stop saying that what does a job portal and a brainstorming thing have to do with a certificate? Nothing. It's a membership benefit. And then they say, oh, it's free. No, we've paid for it with this easy and the membership, it's not actually free. It's just a benefit of membership, then set word smithing and the pooling money from one place to another, that's what really gets me fired up.
Preston Lewis 25:36
It gets a lot of people fired up. And I think you saw that in that post. And first of all, that model of making the certificate 80 plus percent of your revenue is an inverse two way AODA and IPTA work, they charge 20 something bucks for the membership. But then you know, and look, ASHA has an elegant website, I will give them a lot of credit, you know, they have a very large diversification of things that are on there, that's great. But along with that, we have this inflated certificate cost that covers most of the other expenses, then we have a low membership costs. But then there are all these added fees. You pay $10 Extra to access this, you have the C tracker, well, there's this extra and then there's this and oh, and then on that job portal website, my goodness, those costs involved with listing jobs on there, which are some of the most, you know incestuous companies that ASHA has relationships with already. I think this is why people get get upset. It feels like you're in part of a timeshare business. And it's all these hidden fees. And it I think that's part of the frustration. And that's where I think I keep saying, Hey, how about modernizing your business model a little bit here to sort of bring back some confidence in some of your members that are just absolutely perplexed by this. It's not it's not insane. But wait, we have this, you already have that.
Jeanette Benigas 27:02
Yeah. And it, it feels gross to someone jumped in and said, you know, as a private practice owner, I could never afford to advertise on this portal. I've looked into it. So how about if we're members and CCC holders, letting businesses with a certain amount of employees or less advertising for free, which is a great suggestion, but they're never going to do it. But it almost feels like you're sucking us in to be advertised to. Because these companies that are listing here are also listing on Indeed, and anywhere else, you look for a job, almost none of us have a hard time finding a job. We all know where to go look. So it's like you've just blown up this product that has existed and making it seem like it's a new product. And now we're all clicking Well, I didn't click but now people are clicking to be advertised to. And you've taken these advertising dollars at a really high amount. Where's that money going? Where are we spending that money?
Preston Lewis 28:03
So ASHA Hill day, we've got dozens of volunteers visiting Capitol Hill along with the top Asha brass. I'll give them some credit the victory with the vote in the ways and means committee regarding extending telehealth for SLPs and audiologists in Medicare. That's an extension, that's a positive thing, they rolled that out through committee. Look, I think it's great that they're all there. I think that bringing together your volunteer SLPs from around the country to go visit with their congressman, that's that's a positive thing. But I do want to add a little bit of perspective here. ASHA in the 2019-2022 fundraising year in Congress that they put forward with their PAC money $293,000. So while this looks like just grassroots people have SLPs, that just showed up out of you know, to go talk to their congressman, and that this is a lobbying effort, and it took many hundreds ths thousands dollars. A lot of that is our money, most of if not all of it is our money. And that's positive that they're using it for that aim. But when you see all of that back slapping and kind of, you know, abdomen advocacy, this advocacy that and yet you have other SLPs that are just saying, Hey, can we reduce our cost of practice in some of these states where state law has not gotten modernized to recognize that we have 50 state licensing boards? Ash is silent and and there probably could be some better work at the State Representative level right now. Most of that goes to Congress. Yes. It's it's something you do. It's kind of obligatory, but to make that out, like it's, I think something larger right now. You know, $290,000 to get your foot in the door to get the picture outside of the congressman's office. Okay, great. What else? Did I leave you speechless?
Jeanette Benigas 29:48
Yeah. I mean, this is why you're here. You pulled up those numbers. I would have never found. When we talked about it before we started recording it is a good thing. Advocacy is I can see is a good thing. And I think that brings in the conversation that I ended up having with a lot of older SLPs and academic SLPs. Well, where will this field be? You're trying to tear down Asha. And this is coming from people who don't fully understand the purpose of this movement or who haven't taken the time to explore what we're actually doing. Like the woman who told me I need to be focusing efforts at the state level. Okay, lady, scroll the page for like three seconds. And I don't think and we've consistently said this, I don't think dismantling Asha is smart. I've always said, even though I don't particularly like them at the moment, we need Asha, we need Asha to be doing these things. Fix SLP is not having a hill day yet. Maybe someday, but doubtful, that kind of advocacy is needed. And it's important. And this is not to tear down any of those volunteers who were there. They were doing good work on Hill day. It's Asha, that needs to be doing a better job. And focusing on doing the kind of work like that more, and focusing less on the value of their proprietary product. And trying to win the hearts of clinicians with stupid portals that we didn't ask for. They've demonstrated the kind of advocacy that they can do, make that your full time job and effort. Stop selling us things.
Preston Lewis 31:40
I think that gets back to the old saying, Get your own house in order. I think if you have such a large block of members that are growing, that have questions about the transparency of this issue, have questions about what are we paying for? Why is this being disguised or at least confused as a license? Get those things in order don't marginalize that and but we did get a little bit of a mention when they had all Asha Hill days, folks. There was that PowerPoint that was kind of floated around on social media, your if they got any questions about efforts to Well, what was the wording on that? Jeanette, I don't want to mistake
Jeanette Benigas 32:21
The title, the heading was FYI - Questions About ASHA Certification. And then there were several bullet points about people. I'll just read it. I'll let me read the whole thing. Bullet point one. Some SLPs have expressed concerns about the CCC as a requirement for enrollment as providers in certain programs such as Medicaid or state licensure. And states currently require SLPs. To maintain the CCC to be enrolled Medicaid providers. Bullet point to Asha certified members have voluntarily met rigorous national professional standards to practice which generally exceed the minimum requirements for state licensure.
Preston Lewis 33:03
Citation needed.
Jeanette Benigas 33:05
False. False, it hasn't been voluntary. They were forced to do it in grad school. Okay, that's a discussion for a different pod. But let's keep going. The CCCs a typo there. It's I know we all say it but this is your product. The CCCsssss is not plural. It is one certificate. But okay, typo. I make typos all the time. But this is ASHA, they should be knowing their product is singular. The CCCs indicate that SLPs the knowledge so there's another typo there. So, okay, let me start again. This CCCs indicate that SLPs the knowledge, skills and expertise to provide high quality clinical services, and they actively engage in ongoing professional development. Next point. Aligning state licensing standards with ASHA CCC assures patients and the public that all audiologists and SLPs who have earned the CCC are qualified to provide care. And then this final bullet point. If you were asked about efforts to eliminate the CCC as a requirement for enrolled providers or licensing, please share that with ASHA GAPP staff. And we will follow up with a detailed response. And here's the thing. This is not the first time they have given a group of people this messaging there are people concerned and engaged in this movement everywhere despite what Asha thinks not everyone is on their side. And so there was messaging like this shared in a almost secretive, we're going to make you feel comfortable State President meeting so all of the state The presidents of the membership associations were invited to a meeting on how to handle basically how to handle fix SLP. And questions from inquiring minds. And they were told something very similar. If you get questions about the CCC, forward it to us, and we will answer for you. And so these messages have been sent to me multiple times by multiple people. In screenshots. This is not hearsay, this is these are things that Asha is actively telling clinicians and state leaders to do. And it got to the point now, where, you know, I could have blown that up when it happened. But I did it because I'm trying to be thoughtful about the content, and a little less reactionary. So I held on to that information. But then when this started to come in, even then I didn't immediately post, I reached out to some other people who didn't contact me who I knew were at that meeting, or being at that was a training. That was the training they were giving all of the volunteers who were going to hell day, the next day they were getting, basically PR training, I reached out to some people to confirm that this was in fact shared that this I wanted to get my facts straight. Before I posted what I posted. Of course, we were accused of having an agenda, which I know that we're going to bring up. But I did my due diligence. It's not I didn't take this out of context. This is what people have been told now, for more than a month or two. This is consistently ASHA is saying to people forward these questions to us, and we will take care of it for you. Time to get that out.
Preston Lewis 36:55
I think we heard from some of the folks that were at the meeting that this wasn't something that took up a lot of conversation and time. Okay, fair enough. But it is concerning that you're one of the few times we see this actually addressed in print with the actual logo down there. All of these other prerequisite thoughts about well, you know, we exceed most of these situations, but there's no citation there to indicate how many state licenses are not pretty much concurrent with ASHA, most of them are, there are a few exceptions. And gee, there's something Asher could work on. They could work with the individual licensing boards in those very few states. I don't like Hawaii is one isn't it? Jeanette? With the C requirements,
Jeanette Benigas 37:41
Yeah, the CEU requirements, there are none in Hawaii I think.
Preston Lewis 37:46
Hawaii, you know, it's expensive to busy
Jeanette Benigas 37:48
They're busy, they're busy. They don't have time. It's fine.
It's expensive place to live in a lot of excellent directions. But that's something that they could work on. Because you now have 50 state licensing boards. Let's work with them rather than acting like Well, no, we have this other little thing out there, which is kind of like a license. And I think it just continues to show that there's an unwillingness to modernize this product and be candid about what it is may not have been a huge talking point. But so far, rather than talking to us, as I often say they are talking down and around to us. And that's unfortunate, because we are the professionals in here. We're not marks out here that are just meant to be sucked up for the next dollar amount. Boy, it feels that way sometimes.
Yeah, it does.
Preston Lewis 38:36
Okay. dispelling the theories. You want to talk about that?
Jeanette Benigas 38:41
Yeah. Let's do it.
Preston Lewis 38:43
All right. So I have heard this that turn now for a couple of months, at least, that fix SLP has an agenda. And I think it means a couple of different things. But it's sort of like I think that counter pushback. And we heard a little bit about it a little bit this week. And wow, I guess some people think so low of us that they think the agenda is that we want to save $250 A year individually. And that what we heard tonight.
Jeanette Benigas 39:12
Yeah. we did hear that this week. That's our agenda - doing all of this work hours and hours and hours. I'm up until 1am editing podcasts to save $250 a year. Let's think this this through.
Preston Lewis 39:29
Yeah. I mean, what little work I had to do in Arkansas, where we've now got it to where next year Medicaid is indicated they are going to still ask for a CCC but it doesn't have to be a current one in order to build Medicaid. I could have said well hallelujah. I have saved myself my $250 and written off into the sunset in charlas. Airplane but no, I actually want to help other SLPs not just for the $250 but to realize that you don't have to sit here We're in fine your clinical competence because you bought the golden ticket. That's, that's the all the deal there, right? You know, your state license is what defines you. That's what defines so many other health professions quit paying somebody quit tipping somebody for a service that you don't necessarily use, right?
Jeanette Benigas 40:18
And people don't necessarily understand us and what we're doing. And that's okay. What I want to point out is that we have all been created differently. We all have different brains, and different skill sets, and different things that excite us and motivate us and interest us. And advocacy. And philanthropy have always been something that I am interested in. And the more I get accused of having an agenda or whatever, I was just thinking back to high school, I had an entire day, dedicated to me, in my county, March, I think 17th was Jeanette Benigas spirit of the community day, I led a fundraiser for two boys in our school who had a very rare form of muscular dystrophy. And they had outgrown their van. And so when they went into their van, they had to put their heads back in their wheelchairs to be able to ride in their van. And so mom and dad had done this whole thing to buy them a new van. But they really only had control of their hands. And they wanted a PlayStation or something in their van. And so we raised money to get these dudes, a PlayStation in their vans, this has been going on since junior high. I've been doing stuff like this, this is who I am. This is the fabric of my soul. Now I'm just doing it on a bigger scale. Now, this is fun for me. And what that means through fix SLP is that clinicians are getting choices. Maybe some people do want to save $250. But there's lots of reasons that people want to depart from Asha. It doesn't have to be my reason. And this is why I'm doing this because it's in me, it's not because I want to save $250 I'm in academia, my universities have paid for my fees. I'm not even saving any money at this point. I mean, maybe I'm going to but it's not about that for me. And so I think we just need to understand that every buddy gets involved in things for different reasons. People run marathons, I don't understand that. I don't want to run down the driveway. It's fine. But you know what? I stand on the sidelines. And I cheer for people who are doing those kinds of physical My husband has done some where you're at he's doing like the the mud and like the thing over the fire. You know, I he hasn't jumped over fire but you get it. I'm cheering on him and all his friends who are doing that, even though I don't understand it. Why are you doing that? Like, what are you gaining from this? I do not know. Same thing with me. This is my marathon. That was that was a long, like I just popped off.
Preston Lewis 43:04
You know, I find a lot of value in it's weird. I like looking up old state laws. When I was in politics, there is a saying that when somebody exits elected life, the thing that haunts them the most is that the phone stops ringing. And so getting those emails from different SLPs all across the country. It's nice to hear from you. It is and I if I can help you reduce your cost of practice to get back to that $250 a year. Okay, that's something of value. If you're with ASHA for 20 years, that's going to be about five grand, that's your kids braces. But you might want to make that investment and Asha, I like Jeanette think that ASHA has its place. But what a great opportunity to have voluntary members who are enthusiastic who want to add something to it rather than people who are just kind of mindlessly tipping and not knowing exactly what it is they're getting in or not involved, or perhaps are disgruntled. So for me, that's that's where the value is. And I enjoy hearing from people. That's why I'm doing this.
Jeanette Benigas 44:07
And see I think it's so weird that you want to dig into laws. I don't understand it but welcome to the team. Again, I don't have to understand it. I'm going to cheer you on every time you send me an email that's like, Hey, look at this. And I'm like, I don't understand what you just said.
Preston Lewis 44:23
I don't want to look at that.
Jeanette Benigas 44:24
No. I'm glad you're here. Let me go blow it up online and cheer about it. Or, you know.
Preston Lewis 44:30
I'm gonna say this one very quickly. This has come up as well is one of those theories. I want to dispel that all of this complaining and hubbub didn't start until Vicki Dee Williams became CEO No, full stop. No. To suggest that we have any other motives besides trying to modernize this try to clean up what it is between certificate and license. That's what this is about anything else that anybody's insinuating there? No.
Jeanette Benigas 44:56
Yeah. And I eventually I'm sitting on this hoping that the person reaches back out to me. But there is a very old Instagram account, who put some of this out there long before she was the CEO long before. And I would love to recycle and repurpose those posts for our fearless fixers and I will, but I wanted to see if that person wanted to do it together. First, it appears that that account has been abandoned, which is fine, I will still give credit and citation but no, and honestly, we don't say a whole lot about Vicki and when she called us social media chatter, yeah, we call that out. But I think she's a lovely person. i She might be the right face. For Asha, I don't know what she does doesn't really bother me because she's kind of bound to what the board instructs her to do. She's a public figurehead. This she's not running the show, at least not like Arlene did, from what I can tell. So now we've we've not really had a lot to say about her. This has nothing to do with her.
Preston Lewis 46:02
I'm satisfied with that. The third one I want to bring up because this Fix SLP theory has sort of been born in different little small micro regions of the country. I got asked this question first from some North Carolina SLPs. Then I got asked in Michigan, and seemed like there was somewhere else. So the theory is is that fix SLP by asking these Medicaid boards about the CCC is going to jeopardize ongoing and long standing advocacy efforts to increase reimbursements. So in other words, we're going to tick off the state Medicaid department, and they're going to refuse to re increase reimbursements. Now, first of all, this is very naive, it's wrong. And the fact that we've heard that from a couple of different places, somebody's planting those seeds out there. It's wrong because it sort of ignores the fact that state Medicaid boards aren't the fairy godmother with a little one who just decide how much money they're going to dole out to OTs, ST, PT, what happens is that state legislatures budget accordingly for their Medicaid dollars. And then the licensing boards decide, okay, this is what money we've got to work with. We aren't calling and annoying anybody we are very determined we like to present our case, but to say that somehow that's going to ruin these other advocacy efforts. Come on. That assumes that we're number one reckless and number two very stupid.
Jeanette Benigas 47:32
Yeah, and we know we know exactly where that's coming from, we know the person who is saying it. We're not going to make that public to avoid slander and liable because we don't have it in writing or we don't have it recorded. But we know exactly who's telling the state's this and we think it's ridiculous. So if she's listening, come on, come on. Stop it.
Preston Lewis 47:53
I wasn't gonna go that far. But okay.
Jeanette Benigas 47:55
I'm going that far. Stop it. Stop it. Stop. It's and because it's the same person who is scaring clinic. I talked about this on another episode that one of our guests had contact from this woman after she appeared in one of our episodes, and this woman tried to scare the shit out of her. Stop it. We hear what you're doing. Stop it. Okay, stop it Jeanette. Go on mute.
Preston Lewis 48:19
Yeah, I'm always trying to watch my language. And yet here you go. Madam conductor. You can just use whatever you want. Okay,
Jeanette Benigas 48:25
I try cause Sadie listens. I mean, she does hear a well placed swear word. Sadie listens to us every night to love her to sleep. Sadie's, my eight year old daughter. Hey, Sadie!
Preston Lewis 48:35
I want to talk about some upcoming pod features as we get near the close of this episode. Jeanette and I have been brainstorming about some different things that we could do on the pod maybe as a single episode that maybe even is reoccurring episodes, one of the first things is just keeping those frequently asked questions coming in, because a lot of SLPs are going to join this conversation, they're going to find this podcast after several episodes have already been produced and say, What is this about? So those questions, whether you're just brand new to this, feel free to ask us. And if we feel like there's a frequency of some of these questions, even if we've answered them long ago, we'll spend just a brief amount of moments to where we can put something into an answer quickly, and then move on to help newcomers. And then we want your other questions that aren't being asked. So we may have like an FAQ episode or maybe just FAQ, 510 minutes, something like that. And I think that's something that could be valuable, don't you think Jeanette?
Jeanette Benigas 49:35
Yep, and I do I get every week I get questions from new people who are just finding us. And the answer is always the same. And what I love is that we have changed the language of clinicians from this movement. So if you pay attention on social media, people will ask questions in platforms, if it really is relates to licensure or the CCC, or ASHA, it might not have anything to do with this movement, but people are changing the way they answer. And so I don't even have to jump in much anymore to provide like fix SLP language or resources because people are already doing it. Even you know, even if they don't know that they've learned from us that the CCC is a product, not a license that's out there now. And so I'm not having to answer those questions as much anymore because on social media, others are jumping in and answering and even on our content, if someone is asking a question and or something, sometimes, you fixers are jumping in and answering before I can even get there, which is amazing. You know, that is a real testament to the community that we're building. I'm always happy to answer and I do. I'm still behind on answering messages. You're not going to get a super immediate response sometimes, but I always get there.
Preston Lewis 50:57
Clinical war stories, this is going to be something I'm really excited about. So I pitched this to Jeanette, and I thought I'm going to have to explain this a little bit. She took it just ran with it, Jeanette, clinical war stories. We want the stories.
Jeanette Benigas 51:12
Yeah. yeah. We want the stories. This one isn't. It can be a funny story, too. I mean, we love the worst stories. But I shared with Preston, I said, you know, my, my one story that I love to tell is, during my my CF, I was in a charter school, which which was mainly for kiddos who had autism. And I was in a one on one session with this guy, this little guy, first grader, I wish I could remember his name. And he just he sat back, he put his arms up on his chair, and he said, Miss Benigas, I can't wait till I'm older so I can have a glass of wine with you. I just- if that was, you know, I mean, I've got worse stories to trust me, but so they can be cute too.
Preston Lewis 51:58
We're going to set up a. We're gonna set up a phone number
Jeanette Benigas 52:03
It's already set up!
Preston Lewis 52:04
Great, and clinicians can call. And about 90 seconds. If your story is a little bit longer, I suppose you could leave two messages, let us know who you are, where you're calling from. And it like Jeanette said, we'd love to, you know, hilarious stories, those are gonna be some of the best. But it can be quirky, it can be a success story that you had in clinic, it can be a challenging story. But those are the things we'd like to have that as a kind of an ongoing thing that we can maybe bring in to some of the pods. I as you were telling your story, which was great. You told that to me before the pod started and I just loved it. I there's many that I could tell some of them I put into some short stories. This one's very quick. One day I had a lady that was a dysphasia client and a sniff. And often I when I would do my first meal observation bedside, I kind of wanted to be a little bit covert, because patients will obviously do different things and eat differently if they think you're watching them. So I said kind of at the end of the table, there are about six little 80-90 plus year old ladies at this table. And I'm sitting there watching this one lady who is my patient, and she keeps peeking over at me. And finally she looks around the table and she said, You ladies notice there's a good looking man at this table. And she's got this very serious look on her face. And I'm trying to be very discreet. And she said, if any of y'all make a move for him, I'll claw your eyes out.
Jeanette Benigas 53:31
Love that.
Preston Lewis 53:33
Yeah, so that was that was a feisty client. He was ready.
Jeanette Benigas 53:39
introduce her to Charla
Preston Lewis 53:42
many years ago, but sure. Sounds great. Jeanette. Thank you. It's good seeing you this morning.
Jeanette Benigas 53:48
Happy wedding day!
Preston Lewis 53:49
Pop on my tuxedo here in a little bit.
Jeanette Benigas 53:50
I'm feeling a little salty that you did ask me to be a junior bridesmaid or flower girl or the officiant even. I would have been great for that. All right. So we talked about this sustaining partnership. If you're interested in doing that you can get more information at fixslp.com We have a ton of resources there including the mega spreadsheet where we outline every single state requirement. There's like 18 data points for every state. You can see it for the CCC too. So check that out. It's under Resources for SLPs we just have a ton of stuff there. So if you have any questions or can't find something, let us know. If you love what we're doing subscribe, give us an awesome rating five star review. We love reading those and seeing those and we'll just see you next time. Thanks for fixin it everybody!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai