ASHA CCC Reinstatement: Facts, Fear, and What You Actually Need

10:29PM Jul 20, 2025

Speakers:

Jeanette Benigas

Preston Lewis

Keywords:

reinstatement

CCC

ASHA

Praxis exam

professional development

state license

sustaining partnership

contest

speech therapy

PD

Medicaid

CEUs

fix SLP

summer school

retreat

Welcome to the Fix SLP summer school series where we're schooling the system all summer long. If you're ready to challenge the status quo in speech language pathology, you're in the right place. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and if something fires you up, leave us a message on the minivan meltdown line at fixslp.com, grab your favorite summer beverage and let's get to work.

Hey everybody, welcome back. It's Jeanette. I'm laughing because we have old man Preston with us today with his corn cob pipe.

Oh, come on.

Get him a button nose.

You know, seems like a reflective day. I mean, we're we've got great topics to discuss. And, you know, you get to a certain age, and you just like to enjoy the nice flavors.

So what age is that Preston? Because I have yet to get there.

Well, you know, I'm 44 so I anyway, you don't have to talk about my own personal choices.

What's coming in my picture? I It's 44 apparently I have to look for it too. Preston, we have a fixer retreat coming up.

There is!

You're coming!

Yes, yes, and I will not be wearing matching pajamas.

We are getting Preston matching pajamas.

Drawing, drawing a hard line there, but definitely enjoying being present with all my fellow fixers. And so that's it's a great opportunity for us, not only to discuss the future of the organization and the direction we're going, there's an operational element, but there's also just a chance to, you know, kind of kick back with each other and celebrate some of the wins and really show the appreciation that we have for each other, which is extensive,

Yep. And this leads me to something that I've been meaning to say since January, but didn't, haven't because ADHD, we sent New Year's cards with Fix SLP stickers to every single person that sent us money through the sustaining partnership in 2024 and I think a good 25 of those came back to me, and it's fresh on the mind, because I did open them all up the other day, took out all of the stickers and then threw away the envelopes. So if you have sent us money in 2025 you can expect a gift from us, even if it's just a little sticker. I don't know what we'll do. We'll probably actually decide that at our little retreat. That's what we did last year, was we decided what we were going to do and then started preparing for it. You will be getting at least a card from us, either at the end of December or into January. So please make sure that your address is up to date, and then when something does come, Preston's holding up the sticker we sent when something does come, whenever that comes in an envelope, make sure you look in the envelope, because then a bunch of people said, I didn't know something was in there and I threw my envelope away. So if you want a sticker, we sell them for $2 we also have some remaining T shirts for 25 bucks plus shipping, so you can always email us for those. So anyway, make sure your address is up to date. Also, we are in it now. We are on our way to 100k - 100,000 downloads, nearly in two years. We would love to get there by our two year anniversary. Just for fun, we have a contest going on every single week. I can proudly announce now I'm so excited. We are giving away your choice every week. If you enter every week, you can pick from a six month subscription to the Informed SLP, or a one month subscription to the Swallowing Training and Education Portal or a Chomper Champ, you get to pick your color and your animal, or a one hour class to Speech Therapy PD or a Fix SLP tee-shirt. Wait, every week, wait, there's more. Yes, but wait, there's more Speech Therapy PD is coming alongside us, and for our two year anniversary, we are giving away a one year subscription to Speech Therapy PD, I love them. They're awesome. I've gotten to see what they do. They have supported Fix SLP, we're so excited to put that out there. There will be a bingo card that Elizabeth and I started working on as of this recording last night. By the time you hear this, hopefully it's out, or it'll be out in the next couple days, the bingo card will include the weekly contests, and then there'll be some other things maybe in there to do, because this is a really big prize. It's a high value prize. We are paying for some of this, by the way, we want to thank our listeners for coming alongside of us, and then a little bit of it has been donated. So go, go, go to our socials. Look at what the contest is for this week. Every Tuesday, a new contest will start. The contest will end Sunday at. 11:59 because on Monday, I will need time to plug in the winner, because we'll be announcing the winners in the middle of the episode. So then you do have to listen to the episode to find out if you won. You'll have a week to get with us to claim your prize, and we'll hook you up. So that's how it works. Head over to our Instagram or Facebook. That's where you will find the information and good luck.

And unlike some organizations, we won't change the deadline on you at the last minute until you you can't be part of the drawing.

Correct, correct. And you don't have to be a member. You don't have to be a sustaining partner to win. All you have to do is do the thing that we're asking you to do. Okay, so Preston today, summer series were short sweet. I've got a meeting in like 25 minutes, so this really is going to be short and sweet. We're talking about reinstatement today, because we keep seeing it over and over and over again. It's a good little refresher, little short snips here to share. We'll have a summer school post to educate and that can be the thing that you share. Reinstatement. We've talked before this one time at band camp, these things happened, and when we first started discussing reinstatement, we did do research on the types of things that had to happen if you let your CCC go on purpose, if you accidentally didn't renew your CCC because you didn't know, for whatever the reason, whatever the reason, if you found yourself in a reinstatement situation long ago, there were some things that had to happen. You might have had to pay back years. So I don't know, let's just call it $100 and you were out for five years, you'd have to pay $500 to, like, level up to the current year. Is that still a thing? Preston?

Oh, back dues? Hell no.

Well, there's no back dudes. Once upon a time, once upon a time, you might have had to retake courses if the ASHA standards change, meaning if the CFCC, which is the part of ASHA that creates the requirements to purchase the CCC, they do that alongside the CAA, so they very suspiciously reflect one another. If the standards change, Preston, do you still have to take courses over again?

If the standards change? Yes, I would say, no.

Not I would say. For sure, you do not have to do that.

Yeah, and everybody thinks you do, but no, you don't, because you have attained that in the original thing you you back date to when you earn the bloody thing. Yeah, that's, that's always the thing that gets me is that, yes, I mean, there are things you have to do in order to stay mainly, think about that state license. But yes, I mean, the the old stories of the, you know, I had to pay eight years of back dues and the old stories. Of all, I had to go, you know, I gotta go back to college now, maybe somewhere back in the 80s that happened, but in the modern era, no, it's just, it's one of those legends that continues to percolate.

Yep, there is one thing here that people should be aware of, and this is for our new grads and students. If you never hold the CCC and you decide down the road that you want to purchase it, you are held to the CAA and CFCC standard at the time of application and purchase. So if you were under the 2020, standards, I think is what we're currently in, and they change them, which they will eventually, and we will put everyone on notice when that happens. Like last year, we talked about the practice analysis survey that they did. That is the start. That is the beginning of them looking at changing the standards. They give at minimum a four year notice before they change the standards, because universities have to adjust their courses, their required courses, they're the courses that you have to take. Universities might have to create courses if they don't exist. They typically do. These are usually undergrad type courses. Universities need time to prepare. Universities are typically planning courses and schedules more than a year in advance. There is a lot of warning. So when that time comes, we will start telling people, if you are under the old standards and you've never purchased this is what the new standards are going to be. Take a look see if you meet these standards. If you don't, and you decide, down the road, you. That you want to purchase the CCC, you would be facing having to meet these requirements. We will again. We'll be on top of this. We will lay it all out side by side. We will let you know when that time comes.

So I do want to jump in about this recertification, though. So I a reinstatement. Excuse me, because you're already certified, if you went ahead and got it. Now, I know you're making a specific, you know, notice to some people that may have never gone there that you know, those things could change. And yes, you may have to do courses had you never earned but I'm thinking about those people that are out there and thinking of doing like I did, which is just to let that sucker go like I did. I set mine on fire like last December with my holiday decorations in the background. And so let's say I completely lose my marbles, and in 2026 I want to go back Jeanette. What? What am I looking at? Cost wise? I know I'm kind of skipping ahead here, but I'm thinking about the the mainstream people out there that are in our audience, that are saying, What if I let that go? And then two years later, I'm, I'm, you know, jammed, because there's some job out there that they're just a pain in the ass, and I have to have this thing. So what's the bottom line?

So reinstatement has three prongs, and I am reading this right off of the ASHA website. Okay, if you don't believe us, you can go look yourself. Okay? Because people try to fight with us on social media. We're Not Making This Up. There are three things that you need to do. Number one is that you do need to pay a reinstatement fee. The reinstatement fee if you're reinstating your CCC, and then you're also going to purchase the ASHA membership with it is currently $400 if you are going to reinstate your CCC but not get the ASHA membership, the fee is $371 so that is the fee to reinstate the CCC and or membership. There are no back dues. That's it. That's what it will cost you.

You're buying your CCC back, and you're paying $371 right? Yeah, and so that includes that year's CCC that you're purchasing.

Yes, it includes the year. Okay, so if you are going to pay the $371 that is going to include your CCC for the year. So if you pay it on February 1, or you pay it on December 1, it doesn't matter. The fee is not going to change, you will still owe money for the next year. It's better if you're going to reinstate to reinstate it earlier in the year, because you'll get more bang for your buck. If you want to reinstate it, and it's November, December, you might as well just wait until January and reinstate it in January. Does that make sense, Preston?

It makes sense. I imagine that someone that would reinstate. It's not like they're making some life decision here, like, Oh, I feel like I'm going to be a different person. Because believe me, once you let that sucker go you, you really are the same SLP that you were, minus those letters, which I stopped using letters a year and a half ago. But the thing is, I think most people are going to be doing it because they're they're wedged. They're wedged because of a job or, you know, I don't know, maybe they want to go back to academia or something. Who the hell knows? But in that instance, if they are wedged, they're going to do it right then, and it's not pro rata, which, that's fine. I think, you know, ASHA should set those rules based on that. I've got no issue. So that $371, $220, of that goes to just read, you know, the what you would have paid for the certificate, so $151 penalty, and that's it. You know that's that's the rub there. There are no courses, there's no back dues. And as Jeanette said, we are taking that straight from the website. And this is good data. This is not the data that you know Betty or Maude, who had, you know the CCC, and hasn't, you know, seen a patient since you know the Clinton administration. This is, you know, this is what we're dealing with right now. So you can listen to those old stories and let that fear continue to percolate. Or you can really just say, Look, you know, if I let it go, $151 now, there is fear there. Well, there is the test part two, and, and we'll get into that. But I, I think for a lot of us, and I know test anxiety is a thing, but I never, of course, I'm not going back, but if I did, I'm not going to let that test frighten me. I feel like I still am a clinician that's got my legs about me. And do you want to talk about the test again? The Praxis?

Sure. So we said there's three parts. Part number two is you have to have a current Praxis score per the ASHA standard, not the ETS Praxis standard. So ETS states that scores are good for 10 years. ASHA says, Oh. No, no, no, they're only good for five years, so you have to have a current Praxis within the five years of application. And so if it's been 20 years since you took the Praxis, you would have to retake the Praxis. What I always tell people is that this is an entry level exam. As a professor who has watched dozens of graduate cohorts take this test, it's always interesting to see the students who pass it and pass it the first time who like, have been on 15 remediations throughout the program and aren't getting the best grades. This is entry level. These aren't trick questions. Will you have to get an advanced practice book or whatever the book is called? Sure, but you're not an idiot. You have a master's degree. You can read a book and study a little bit, you know, take a couple weekends and just knock it out. You can do this. And if you've kept up in your area of practice all of these years, you should be 50% ready. If I had to retake the practice today, am I going to know every phonological process and age thing that I might need to answer on that part of the test? Probably not. Am I going to know the answers to the fluency questions? Probably not. But can I buy a book and study for a couple hours and take a couple practice tests? Absolutely, I could do that. We're smart enough to do that, and we need to give ourself a little bit of credit.

Cost of the test is, I think, $146 Does that sound about right?

Yeah, something like that. So I was going to say $120 we've looked it up. We we've looked it up in the last year, yeah, and that's, that's the only other fee. Now, there are some people with true test anxiety. That is a very small percentage of people. We're not discounting that. For some people, that is actually a thing, and I've seen it firsthand. My mother got a master's degree in a field where she did need to have a state license. She was never able to pass the test. She had a 4.0 in graduate school. You were only allowed to take it so many times before you had to go back and retake classwork, and she just never did, and therefore made, actually made less money. She's retired now, but through her career, made less money because her her argument was, I got a 4.0 I got straight As. Why am I going to go retake those classes at the same institution that gave me an A in the first place? I'm not going to learn anything new at that time, I was 10, when she was doing this, you know, there was no online learning. So today, probably she could have retaken those classes from a different institution and maybe got a different education, but she said, that's not going to help me. And so I got to watch that struggle firsthand, of my mom struggling, trying to pass her state licensing exam. And, you know, it was hard, and it it was hard for her to go through and probably very upsetting emotionally. So that is a thing. And if that's you, I'm sorry, that's i That's awful. And we do, we feel that, or I especially feel that for you, because I know what that looks like. But that is a very small percentage of people.

It has a 89.5% rate of passage for people who take that exam. Now, by, you know, most of those people that are straight out of college, sure, but we all, I mean, even the first time I took it, or I only took it one time I did the practice test, I did prepare. That's just what you do for a test. And so I think you're, you know, overall cost with testing guide and pre test, probably $200 but I guess to bring this whole conversation back to reinstatement, I need to get one more third ring or rung of this ladder. But why the hell would you want to at this point? I think it would be far easier to really sit down and do that informed discussion with your employer about really, is this necessary? And if you check out our maps and most of the states, Medicaid doesn't require it either. I don't know. I think it's easier to be a fixer than to go back down this road and jump through these, you know, bureaucratic hoops.

But I just want to be transparent too and encouraging and say, I did fail the practice the first time, really. And I am, by some standards, pretty successful. I went on to get a PhD. I am published in multiple journals. I have written a book, I own a business. I kick ass every day. Do. Doing Fix SLP. And so in my opinion, that the Praxis is not a reflection of what kind of professional you will be, and you can, you can do it. I'm living proof I failed the Praxis, and I turned out okay. So for new grads listening, if you fail the practice, you're going to be fine. And for seasoned clinicians listening, we're all fine. We just have to bow to Big Daddy. ASHA, okay, if you want the CCC back, you have to bow. That's just how it is. So be encouraged.

Don't we have a drawing winner to announcne?

Oh, yes. Okay. We are. We are recording this in the middle of the week one contest going on. So it is too early for me to know who won. So what I just I'm going to pause for a second here. We're just going to say congratulations to XXXXXXXX for winning this week's contest. You get to pick the six months to Informed. SLP, one month to STEP, one hour course from Speech Therapy PD, or a Chomper Champ, you get to pick your color and your animal , or a Fix SLP tshirt. You can claim your prize by emailing me. You can email team@fixslp.com, in the heading. Real big put "prize winner", and I will get back with you, and we'll get you your prize.

Congratulations. All right, so what's this third rung here? This third requirement?

Yeah, last prong isprofessional development. Professional development. You have to do it. You have to do it anyway for your state license.

I've already done it. I don't have the CCC, I'm continuing to do even more professional development that's more rigorous. Jeanette, so for most people, that is not going to be a factor, but some people may have walked away. So tell us about the PD.

There is no state in the US, except for Hawaii, that requires less continuing education than the CCC. So if you're in Hawaii and you let the CCC go, you could be in trouble. But otherwise, if you are doing on average, a minimum of 10 hours of CEUs or PDH, you will be fine. ASHA does have this rule that it's 10 PDHs. They don't have to be ASHA approved. They have to be related continuing education to the field. 10 hours of PDH per year, up to 30 hours. So if you've been gone for 10 years, you do not have to do 300 hours. You only have to show 30. And then the little catch is it has to be in the three years leading up to reapplication. So if you've been gone for 10 years, your PDH from year one doesn't count. It would only be PDHs taken in year 8, year 9 and year 10, they can all be done in year 10 doesn't matter, but it has to be 10 per year for a total of 30 and completed in the last three years prior to application. And again, if you have kept up with your state license, you should have done that already. And even if you're letting your CCC go, if you are not 100% certain that you are never going to return to the field, you need to maintain a state license somewhere. It doesn't matter where, unless Hawaii and then pay attention to those pdhs, you have to maintain a state license until you decide you are out for good. Because if you let the state license and the CCC go, you're going to be in a world of trouble. If you want to come back, it's going to be a headache.

But it can be done, because I think of our friend Zane, who stepped away for a while, and his state license did go as well. And so he was, you know, many years from school, and he had to kind of recreate a lot of not recreate, but he had to obtain a lot of records that were difficult. And I want to remind everyone, if you ever did earn that CCC, you can get a letter indicating that it was achieved and when you earned it, and often, that's going to be another affirmation that you did all of the things as far as school and your practicum. And so that's he did that he's now practicing again, sans the CCC, so it can be done. But that fear, wow, that's a that's where extortion comes into play, yep. So....

So, don't be afraid. You can do it. And we'll just wrap up by saying we've done the math. This is especially for you stay at home moms who are having babies, okay, if you are planning to be out less than three years and you are afraid to get rid of the CCC, or maybe you're in a Medicaid state or something, if you're less than three years, it's not worth it. Hang on to it. But if you are going to be out more than three years. Days financially, it makes sense to let the sucker go and then reinstate later when you're ready, even with the hassle of having to study for the Praxis, it's worth it after, if you're going to be gone three years or more, it's worth it to just let it go and come back later. And I will also say we've done a hell of a lot in the last 20 plus months. Okay, so if you're thinking you're leaving tomorrow and you're not coming back for three years, this could be an entirely different ecosystem for the CCC three years from now, because all the time we're hearing from companies that aren't requiring it anymore. We are working in multiple states to get this Medicaid thing under control three years from now, SLPs could rule the world without ASHA Big Daddy ASHA is going to take a nap. Okay? So let it go. Let it go. If I insert that song, we'll probably get...

Perfect. Yeah, there you go. All right, Jeanette, I know, I know you've got to go and so this has been a lot of fun. Thank you.

Yep, happy summer! We're rolling along. Go check our socials for the contest. Thanks for fixing it, guys! We'll see you next week.

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Does she want matching pajamas?!

I don't think so.

For everyone listening, that's my competitor wife. She's the real wife. I'm the work wife. I feel like I told Preston the other day, I need to get her on the speed dial for when he's misbehaving. I can tell on him.

Um, but anyway, she doesn't need any more notifications.