ASHA Membership vs CCC - What SLPs Need to Know Before Renewal

3:30AM Sep 9, 2025

Speakers:

Jeanette Benigas

Preston Lewis

Music

Phone Operator Recording

Keywords:

ASHA membership

CCC certification

SLP Elevate

membership benefits

certification cost

state license

legal strategy

Medicaid billing

university requirements

professional autonomy

monopolistic practices

advocacy

legal action

Fix SLP

professional confusion.

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.

Still having a little bit more summer school. Preston Lewis joining you today with Dr Jeanette Benigas, and we are glad to be in conversation with you today.

I'm going to cut you off because we have another episode sponsor today. Today's episode is being brought to you by SLP Elevate by Speech Time Fun. This sponsor has membership exclusively for SLPs, working with grades four to 12. Now, we're med SLPs, so we personally haven't tried this. You and I Preston, but we've gathered the information, and we're here to say if you're tired of looking for age appropriate materials, if you want to try to have some more fun... SLP Elevate is a really good solution for you. You can show up to work virtually or in person and have engaging materials at your fingertips. So you can check them out at slpelevate.com. You can learn more there and we're just really thankful that they reached out and wanted to sponsor us. So thanks, guys. We really appreciate you over at Speech Time Fun!

We're glad to have them today as today's episode sponsor. Jeanette. How are you today?

I'm good. You and I both aren't at the top of our health game at the moment, so let's see how we do it's going to be high of 66 here today. So I got my fall pumpkin orange on we're heading into fall, and we're recording this way in advance, because we are trying to get our ducks in a row, if you will. And part of our problem over at Fix SLP is that we're always chasing our tails, so we are recording this with the assumption that ASHA has either sent out renewal letters or they will be any minute. And so if you haven't gotten a CCC renewal letter yet, it is coming, kids, it's coming any minute. And so today we're going to talk about ASHA membership versus certification, because sometimes we feel like we're just pounding this into you guys, but we are getting new followers and new Fixers every day, and so we answer these questions over and over again. So I think it is always appropriate to just review it again.

It is, and we see that question come up all the time. What's the difference between membership versus certification. We had so many SLPs last year that made that decision that they wanted to have a change. And it still amazes us. There are those people that haven't heard of what we do, and they're not comfortable with the vernacular, because, let's face it, we've had years of indoctrination to sort of CO mingle all of these things together. So once again, we put on our hat and talk about the differences of what those things mean, what paying for certification means, what that little bit of money that you're going to for membership means, how you can kind of pull that apart if you want, because ultimately, none of these things have to do with your license.

So let's frame up some definitions here so everybody knows what we're talking about. We've got two things. We've got membership. Membership is joining ASHA as a membership association, which is at the heart of everything, what they are or what they're supposed to be, or what they're supposed to be functioning like. So membership is just ASHA, membership to their club. It's like joining the American Bar Association if you're a lawyer or the AMA if you're a doctor, you pay dues, you get perks.

You know, back in of course, I've dated myself before. I've called it like being part of Columbia House.

Mmmm... I miss Columbia House.

Right, right. The older, you know, plus 40, plus 50, SLPs will know what that was. But in modern parlance, you could say Netflix. Of course, I'm one of those people that remembers when Netflix would actually mail you a CD. But yes, it's a membership. It is. It is part of something that you volunteer for as much as you would be a member of AAA, in case you had a breakdown on the side of the road. So membership being different than certification Jeanette.

And I don't even think people realize that that's what ASHA is. It's a membership association. They're giving us membership. So we're paying the fee. We're getting the content. And you can unsubscribe from membership anytime. Now at ASHA, you can't just unsubscribe from membership, and also you can't unsubscribe, quote, unsubscribe from certification if you want to keep your membership. So that is the second part of this, this certificate of clinical competency. I see it all over social media all the time. Now everybody knows it is a proprietary product sold by a third party, right? This is a certificate we are being sold. It is not something we are working hard to earn. We are working hard to earn our state license, which is what regulates our profession. You can't unsubscribe from the certification if you want to keep your membership, because they are tied together, you cannot be an ASHA member unless you buy their product.

It's like the ultimate Hotel California.

I was you can check

You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. And that's true, because there was a time before Jeanette, you shine that light of sunshine down on me, and my eyes awoke and I became a Fixer. There was a time when I decided to take a walk and just say, You know what? I'm tired of somebody telling me to cry in my car. I didn't have my napkins to tell them to go smell at that time. But I said, you know, I'm done. This is, it's small, you know, like you said, this is like a subsidized rate, which is now what, thirty bucks a year, Twenty-nine?

Twenty-nine.

Twenty-nine. it may have been even less than and so I thought, You know what, I'm going to detangle this, because there were those early sort of embers of some Fixers out there that were just pissed off, people that were tired of ASHA and so, yes, what do I do? How do I do this? And they don't make it easy. You have to call them. And then when you call the Action Center and you say you want to do this, I mean, it's like denouncing your citizenship. I mean, it's just this dastardly thing. Oh, my God. How could you do this? And, and there's a sales pitch there, because they want to retain that. And so they're trained to say, "Well, if you you do this, you're not going to be eligible for lifetime membership", which is a total waste. I mean, because it's, believe me, that the juice is not worth the squeeze there. So I said, No, no, thank you. I'm going on my way. And I think they do one more little I feel like there was one more little pitch in there to try to get me to stay. I turned around, and I never regretted it, because the leader never spoke to me. So yeah, no loss. And I reduced it. I made my statement. And then later on, that light Jeanette rising like a phoenix in the desert. And of course, at the time, it was a light now it's just a bitch slapping text message that I get every morning from you, gotcha, gotcha. It's early, but sometimes you just have to open Jeanette eyes with a zinger. You needed that.

Yeah...I... Cheers. Oh yeah, I I love that. A bitch slapping text message. That is who I am, friend, okay, who would have known back then, when you did that, that this is, this is what it would lead to, anyway, okay, Preston has done it so you have, they're tied together. That is actually a legal term. It's called tying. It is absolutely illegal to tie the other way, where in order to get the certification, you have to have membership. There was a lawsuit, which we covered more than a year ago, back in the 70s, where someone personally sued ASHA to get that untied, and she won, and so at that point, that is when they just flipped the tie, and that is also when pricing changed. So they kept the pricing in place, so the membership used to be more, the certification used to be less, and that's sort of where we're at now.

I threw a lot of shade on those members benefits, and we might as well go down the list of them. Now, I will say there are some folks out there that do find a lot of value in the journals. I'm not here to throw shade on that. I think that if you do that's great. And the sad thing is that you can't be a member without the certification. We may get into that in a bit. But what are these great tell us about all these wonderful prizes and parting gifts that we're getting here.

Prizes. ASHA prizes.

Right.

You get the journal that is out monthly the ASHA Leader. You get discounts to go to the convention and some networking opportunities. You get a discount for pro liability. You get a quote discount on the CEU tracker. It's 10 bucks plug to remind everyone you can go do a free one at speech therapy. Pd.com there's some other random like car renting, benefits, stuff like that, but those are the big ones. The other thing that you get, and this is the thing we're hoping this fall, that we're going to bring our lawyer on and talk about legal strategy. But the other thing that you get that is holding some of you to this ASHA membership, and CCC is access to the ASHA noms. I just heard from someone else a couple days ago who messaged about this power back. Power back is the big one that is requiring the ASHA noms as part of the evaluation process in Net Health. There are a couple others, but power back is the big one. That may change. For those of you who keep up Genesis power back, they just declared bankruptcy. They're supposedly staying open, but we'll see. We'll see if they sell that might not be required anymore. Who knows? We have spent an extensive amount of time speaking with a law firm in California about the legalities of this, because in California, if an employer is requiring something of you that is not required to legally do your job, they are supposed To be paying for those things. So if the kind gentleman who spent two hours on the phone with me didn't want a $20,000 retainer, I can assure you, we would be in the middle of a lawsuit right now against companies in California requiring this who aren't reimbursing their employees. If you are interested in something like that, and you have a creative way to come up with this retainer, let us know Michaela still has both ASHAmembership and CCC in the future, if we file some type of class action lawsuit in California against these companies that are requiring she's a stakeholder of one of the companies, Preston has already disclosed he's no longer holding the CCC or ASHA membership. So when you look online, we're very open and honest about who has what. It's always people who don't agree with us or who don't like what we're doing, or even don't fully understand what we're doing at Fix SLP, every couple months this sort of comes up as a gotcha moment of who on this team still has these things. We are very open and transparent about why we still have these things.

So Jeanette, the next question is, and I already know this, because I'm walking around and still practicing and I'm still competent, but if I let my membership lapse, can I still practice as an SLP?

Yes, you can. You can be an SLP with the CCC or without the CCC, and still practice as an SLP, because ASHA membership, again, is a club. It has perks, but none of that gives you the legal authority to practice, and neither does the CCC. The CCC literally has the word certificate in the name of it. It's a certificate. The role of the state license is what grants you the legal authority to practice.

I like perks. You know, I really do. I like perks. And so, you know, every year I, for example, I'll look at my American Express card, and you know what, what perks are there? Have they changed anything? And what is the annual fee versus what I'm getting? I would encourage any SLP, to do that. But if you're also just sort of put out with ASHA, and you've had enough, and this is not your, you know, brand of tea or whiskey or whatever you'd like to say there, then you can take a walk on that membership. And then the CCC, of course, can be situational, but it's like saying, Do I want to still be a member of Costco. I mean, that's the way to look at it. Or do I want to keep my American Express Platinum Card? It is not anything that's related to you as a clinician, and most of our audience is probably saying, I know this, I've heard this, but it is amazing, because every single week we hear these comments, we get these questions, and you know, we just have to continue to put that message out there. And it's really special, because Elizabeth has been doing a great job trying to put slides together an organization and putting that message out there as well. But we see other Fixers educating folks as well. So we don't want to seem preachy, but we have this. We have to put that message out there and educate.

That's the part that brings me so much joy out of this is when you're working so hard to educate as an educator, which is what at the heart what I am, you know, I'm a professor with a classroom. This podcast is now my classroom, right? When you see your students practicing the things that you have taught them, there is no greater joy. And so when you get online on social media, and you get you know what happened just yesterday was I was tagged a bunch of times personally, and so was Fix SLP on a post about a stay at home mom who was wondering about the CCC, and by the time I got there, there were already 20 plus comments, and 15 of them, you could tell, word Fixers just getting in there. And I like, I have goosebumps now, like it was it just brought me so much joy to know that even if this ended today for me, you know that the work that we have put in is going to continue. And I've said this before, this train is speeding down a track, and it can't be stopped, whether Fix SLP is here or not, the culture is changing, and that is the coolest thing, that we are all a part of this. If you are listening to this podcast, it is because you are a highly engaged Fixer, and you're a part of this, you're a part of this change. It's just so cool. Anyway, we see it all the time, all the time, every week.

So we've sort of fleshed out the membership part. We'll get back into the certification part, as ASHA calls it, the CCC is the gold standard. Of course, the problem is, is that they get the gold because you're the one paying them every year to offer these letters up. I really wish our, you know it's gold standard, until you look at the wages in which we're hurting, I think they get the gold here.

Yeah, and, you know, we've, I've discussed this with our lawyer. Are they allowed to say that is? Is? It's false advertising, because it's not the gold standard. There are plenty of states who have standards higher than that of the CCC. It was the gold standard many years ago. We're talking about 70 plus years ago. It was the gold standard. It is not anymore, and they do continue to have that on parts of their website, and ultimately, people falsely advertise all the time. So there's not a case there.

Well, it's, it's in every it's in every letter that they send out when they decide, and granted, we have pulled back on that just, you know, self congratulatory letter that goes out every time there's an issue that comes up, but it's always there. We think on standard, you know, it's ingrained into them. It's like this walking automaton creature that's just programmed. And here they come with that language and Jeanette, I I just see so many SLPs that still have that feeling. And yes, it represents something that you earned. It represents a bar that you crossed. But after that point, every year, the only thing that the damn thing represents is that you're willing to fork out your hard earned money to continue to make the self licking ice cream reload on the cone every year.

Yep, you love to call the CCC a badge, a Girl Scout badge.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it is I, you know, and I try to be careful here, because, again, I'm approaching this profession. I am in the minority. I'm, you know, a male. So obviously 90% of the field, plus is going to be different than I am. And I, you know, I wasn't a scout, but it seems like after a while, and I know Jeanette, you were, that's great....

Lifetime member, baby!

And you could correct me if I'm wrong, are we allowed to use your daughter's name?

Yeah, she's our favorite Fixer!

Okay, all right, so correct me if I'm wrong. Well, I knew that, but I just couldn't remember if we dropped Sadie's name. So when Sadie earns a badge, does did the Girl Scouts of America come back the next year and say, Hey, Sadie, congratulations, you earned your badge. It's time for you to pay for the damn thing again.

They do not. They do not. No, we iron that sucker on that vest, and there it stays until it falls off because our mom doesn't know how to sew.

Okay, well, let's hear it for the Girl Scouts. I apologize to badge holders everywhere. Clearly, they earn their badge. I think, I guess cops earn their badge and they keep it. So I think I'm insulting the term badge. Let's just call it, you know, a I don't know, I'm going to come up with a term, but right now, it's just loading that ASHA ice cream scoop up for them over and over again, and I feel like we're purchasing oxygen. We're purchasing one organization's bullshit dream.

So let's talk about cost of that CCC. So we said earlier that membership is $29 certainly all of the per. That you get for that $29 cost, way more cost, way more than $29 the CCC is $221 so in total, if you want ASHA membership, you are paying 250 but the bulk of the cost is going towards the CCC, and we know that it does not cost ASHA that much money to maintain the CCC program that was the basis for our petition last fall. By the way, we are still working on that. Preston and I have meetings with our legal team regularly. We are full steam ahead. We hope to bring you a podcast with our legal team sometime this fall. I put them on the clock, so we're working towards that, and some of that may include what we did with that petition, which is why y'all have been sending us sustaining partner money. Part of that is to pay for these meetings with the legal team. I think I, I might have missed a bill as soon as we get off. I think I paid nearly $1,500 just this month. So thank you for everybody. But anyway, back to certification.

So why do people keep it? You know, why? Why? And I the biggest answer often comes back to our students and the supervision, right?

Which I get. I love a student. I was a professor, you know, and so this is where I'll insert. This is why Elizabeth continues to have her CCC. She has discontinued ASHA membership, but she has a contract with a local university and many students, many students rotate through her private practice. She owns a farm where she does hippotherapy, and it's a really cool relationship that she has with this university, and she can't let the CCC go. But one awesome thing that this university is doing is they are working with her to create a non CCC track, so in the future, if students choose that track, they will automatically get placed with Elizabeth for supervision, so they can maintain some of those CCC placements for other students, and so they won't have as difficult of a time finding placements, but she's working with them, and they completely respect what this movement is doing. And you know, maybe down the road, there will be enough students going through that program that don't want the CCC that then Elizabeth can drop it or Fix SLP will have done enough work that Asha changes the pathway. To be clear, it is the CFCC. The CFCC is the part of Asha that makes the requirements to purchase the CCC. That is where the requirement lies. It is universities that are requiring the CCC for supervision, not the CAA, not to stay accredited. We have done multiple FOIA requests to double check our statement Preston, haven't we? Yes, we have. That's a requirement of programs. We will have a completely separate episode to discuss those issues, but that is a university policy, not a CAA policy. Yeah, that is one reason why people hang on to the CCC, and we respect that.

But credit to Elizabeth's university that she works with there, because they are trying to modernize, and that's the thing that we constantly bring up. So let's modernize this system and CFCC, CAA, ultimately, Ash is the one that could pull back on this, but it is the linchpin that allows them to have their Oh, you've got 99% of our retention with our SLPs going out and buying this thing, because they know that this keeps that perpetuating cycle in place. And that is a very, I'm sorry, that's a monopolistic practice. That's a very cutthroat practice. I'm going to go, you know, Old Testament here for a minute. They're like the Pharaoh, and we're the Israelites. Let us go for crying out loud. If you're such a glorious gold standard pile of you know, whatever, then sell that have that confidence, for crying out loud, let us. Let us have choice. Show your product, let your actions, let your advocacy, which you say is so wonderful rule the day where we feel like, okay, I want to be part of this. I can't, you know, not be part of it. But instead, it's there because you have this grip and this hold on it, and that's the argument that makes it so infuriating for all those fanboys and fangirls out there that like to stand up and say, Oh, we just love the ivory tower. It's so wonderful. You're throwing shade on it, you know, at the end of the day, if it's so great, then make it a damn option. Don't sit there and make it mandatory, for crying out loud, because that's the thing that. Makes your argument so hollow. And I'm talking right to you those members right now, the ASHA board, which like to go out there and just spew and just share and, you know, soak up and pour that Kool Aid out on everybody, and they lap it up like animals lapping up antifreeze. Come on, for crying out loud, open this thing up. Really. I mean, what you know, if you're if you're so confident in it, then why not let us have choice? But they do let us have think it scares it? No, it scares the hell out of them, because they know that it's they know that at the end of the day, they are ostensibly no different than AODA or, you know, ABTA, which are fine organizations. Ash, in itself, is a fine organization at doing a lot of different things, but it's also an organization which has a closed governance model. It has something where they keep their SLPs locked into something using monopolistic practices. Yeah, that's why we are not stopping because we are a profession that is feeling drowning right now with the middle class, and rather than modernize like Elizabeth has a university that's working toward that. They have their fingers right here. Everything's great. We're the gold standard. Come to our little party and eat our foie gras, and we'll continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. Now it's not good enough anymore. Come on, have a have a conversation. For crying out loud, I'm fired up today, so I love it must have been good coffee. Yeah, it must have been great calling.

I love it. Another reason why people keep it that I see frequently is that, and I have sympathy for this. I worked hard to earn it, and that is very old verbiage, that is rhetoric that has come from ASHA and academia. You worked hard to earn your CCC. Don't ever let it go. We are changing that verbiage. Thank goodness that is going away, but it's still out there, and it mostly comes from our older SLPs, who came up in a time when there was no state license in their state, and they did, in fact, have to earn the CCC. And for them, that's why the lifetime membership exists, right? They're proud of the CCC. I would love to probably predict that 1520, years from now, there is going to be no lifetime membership, because I think many of us will not purchase it, but, you know, that's, that's one of the reasons you worked hard. Don't let it go. Ever.

And I, you know, threw that away and when they tried to offer that carrot, because correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can practice once you go to lifetime member status, right? I mean you literally, they put you out to pasture. You can, can? You can? Well, there's something weird about that, though that's like, I can't remember.

I think I'm gonna put this out there. I'm not sure, because sometimes we're wrong. And so I will just say everybody go to the ASHA website and check what we say sometimes we are wrong. You cannot practice without the CCC. So I think folks who have retired can continue on with membership and not the CCC, and in that case, they would be unable to practice.

That's what it is, because you still have to buy the CCC. Yeah, that's the key there. You can transition to lifetime member status, but you pay a little bit more at that point, so it makes it makes it sound like, Okay, I'm gonna get a deal, and my CCC is golden at that point, and it's baked in there. Oh no, you're gonna keep purchasing that bastard until you're in your grave, if you want to be, you know, certificate of clinical competence.

And I do think they get a discount on the C's at that point, but they're still paying that. Nothing is free. And the biggest thing is you have to have 25 or 20. You have to have a big chunk of consecutive years before you qualify. And you have to be 65 so there are a lot of people who reach that chunk of years before they are 65 and they have to continue to pay the normal rate until they're 65 Yeah, if you have a break, I don't know if there still is, but there was an option that you could have non consecutive years, but it was a lot higher.

Okay, I looked it up. So you get a break on the CCC down to just $64 a year, which does cover all of the airline upgrade fees for the executives to fly around first class. I think that's the rubric that they're using there. So there you go. I mean, come on. Well, I mean, how do you arrive at $64 a year? I'm thinking somebody who is paid into their career, right?

It's, it's Preston... it's...

What?

it's probably the actual value.

No, I

It's probably actually what it costs.

No, I'm really, I'm kind of being serious here, because 60...

So, am I.

Yeah, $64 a year, for those that finally get to that finish line and are deciding that, yeah, you know, I'm 65 and I still want to practice. And if you're out there, hey, that's awesome. I think that's great. But at that point, how do you arrive at $64 a year? That is just, it's kind of funny to me, with all of the mysticism with how they price everything you know right now, you would be investing $7,500 over the course of a 30 year career at current prices. So somebody who's been in for over you know that number of years, they're 65 $7,000 more, but you're still gonna get shut down for $64 a year for something that doesn't mean anything other than you paid it. And that's the thing, the for the people that say, Well, I earned it. The revelation for me Jeanette came from Zane Rankin, because even though Zane no longer had an active CCC, when we went to the state of Arkansas to clear him for Medicaid billing, they said, Well, did he ever earn one? Yes, he did. And we asked ASHA, they sent the letter showing that at one time he had earned it. And that's the proof it didn't go away. The achievement still there Asher will even recognize that. It just doesn't come with a current thing where, yes, we, you know, retopped our ice cream cone off. Thank you for doing that last year. He did earn it. No one can change that. And barring ethical collapse, or something of that. Or if you just didn't do CEUs for years and years, you're still, you're an SLP dude, he is, and he's now practicing, yeah, we proved that we birthed, we birthed that ship, and I was here, and that was a great moment for us.

I will link up his episode in the show notes. When I link stuff up, it goes straight to our website, but at least you could listen to it on our website, or look at the title and then find it in your streamer. So I'll link that up if you're interested in hearing Zane. He is awesome. It was a real win for Zane and Preston and our entire team. So great, great story to hear him talk. So another reason why people keep it is Medicaid. We still have a small handful of states that require the CCC for Medicaid billing. We are knocking these things down like dominoes one at a time. We have a lengthy list of people standing by ready to collaborate with us. It's me, hi. I'm the problem. Okay, I can't do everything. I really could use a state team leader, manager, if you have your if it's on your heart, to help us, and you want to help us manage some of that, and you feel like you would have the skill to organize people. Get with me, please. I can't do everything. So as of this recording, we have not rallied any of those lists of people, but we do. We're ready to start that next Medicaid state, and so we just have to keep working at that. That is a real barrier for people. Why they keep that CCC? We're not saying you should let it go and take your chances. No, you have to keep your CCC. We get it, I'll disclose Alexa. Alexa has dropped her ASHA membership. She maintains the CCC. She lives in Michigan, where Medicaid billing was required until this year. That's one of the dominoes that we saw fall, and it fell just before the renewal deadline last year. So both of Alexa's employers were requiring the CCC for billing. This year, she has worked with them. One of them has said, the school that she has worked for has said that is fine. You can drop your CCC. She works for a nationwide medical company that she does PRN for. She works for them full time over the summer, and they have not yet changed that requirement, despite Alexa showing ample proof that it is no longer needed in Michigan. So Alexa does still hold the CCC because of her PRN job that she works full time over the summer. We're going to keep pounding down that door with that company. They're nationwide. There are plenty of nationwide companies that have dropped the requirement for those who don't need it, which is awesome. Good on them for modernizing. So Alexa still has the CCC no membership, if you're keeping track. So far, three have no membership. One has membership. One has no CCC. Three have it. That just leaves me Preston.

Yeah, it does. And I get it, you know, we hear those questions occasionally. We'll see somebody say, Well, this person's still keeping theirs, you know, how can they talk about this? And it's kind of like that conversation about, how do you sign your name? What letters do you have? And I recently just said, Yeah, I signed my name. Preston Lewis, SLP, and anyone that's got any questions, come by my office and talk to me. It's we are available to people, not just as a resource of a look. You know what you. Was put out and by ASHA. Or look what happened in, you know, with this in my state, we want to hear about that too. But if you know you've got those questions, you can always email me. You know what? What is life like? Post CCC, it's the same. I can tell you right now, it didn't change one thing about me once that lapsed, I'm still plugging along like I always did, but you can reach out individually. You can come to our socials, but we're here as colleagues who are happy to share our learned experiences.

So I'm going to look right into the camera here. We might run this as a preview of some kind, or drop it on our website. I don't know, but I, Jeanette, am the owner of Fix SLP. I still hold both the CCC and ASHA membership, and I do so begrudgingly. Since the beginning of this movement, we have consulted with many lawyers. Every single lawyer has advised that someone within the organization maintain ASHA membership and the CCC for legal purposes when a lawsuit is filed, the person who files, if we have to file against ASHA, has more grounds if they are a stakeholder. That doesn't mean everyone, if it's a class action, whatever, it doesn't mean everyone has to have ASHA membership and the CCC. It means the person that files should the person who files, if there are depositions, will also be the primary person deposed in a lawsuit. I am the only person on this team who has been around since September 23 of 2023 I am the only person in this movement who holds every piece of knowledge, if someone were to be deposed on behalf of SLPs everywhere, on behalf of a lawsuit against ASHA, I am that person. I still hold ASHA membership and the CCC for that reason, we have sustaining partners all across the country who send us $5 a month to pay for lawyers to take legal action. And every month, we are meeting with our legal team, we are building a case, and we will take action. We will it's coming, and it is very likely that I will need to maintain these things until every single clinician in this country has a choice. I don't care if you keep it by choice. What I care about is if you're being forced to keep it, and if that means that I have to maintain it on behalf of you, because someday we might be able to file a lawsuit, I will do that. So to the people who try to scare new grads, because Fix SLP still has these things, and they're telling you to get rid of it. Grow up. I said it. Quit trying to scare people, because we have these things. Do the research and learn. Why learn? Why learn what we're doing here. Learn about the barriers that we still have, just like you, and take a look at what this team is doing to change those barriers for themselves and for other people. I still have those things I'm doing the work.

Before Reverend Benigas brought that home to a very fine finish there, I would also say, swords down and everything. Put the spikes away here, honestly, in a modernized ASHA world that I would love to see membership that reflects just membership and not a certificate, which is, you know, just a counterfeit certificate at that point, because you sold it a long time ago, and you just keep selling the same piece of property over and over again. That's, that's not right, membership in the truest sense. If it was, we'll just throw out a number there. Let's say it was $79 a year. Access to the journals and some advocacy. There are some fine people, and I, you know, ash on their social media this week, they've got a very nice lady, Nancy that's up, you know, beating Capitol Hill on the steps and trying to advocate. And I think she seemed like a groovy, nice lady, and I hope her message is well received. Capitol Hill is a pretty bad place right now in terms of trying to get a message through. But it's not all about just, you know, everything you're doing is wrong. I could see it. Position where somebody like me finds that value and says, Okay, well, you know, I believe in this. I'd like to be part of this, but when it is couched in this, you know, layer of mandatoriness and kind of monopolistic practices, I want no part of it, because there is no open governance, there is no choice, there's no free market economics in there. That's a big thing to me. It always has been. And so putting the personalities aside, if there was that openness to work toward that, I'd love to come back to the table. I like to be part of something that reaches out broader. That's why I do this. But right now, if you're just sitting there saying, Man, everything's just wonderful here in ASHAville. Then, no, I'm sorry I can't accept that, and I don't want to be gaslit anymore. Thank you very much, though, I'm going to go about my way now, which is what I have done.

Let's move towards wrapping this up. We don't know yet how you can drop your ASHA membership or CCC for 2026 last year, if you wanted to do those things, you had to call, depending on when you made that call to the Action Center, you maybe didn't wait at all, or you waited upwards over an hour or...

We're sorry, all of our representatives are still assisting other customers. Please remain on the line as we value your call.

You got a message that the phones were down, the system was down, or that they were closed for training. Last fall was very interesting to watch, as I said just moments ago, I hold all of the Fix SLP knowledge in my brain. Last fall, every day, we heard from Fixers who were calling to drop the ASHA membership, the CCC or both, or they were emailing. And I received dozens upon dozens upon dozens of copies of emails that were sent to people when they wanted to discontinue purchasing any of the products from ASHA. I got emails that said, this is what was said to me when I just called. I was able to track this thing from A to Z. I watched what happened, and it was wild. What was happening. They ended up extending the actual deadline to the grace period. The grace period, if you don't know, is the deadline is always December 31 for repurchasing. The grace period was January 31 what they ended up doing, because they could not handle the volume of calls, was they began advertising that January 31 deadline as the deadline to give themselves more time to take your calls. Their narrative changed when the ash and noms issue popped up, because that's when the ash and noms issue popped up was in the middle of this in December, dozens upon dozens of people were dropping membership. And then in December, ASHA sent out emails to people who had dropped membership to let them know they were out of compliance for the noms. We brought it to you guys on this podcast, and lo and behold, within 24 hours, their narrative changed, and they started warning you when you wanted to drop that you wouldn't have access to the noms anymore. So Fix SLP was very directly influencing what was happening over at ASHA. The other big thing that happened was when you dropped your membership for this year, they immediately were shutting down ASHA membership benefits for 2024 we put it out there. We said, go to your attorney general, file a complaint in your state. File a complaint with ASHA. Guess what? In under a week, ASHA figured out a way for clinicians to maintain their benefits through the end of 2024 and discontinued them for this year. That was because of Fix SLP, that wasn't because ASHA was being nice. It was because we were putting the bad behavior out there and giving you guys a way to take action. So they've had a year. Let's just hope that when, if we haven't seen the renewal letters yet, we haven't as of this recording, let's just hope that they add dropping membership back onto that application. Let's just hope. Let's hope that it used to be there. It's not anymore. Probably won't be because they want to give you some rigmarole narrative, but let's hope it's there. If it's not, gear up. Keep us informed of what you are hearing. Also, as of this recording, we have not yet seen the 990 form, the tax forms for Asha for last year. Yeah, so we don't know yet the exact number of people that have dropped membership only. We will see that soon. Last year that 990 form was out in November. You better believe, as soon as we see it, Elizabeth will be up all night, hyper focusing, making one or more podcast episodes for us, making 1500 social media posts for all of you. But we know that the number went up by the dozens.

Jeanette, you're you're ruining what my Christmas gift was going to be to Elizabeth. I was going to get it printed out on really fine bonded paper, and I was going to send it to her with this wonderful folder and a nice envelope. Damn. You just gave it away.

Well, we'll tell her not to listen. Okay, we'll send her an edited version of this podcast. So just know, we don't know yet, but if you're thinking about dropping something, unless you work for a company where you are required to do the astronoms as part of your evaluation, and that's typically in healthcare, and it's very few companies you are free to drop this membership. And the one thing I hear is it's not that much money. You're right. It's not that much money for us, but when we all do it, it is a lot of money, and it makes a point with ASHA.

It's a way of finding agency and giving yourself a voice. And that's that's everything. And as always, we would encourage you to do your due diligence, operate in your space where you are, because the last thing we want to do is put anybody in a bad position. We want everyone to thrive. We want SLPs to flourish in their environment. Some people have their CCC because they get an extra stipend from their job for doing that. If that works for you, hey, you keep doing that. Absolutely we, you know, we want people to succeed. One of the biggest reasons we came along is the stagnancy that exists in our profession right now, with wages, with rising productivity, with the work environments that some of us are in. So those are the real issues that we'd like to speak to.

Hey, before we go, this episode was sponsored today by SLP Elevate, by Speech Time Fun. All of those materials for kids grades 4 to 12, whether virtual or in person, you can head to slpelevate.com to check them out. Thanks guys!

Yes. Thank you to our episode sponsor today.

Hey, it's Jeanette jumping back in. Once again, we've recorded forgot to announce our winners, so we have three winners, as we're on our way to 100k We've got Sarah on Instagram, we've got Julie on Tiktok, and we have Emma on Instagram. So either email us at team@fixslp.com, or message us the way that I confirmed your entries, and we will get you hooked up with those prizes. We really appreciate all of you for listening all summer long, and we are so excited to hit 100,000 downloads.

So that's it. You guys remember membership, journal, discount perks, certification, credentialing product. That's the CCC license from your state authority to practice. One of these things is not like the other. You guys are walking away knowing the difference. You don't need membership or CCC to practice understanding this could save you money, increase your autonomy, clears up years of professional confusion. We will see you next week, guys, thanks for fixing it!

Thanks for listening to the Fix SLP podcast. If this episode helps you feel more informed or empowered, take a second to leave a five star rating and review. It helps more SLPs find us. Fix SLP runs on $5 sustaining partnership donations that small monthly support pays for everything behind the scenes, including our website, legal fees and advocacy work. Want to be a part of it. Join us@fixslp.com enjoy the sunshine, stay scrappy, and we'll see you next time!