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

Jeanette Benigas49min

Jeanette Benigas

00:00

Hey, fixers. I'm Dr Jeanette Benigas, the owner of fix SLP, a grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech language pathology by driving real change from insurance regulations to removing barriers that prevent full autonomy like the CCC, this podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of speech language pathology. We don't wait for change. We make it so let's fix SLP!

Jeanette Benigas

00:46

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

Brooke Richardson

01:18

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

Jeanette Benigas

03:26

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

Brooke Richardson

04:57

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

Jeanette Benigas

06:22

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

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