ASHA CE Is Eliminating Appeals and Adopting Consultations

By now you’ve probably heard that we’re eliminating appeals and adopting a new approach to support ASHA Approved CE Providers’ adherence to the CE Board Requirements. Moving forward, CE won’t require appeals and the associated appeal fees in instances where the Requirements aren’t met. We’ve replaced the appeals process with a more consultative approach. Your Provider Management team (Provider Manager and Accounts Manager) will work collaboratively with you and discuss issues with registration or reporting, assess the circumstances surrounding missed Requirement(s), and help you find and implement a solution. We’re moving from appeals to answers—and from fees to fixes!

We started the process of evaluating our approach to supporting Providers’ adherence to the CE Board Requirements in 2019. This new approach is the result of interviews and feedback from a broad spectrum of our ASHA Approved CE Providers. Many thanks to all of you who shared your experiences, your ideas, and your frank assessment of our appeals system.

So, how will this work? This workflow [PDF] provides a good introduction of our new approach, but the general idea is that your Provider Manager or Accounts Manager will collaborate with you to explore what happened leading up to your getting notified that you haven’t met a certain CE Board Requirement. If we find a systemic issue, we’ll meet with you to formulate a plan and establish a timeframe to resolve the issue. In many cases, this plan will work. If the action plan doesn’t address the problem, you’ll continue to work with your Provider Management team to adjust the plan until together we reach a resolution.

Under our new approach, the focus is on helping you identify and correct the root cause of an issue, which should prevent the same thing from happening in the future. This saves you time and ensures that course participants will receive their ASHA continuing education units (CEUs) without delay!

Compliance issues that occurred prior to March 1, 2022, will still be addressed through our existing appeals process, and fees may be assessed. These issues include late course or offering registration, late course or offering reporting, noncompliant courses (i.e., missing Brand Block or missing disclosures), inaccurate reporting, and late roster correction. Issues that occur on or after March 1 will be handled using the new compliance model.

We’ll have an agile rollout for the new approach, and it’s possible that we’ll make changes if we find it necessary. However, our focus won’t change—working with you to find solutions! Please reach out to your Provider Manager or Accounts Manager if you have any questions.