To meet rising costs caused by inflation, ASHA will change its dues for the 2025 membership year. Certified Member dues will rise to $250 (a $25 increase) beginning in 2025. Some types of membership and affiliation will also increase 11%. Initial application fees for new professionals will be reduced.
The updated membership dues structure is outlined below.
General Information About the Dues Increase
Financials
Membership
Certification
Advocacy
ASHA Dues and Fees | |
---|---|
Category | 2025 Price |
Certified member | $250 |
Graduate student certified member | $150 |
Member without certification | $90 |
Certified nonmember | $221 |
Life member | $71 |
International affiliate | $75 |
Certified assistant | $125 |
ASHA Discount Application Fees | |
---|---|
Application Type | 2025 Fee |
New Professional Membership Package | $490 |
NSSLHA to ASHA Membership Conversion Discount | $240 |
Payment for the 2025 membership year is due by December 31, 2024. You can pay your 2025 ASHA dues beginning in September 2024.
The ASHA Board of Directors (BOD) votes to set dues every year. This year, the Financial Planning Board (FPB) recommended dues increases to meet rising costs. After careful analysis, the BOD approved the FPB’s recommendation.
The decision to increase dues was informed by the 2023 preliminary financial results and updated projections for 2024. These results and projections underscored the increasing difficulty of obtaining a positive bottom line, which is required in ASHA’s Bylaws to
ASHA’s dues have remained steady for the past 15 years—even though inflation during that time increased an average of 6% each year. Over the last several years, ASHA has drawn on its reserves to forego a dues increase. Drawing on reserves as a routine measure is unsustainable; without an increase in dues, ASHA would be forced to draw even more from its reserves, thus limiting the ability to fund new initiatives and potentially causing the Association to eliminate certain services.
In addition, inflation has impacted ASHA’s operations. Items such as information technology costs (e.g., websites, online tools, and other related systems) have increased by more than 200% over the past 5 years. We cut expenses wherever possible and worked hard to increase non-dues revenue. Ultimately, however, we cannot sustain our current programs—much less add the new programs and support those programs critical to meeting member needs—without increasing dues.
It’s necessary for ASHA to raise dues to meet rising costs caused by inflation. Since ASHA last raised its dues 15 years ago, the costs of providing programs, services, and products to members has increased. Updated dues will help us strengthen existing supports and create new professional tools.
ASHA recognizes the need to ease barriers to resources for early-career professionals. ASHA made this choice to encourage and invest in the new audiologists and speech-language pathologists joining our community.
We have not turned off comments on our social media posts and are leaving all comments on our posts visible, except for those that include profanity or bullying violations against other members and comments that violate our community guidelines.
We did turn off our Facebook reviews because of misinformation and inaccuracies being included in reviews.
We do not control Google reviews, but Google uses automated spam detection measures and will remove reviews that they classify as spam.
For information on how ASHA’s revenue is allocated, and what you get for your dues, please visit Understanding Where Your ASHA Dues Money Goes.
Except for the ASHA chief executive officer (CEO), who is a non-voting member of the BOD, ASHA Board members are unpaid volunteers. Board members must be current ASHA members. Their member dues are not compensated by the Association. Although the Board does receive reimbursement for required travel undertaken as part of their official duties, they receive no compensation for their volunteer work.
Dues for the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) are $295 annually. The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) recently started offering three tiers of membership; their middle (most popular) tier is $229 annually. Both fees cover membership only. Certification is an additional cost.
To make sure you’re taking full advantage of ASHA’s support, visit your ASHA member benefits webpage.
ASHA is committed to collaborating with members to advocate for your needs, promote your work’s value, and provide trusted practical tools. As a member, you have access to a deep network to help you problem-solve.
If you want to advocate for an issue, if you want to talk through a professional challenge in a one-on-one consultation, or if you wish you had a specific tool to make your work easier, contact ASHA’s Action Center. We’ll connect you to ASHA’s supports. Your question may inspire a new resource!
ASHA expenses support certified clinicians (including those who do not hold ASHA membership) and educators (including members without certification). Because of the overlap between these two groups, we can offer a package discount to those who want to be certified members.
Yes! All ASHA members have free access to all four of ASHA’s scholarly journals as a benefit of their membership. The four scholarly journals include the following:
The scholarly review journal, Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, is available only to those who are current Special Interest Group (SIG) affiliates. If you are a member of any of ASHA’s 20 SIGs, you have access to all Perspectives content.
If you are a current ASHA member and are unable to access ASHA journals, please make sure that you are logged in to your ASHA account. If you are still having trouble, please contact the Action Center.
We understand the importance of continuing education for maintaining licensure and certification and for staying current in the profession of speech-language pathology. Although ASHA does offer a variety of continuing education opportunities—including webinars, courses, and events—we typically do not provide free courses for ASHA CEUs.
However, we want to assure you that ASHA strives to offer affordable, accessible continuing education options for our members. We offer discounted rates on many of our professional development resources. We host free or low-cost events and webinars for members. If you are unable to pay for any professional development programs, please apply for the ASHA Learning Pass Hardship Access.
We also encourage you to check out CEFind to search for continuing education from hundreds of approved providers.
The Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) reflects that you have met and continue to meet a national set of standards and are committed to an ethical code of conduct that is consistent across states. As a practical matter, it also eases the burden of practicing in multiple states and conducting teletherapy. Without national certification standards, existing challenges to the professions—including concerns related to reimbursement and salary issues, as well as scope creep—may increase.
Holding the CCC indicates that you as a clinican have met either the Standards for the CCC-A and/or the Standards for the CCC-SLP, which are the product of both qualitative and quantitative data collection from subject-matter experts following best practices in standards-setting and are regularly reviewed to ensure that they meet current practice requirements.
The ASHA Certification Program is accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), whose standards were developed to (a) help ensure the health, welfare, and safety to the public and (b) highlight the essential elements of a high-quality program.
This accreditation provides impartial, third-party validation and verifies that ASHA’s certification program meets recognized national and international credentialing industry standards for development, implementation, and maintenance of the certification program, which is why many state licensure requirements are modeled on the CCCs.
To become a certificate holder only, you may do so by contacting the Action Center. Please note that when resigning from or dropping your ASHA membership and/or certification, refunds are not permitted after January 1 for the year in which the fees apply.
If you make the switch now, you will lose access to all member benefits, and you will be invoiced for just the cost of certification for your 2025 renewal.
A few things to keep in mind when making the decision to drop membership:
ASHA advocates for audiologists and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) at the federal, state, and local level. ASHA has a large team of 19 government affairs professionals whose primary mission is to advocate for and directly influence public and payer policies beneficial to audiologists and SLPs. Members of ASHA’s Government Affairs and Public Policy team include congressional lobbyists, federal and state regulatory and policy experts, state policy specialists and state association liaisons, and advocacy communication specialists.
At the federal, state, and payer levels, ASHA advocates extensively for policies that members identify as priorities, such as better coverage of and payment for services provided by audiologists and SLPs, greater access and more efficient ways to deliver these services, and workplaces that encourage efficient, effective service delivery. We are at the table with key legislators, decision makers, and regulators to (a) show them the value and impact of your work and (b) ensure that the interests of audiologists and SLPs are fully represented.
We also work hard behind the scenes to stop or mitigate those policies that could negatively impact you. We know that the slow pace of advocacy work can be frustrating in the face of urgent needs. But we are here, working hard to make a difference for you—whether it’s fighting for big victories like payment increases or protecting your scope of practice, or small victories like helping an individual member navigate a particularly frustrating payer challenge.
In 2023, ASHA and its members achieved significant policy victories benefiting audiologists and SLPs. Here are the highlights.
We know that you’re facing urgent challenges every day. Successful advocacy takes time and sustained effort. Our staff is dedicated to working hard and continuously to make a difference for you. To see what members have identified as the advocacy priorities for 2024, take a look at ASHA’s Public Policy Agenda. For more information on ASHA’s advocacy activities—and the tools and resources that we develop to help you navigate daily challenges—visit ASHA Advocacy. Sign up to receive the ASHA Advocate newsletter by subscribing to ASHA Headlines email updates.
ASHA is committed to supporting school-based SLPs and to advocating for fair wages.
Here are some ways in which ASHA is working to help increase wages for school-based SLPs:
ASHA is committed to advocating for fair wages and supporting school-based SLPs in their efforts to achieve professional success and financial security. We are and will continue to be tireless in our efforts to ensure that school-based SLPs receive the compensation they deserve.
ASHA works to advocate for state legislation that proposes salary supplements for educational audiologists and school-based SLPs. This work is done in partnership with state associations (see “How Does ASHA Work with State Associations?”)
ASHA recommends aligning state licensing standards with ASHA CCCs requirements as an indicator of quality achieved and maintained by the service provider and a commitment to continued learning. By obtaining the CCCs, you can feel assured that you’ve likely met your state’s licensure requirements. Consistent, high-level standards also provide assurance to patients and the public that all audiologists and SLPs who have earned the CCCs are qualified to provide care regardless of their state of residency or educational institution. Without these standards, you are at risk of other professionals providing these services, which further impacts the amount of scope-of-practice issues that we are already experiencing and potentially puts the consumer at risk.
Ensuring consistency and agreement in licensure requirements across states further supports our efforts to continue adding states to the Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact (ASLP-IC), which will offer advantages to audiologists and SLPs by reducing costs and easing the burden of practicing in multiple states.
ASHA and state associations work together to advocate at the state level. Every state association has direct access to ASHA’s State Affairs team to collaborate on state legislative and regulatory issues. ASHA assists state associations with various activities, including advocacy, member recruitment, and association management. ASHA also supports recognized state associations by:
We encourage everyone to join and remain active with their state association.
The ASHA Political Action Committee (ASHA-PAC) considers politicians’ stances and statements on relevant health care and educational issues. ASHA-PAC also supports legislators whose leadership and committee roles position them to influence the success of ASHA’s legislative priorities. ASHA-PAC donations go directly to the congressional campaigns of candidates who support legislation that benefits ASHA members, your students, your clients, and your patients.
ASHA-PAC is funded by member donations—not member dues. The decision to support the political action committee’s work on behalf of members is up to you. However, not one cent of membership dues go to the ASHA-PAC.