2025 Advocacy Priorities for Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists

2025 ASHA Public Policy Agenda

The 2025 Public Policy Agenda acknowledges ASHA’s ongoing work with government payers (Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare) and private insurers, and the Association’s efforts to develop useful tools and resources that help members understand and navigate case-level nuances of billing, coding, and payer/ practice management challenges. Beyond the ongoing work, and in partnership with members, ASHA will continually engage in efforts with state- and federal-level legislators, regulators, payers, and agencies to:

• Protect and Improve Payment: By engaging in grassroots and organized advocacy efforts, ASHA and its members will work to inform stakeholders of the valued role of the professions. We will strive to protect and improve payment for audiology and speech-language pathology services and stop unsustainable cuts that inhibit members’ ability to provide quality and timely services.
• Advance Efforts to Secure Comprehensive Coverage: By continually emphasizing the importance of—and economic and societal outcomes for—services rendered by the professions, ASHA and its members will work with stakeholders to preserve and expand payer coverage for audiology and speech-language pathology services.
• Expand and Permanently Cover Telehealth Services: By showcasing the benefits of incorporating telehealth as a service delivery option for the professions, ASHA and its members will support payment parity policies and policies that explicitly incorporate the full audiology and speech-language pathology scope of practice into telehealth service delivery across settings.
• Assess and Advise on Value-Based Care: ASHA and its members will actively seek meaningful opportunities to collaborate with legislators, regulators, and payers to ensure that the health care system’s transition to value-based care (VBC) payment models―which reward providers for the value of care (quality and cost) instead of the volume of services provided―protects ASHA members and recognizes the value of our services while enhancing the outcomes for those we serve.

ASHA responds to member concerns regarding challenges affecting service delivery through monitoring and responding to legislative and regulatory changes that can impact licensing requirements and/or the scope of practice for the professions. In partnership with its members, ASHA will:

• Support Anti-Discriminatory Policies: Communication is a basic human right. ASHA and its members will protect policies that enhance the clinician’s ability to provide services to all—regardless of age; citizenship; disability; ethnicity; gender, gender expression, gender identity, and genetic information; national origin, including culture, language, dialect, and accent; neurodiversity; race; religion; sex, sexual orientation; socioeconomic status; and/or veteran status.
• Support Early Identification and Intervention Initiatives: It is important to promote the value of early intervention services with state and federal programs (e.g., Early Hearing Detection and Intervention) and with agencies that are crucial to the equitable, timely, and accurate assessment of—and intervention for—communication and hearing disorders. ASHA and its members will support initiatives that increase access to early identification and intervention services.
• Secure the Interoperability of Licensure Standards: Our services are valuable, and the needs of our clients/patients/ students are growing at a rapid rate. The result is severely overburdened members—and underserved individuals and communities. Licensure standards are designed to protect consumers from harm by ensuring that only those with the appropriate qualifications and training can provide audiology and speech-language pathology services. ASHA and its members will (a) remind and affirm to key stakeholders the value and authority of licensure standards across all service delivery methods (including telehealth), (b) uphold the education and training standards for the professions, and (c) operationalize the Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact to ensure expansion and access to care.

The 2025 Public Policy Agenda prioritizes workforce improvements that will address the challenges that (a) detract from members’ ability to provide services effectively and efficiently and (b) negatively impact their health and well-being. These improvements include long-term, partnered (ASHA and membership) initiatives targeting inadequate pay, high workloads, unrealistic productivity standards, and unsafe workplaces. In collaboration with members, ASHA will:

• Grow, Diversify, and Retain Providers: By promoting policies that incentivize entry into the professions, and facilitate safe and effective service delivery, ASHA and its members will showcase the value of the profession’s services, recruit and train diverse clinicians and scientists, and secure the continuation of timely and quality services for those we serve.
• Support Salary Supplement Initiatives: By continually monitoring and engaging with state-level associations and lawmakers, ASHA and its members will (a) affirm the rigorous standards to which school-based clinicians are held that contribute to full student participation in school and (b) advocate for pay that is commensurate with our high-level education, experience, knowledge, and training as well as the additional services that we provide (e.g., Medicaid billing).
• Monitor and Engage on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): ASHA will (a) monitor the growth and use of AI—by clinicians, payers, and decision makers—and (b) provide targeted engagement with state and federal legislators, regulators, and payers. In doing so, we will ensure that our interests are represented in critical decisions and discussions that could impact ASHA members and the individuals we serve.
• Champion Solutions to Problems Facing School-Based Members: ASHA understands the challenges that members who work in school settings need help overcoming—unmanageable caseloads, insufficient resources, and unrealistic workload expectations—and we will fight for policies that enhance and support the capacity of educational audiologists and school-based SLPs to provide timely and comprehensive services to students with communication disorders.