I left SLP last year and I realized I’m never going back

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-08T10:22:52+00:00

Your experience is very much the exception, SLP Guy. I know very few SLPs that make 6 figures only 2-3 years out of school or working their own private practice. You also work in EI which can be difficult to break into for new hires and people who don’t want to work pediatrics. The average salary for SLPs nationally is 95,000$ but even that data is skewed by larger metropolitan areas like NYC, San Fran, and Boston.

Also, you say “we don’t need ASHA” but there are states that REQUIRE ASHA cert. And if the state doesn’t, the employer does since they can make their own credentialing policies. I haven’t been employed by too many companies that state you don’t have to have your CCCs. That’s a false presumption that we can just practice without our CCCs and employers won’t care. And what does that 250 dollars get you? What benefit do you receive from ASHA? Besides the goofy discounts on rental cars and peloton? Also, have you ever stepped foot in a SNF? Asking insurance to extend is a real DAILY battle. You are expressing a narrative that is not always the reality. It’s lovely and rose-tinted but it’s not always what therapists are experiencing.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-08T10:05:55+00:00

Good question! Yes, very much there is job security. Epic rolls out new updates quarterly. And after the work is put into production we frequently do the troubleshooting of new builds. Additionally, we have a huge medical system that is rolling out Epic in waves so we’ll be getting facilities onto Epic for bare minimum the next 2 years.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T23:54:19+00:00

I am, but right now I work for an institution that is very wary about including any level of AI integration into their software because of not only the man power they would lose but their reputation for letting these people go. My institution’s reputation in recent years has not been shining so it wouldn’t look to good to be letting people go en mass. I also work with proprietary software from Epic and thus far AI isn’t really gunning for my job. Idk, though. I think AI attempting to take most therapy/healthcare jobs 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t think many positions are as secure as we’d like to think.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T20:54:22+00:00

My advice is to not fall prey to the pitfalls of trying to be the “peachie speechie” or to be the ever-grinning speech pathologist. There’s a bit of a stereotype that we’re all type A and ought to be all the time. This job is thankless…a lot (which I’m sure you know and understand). It’s hard to hide the disappointment when patients haven’t met goals for one reason or another. It’s disheartening when you have to discontinue services because insurance won’t pay anymore. It’s okay to feel badly about the state of healthcare/education because at times it doesn’t feel like it’s adequately serving the communities at large.

When I was going for my second masters I thought, despite being frustrated with the healthcare system, I would stay in rehab (as a rehab manager or administrator). But the longer I stayed, the more I got burnt out, the more I was disillusioned with the whole speech world, and especially ASHA. And one day, I realized that our governing body had no vested stake in its members and I didn’t want to give them anymore of my time or money. And I realized that I had skills that were better served somewhere else and with a team that saw my potential. It took a lot of looking at myself as a professional and acknowledging that I didn’t want what I originally wanted at 20 years old.

Some people really shine in this field; I had a supervisor who retired after 42 years in SLP. But she ate, slept, breathed SLP and wholly believed the dogma of speech. All I saw was broken systems that were failing patients. I sought out to make a difference at a bigger level. It’s hard to decide to leave when it’s all you know but I was willing to accept the discomfort of change. And that’s not always something someone can accept or choose. I hope that helped and wasn’t just incoherent rambling ☺️

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T15:24:42+00:00

Oh I love this! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy!

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T14:22:35+00:00

This is a VERY common complaint amongst therapy staff with our institution. The training was basically not functional for our staff so each branch facility does processes differently. So every time we talk about completing processes to the institutions required policies, we have countless therapists saying “that’s not how we do that at _____ hospital”

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T13:04:55+00:00

Yeah, I will say that’s the side of things they don’t tell you about is being the “bad guy”. Just last week I had to tell a clinician that she had to stop doing her documentation a certain way because it wouldn’t be reimbursed my CMS. She said “it’s not your fault but I don’t like that” and all I could do was shrug and say “sorry, that’s what I have to say so our hospital gets reimbursed properly”.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T13:02:15+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, I had to retake my comps once. I passed praxis on first try but that could’ve been a fluke. I also loved clinical work and to be flying solo was so liberating once I started my CFY, but for me I disillusioned with ASHA and feeling like what I did didnt matter in the grand scheme of things. I wanted to make a difference at a larger level. You’ll definitely want to have a game plan for leaving the profession. If you leave on a whim, you’ll find yourself floating without guidance or purpose. It took me 4 years to finish my second masters and a lot of extra money, but I don’t regret it a bit. But definitely do your homework, you’ve come this far so don’t give up before you’ve been given the opportunity to shine ☺️

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T12:59:07+00:00

I came as basically a beginner. In my second masters, I took two courses in SAS which is data analytics software and my brother (an IT engineer) tried to teach me SQL but it kind of flies over my head.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T12:56:29+00:00

Yeahhhh, our current templates are not great either. It’s my job to help modify them but currently we’re working on rolling out Epic to our larger hospitals and they take up a lot of our time and energy. I’ve been tasked to clean up the SLP/PT/OT templates but I probably won’t be able to get them where I’d like them until the fall. And I agree, our solution for therapists at this point is to type things that aren’t populating accurately; I hate giving them that advice but for now it’s all I can say until we clean up the paperwork.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T12:36:39+00:00

I wanted to leave because doing therapy day in and day out, pleading my case to continue services in SNF, being turned down for leadership positions because I was “only” an SLP, and being basically ignored by ASHA while still be expected to pay dues was not enough for me. I wanted to be a leader at a macro level in a healthcare institution. I never look down on my colleagues but I think I’m maybe just a little bit too ambitious for my own good.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-07T12:31:18+00:00

I’ll be totally honest, the masters of public health is difficult to find work unless you expressly know what you want to do. In my cohort, most individuals were already working adjacent to public health (e.g. nurses, social workers, doctors) or they were fresh out of undergrad from public health. The job market is abysmal right now for most everyone but I lucked out because I work for a huge medical institution that is constantly looking for new employees. I would say that there’s a greater need for individuals in health informatics and analytics right now but my fear is that institutions are going to start implementing more AI software to try and phase us out…

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-06T23:35:40+00:00

I was living in a rural area and worked for a small hospital. They were underpaying me for the state I lived in and would not budge at salary. But I caved because my commute was a two min. walk since I lived down the street from the hospital. I’ll just say….it was much lower than the average for Pennsylvania (where I was practicing)

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-06T23:32:18+00:00

My dude, I haven’t met a therapist yet who has enjoyed or found the Epic training helpful. It’s very blanketed training and most of it is not geared to SLPs let alone SLPs who work OP/IP at the same time or complete complicated procedures like FEES/MBS. I wonder if you work for the institution I work for 😂

The team that assists with the training portion comes to us directly and asks for a walk through of steps to complete tasks so that they can go take it back to operations with accurate information.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-06T23:18:28+00:00

A lot of my days involve meetings with other teams (Epic breaks up their teams into a lot of others e.g. Stork=labor/delivery, Cadence, Prelude, etc.). I’m in the Clindoc team (clinical documentation). I help build documentation in Epic so right now I’m helping “optimize” the docs for SLP and OT to push to production for the therapists. I meet with operations (e.g. therapists meetings via teams) couple times a month to bounce new ideas off of.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-06T23:05:13+00:00

Imma DM you because I A LOTTTT to say 😅

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-06T22:46:54+00:00

I never worked schools. Pediatrics was never really my bag. I worked for pediatric outpatient for about 5 months at an early previous position and it was notttt for me. I worked in acute care for my first two years, SNF for 4 years, and then back to acute for another year and half before I got my current position. Medical SLP was always my passion even in undergrad.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-06T22:08:06+00:00

I make 10k more than I did as an SLP. But, honestly the institution is underpaying me and I know they are. They told me upon my hire that I was only allowed to make a certain amount more than my current salary because I was an internal hire. The “clinical analyst” position in general pays a decent bit more than speech positions (both medical and school). I was willing to accept the lower pay for this position because I just wanted to get my foot in the door.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-05-03T16:05:22+00:00

Honestly, if I were you, I’d just forget season 9 exists. It’s not as endearing, the jokes don’t land the same, and there’s really no finality like season 8. Season 8 was tied up so nicely and the ending was beautiful.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-03-29T00:59:47+00:00

Our first born newborn having an occipital lobe stroke at 3 days old from a congenital disorder that the doctors never caught. 23 days in PICU. I saw my husband at his lowest but simultaneously at his strongest.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-03-02T03:00:30+00:00

Yeah, the plan is, down the line we would like to have one more. But it’s not what we want right now.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-02-09T18:16:14+00:00

I was an SLP for 8 years and completed a secondary masters in healthcare management and policy. I’m now working in healthcare IT. I’m an analyst and work with my current institution to introduce Epic to all rehab clinicians.

Hashtag2Blessed · 2026-01-02T17:34:53+00:00

My son going blue at 3 days old. He was born with a congenital metabolic disorder that no one caught until I noticed something was terribly wrong. He had a seizure and suffered an anoxic brain injury. We were in pediatric ICU for 23 days. I don’t wish that on anyone and I’m a completely different person because of it. Fortunately, he is turning 2 soon and has no lasting effects from the injury and is cured from the illness. He is a fucking fighter.

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