An audiology practice manager runs the business side of a hearing clinic: the staff schedule, the patient flow, the revenue cycle, the device inventory and the compliance calendar, so the audiologists and hearing instrument specialists can stay clinical.
The same work appears as audiology office manager, audiology clinic manager or hearing center manager in independent practices, hearing aid chains, ENT groups and hospitals — our research found no source that standardizes the titles.
What is an audiology practice manager?
An audiology practice manager is the operations lead of a hearing care clinic: the person responsible for the staff schedule, the patient flow, the money, the equipment and the records, so the clinicians can stay clinical.
The title travels under several names — audiology office manager, audiology clinic manager, audiology manager, hearing center manager, hearing aid clinic manager — and the work underneath is one family: run the business so the clinic can practice.
The setting changes the job's edges.
An independent practice may pile all five buckets on one chair while the owner sees patients.
A multi-site chain has to cover operations at each location and keep the locations consistent — the work a second management layer above the sites owns.
An ENT group, a hospital audiology department or a university clinic runs clinic operations inside a larger organization, next to its own clinical leadership.
What each employer calls the chair, and where it reports, varies — our research could not verify titles or reporting lines from employer career pages.
The role is not the same as the clinician, and it is not the same as the owner.
A manager who does not hold the state's dispensing credential does not fit hearing aids; in some practices the owner — an audiologist — also manages.
What defines the job is the span of control: everything that has to work for a patient to be seen, billed and followed up correctly.
What do they manage: people, schedule, revenue cycle, inventory, compliance
The job is easiest to see as five buckets.
A manager's week is the attempt to keep all five moving at once.
People.
Hiring front-desk and support staff, onboarding them, building coverage around the clinicians' templates, and handling the performance conversations no one else wants.
In a smaller clinic the same work may be spread across several hats rather than pooled under one manager.
The schedule.
Keeping the calendar productive without wearing out the staff who fill it: appointment templates, recall lists, follow-ups and the daily reshuffle when someone calls in sick.
The revenue cycle.
From insurance verification at the front desk through claim submission, payment posting and the patient conversations about balances.
Coding claims is its own skill — practices with a dedicated audiology billing specialist split this bucket with that role — but the manager owns whether the billing work gets done and gets worked when a payer pushes back.
Inventory.
Hearing aid stock, demo units, earmold supplies, repair loaners and the manufacturer orders behind them, tracked so a fitting never waits on a missing device.
Compliance.
A practice answers to several bodies at once: state licensing boards for the clinicians, OSHA for workplace safety, HHS for HIPAA privacy and security, FDA rules for hearing aid devices, and payer requirements on top.
The manager keeps the calendar of renewals, trainings and documentation current — and knows which questions go back to the board or agency that owns them.
Practice manager vs clinic manager vs regional manager vs director of audiology
These titles describe a spectrum from one chair to many, not four jobs with fixed lines between them.
The employer pages our research could read did not standardize the titles, so treat the functions — not the labels — as the map.
Practice manager, office manager, clinic manager, hearing center manager.
One site, all of it: the five buckets above for a single location.
That is the role this page describes.
Multi-site and regional roles.
When one organization runs several locations, someone has to watch consistency, staffing and numbers across them — that is the work a second management layer owns.
What those roles are called — area, regional, district — varies by company, and our research could not verify chain management titles from employer career pages.
A specific company's own postings are the reliable source for its structure.
Director of audiology.
A clinical-leadership role over audiology services, the shape you see in hospitals, ENT groups, universities and larger practices: part management, part clinical credibility, with a hand in protocols, equipment and staff development.
What a director role requires — a doctorate, a license, years of experience — varies by employer, and our research did not confirm typical requirements across employers.
Reporting lines vary the same way.
In a practice small enough that the owner still sees patients, the manager may answer to the owner; in larger organizations the chart changes with the org, and the posting is the honest answer.
Do you need to be an audiologist to manage a practice?
The manager's work is business operations; the clinical work is something else.
Clinical duties in a hearing clinic sit on credentialed roles — the audiologist's state license, and the state credential that covers fitting and selling prescription hearing aids.
Those duties stay with the people who hold the credentials, whoever runs the schedule.
ASHA's Code of Ethics draws the delegation line for the audiologists who hold its Certificate of Clinical Competence.
Clinical-service tasks may go to aides, assistants and technicians only when those staff are adequately prepared and appropriately supervised.
Responsibility for patient welfare stays with the certified audiologist.
The Code bars delegating tasks that need the audiologist's own skills, judgment or credentials.
A non-audiologist manager directs the operation around that line; the line itself belongs to the clinician and the board.
We did not find a state-issued license for practice managers as such in the rules our research read.
What any one employer asks for is set by that employer's posting, and our research found no requirement standardized across employers.
Managing is also not owning.
Who may own a hearing aid business, and what an owner must file, is decided state by state.
Illinois is one worked example.
Under 225 ILCS 50/5, a corporation, partnership or other entity can run a hearing aid business without a separate license of its own if it employs only licensed individuals for testing, fitting and dispensing.
It must also file IDPH a list of its licensed dispensers and a compliance statement before doing business, and again by July 1 each year.
Ownership is its own career and its own rulebook; this page stays on the manager's chair.
Confirm licensure and delegation with the board
How people become practice managers
Routes into the role include these three.
Up from clinic staff.
Front-desk and support roles already touch the manager's buckets: scheduling, recalls, insurance details.
ASHA's 2025 audiology assistant survey puts a number on the overlap — 48% of audiology assistant respondents reported performing managerial duties such as scheduling.
For clinic staff, the step up means widening the work you already do.
From the clinical chair.
Audiologists and hearing instrument specialists can move into management after clinical years, trading some patient time for the operation.
From outside hearing care.
A manager may also come from another kind of healthcare practice.
The revenue-cycle and staffing work overlaps with the five buckets above; the hearing-specific payer and device side is new ground.
On credentials: in medical practice management generally, MGMA's ACMPE board certification awards the Certified Medical Practice Executive (CMPE).
After applying, candidates pass two exams and complete 50 continuing education hours within three years.
We did not verify an audiology-specific practice-manager certification for individuals.
The hearing-care accreditation our research verified is practice-level: the Academy of Doctors of Audiology runs an Audiology Practice Accreditation program for practices, not individuals, with standards adopted by ADA members in 2025.
Audiology practice manager pay
BLS has no exact occupation for this role, so pay comes with a label.
The closest available proxy is Medical and Health Services Managers (SOC 11-9111) — an occupation that includes hospital executives and so overstates what a small hearing practice pays.
Its national median was $123,860 a year in May 2025 (BLS OEWS).
Inside NAICS 621340 — offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists, and audiologists — the same occupation's median was $100,290, with the 10th percentile at $74,960 and the 90th at $137,520.
That NAICS row is the industry closest to private audiology and hearing aid practices, but it mixes those offices and is not audiology-only.
Both figures cover wage-and-salary workers, so neither includes self-employed owners.
The proxy gives context; it does not answer the pay question for any one practice.
Find audiology management jobs
The same job hides under many names, so search all of them: audiology practice manager, audiology office manager, audiology clinic manager, hearing center manager, hearing aid clinic manager and audiology manager.
This bucket of work appears in independent practices, hearing aid chains, ENT groups and hospitals — the posting's title is the variable.
Because the titles are not standardized, read postings for their requirements rather than their titles.
When you are ready to look, browse audiology practice manager jobs on HearingHires.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical, clinical, billing or tax advice — confirm credential and compliance questions with the bodies named, starting with your state's licensing board.