A medical audiologist works inside the health care system — an otolaryngology (ENT) practice, a hospital audiology department or an academic medical center — where the schedule centers on diagnostic testing.
The work runs from hearing and balance assessment to evoked potentials, vestibular assessment, cochlear implant programming and intraoperative monitoring.
This guide explains the role, how it differs from dispensing and retail audiology, where the jobs are and the credentials medical employers expect.
What is a medical audiologist?
A medical audiologist is an audiologist who practices inside a medical setting — an otolaryngology (ENT) group, a hospital audiology department or an academic medical center — rather than in a retail or chain hearing aid store.
The defining feature is the caseload: the work centers on diagnostic evaluation and medically oriented care, and hearing aid dispensing may or may not be part of the job.
Medical audiologist, hospital audiologist, clinical audiologist and diagnostic audiologist are employer job titles for this kind of work — not separate licenses and not national credentials.
Every one of them sits on the same state license: BLS notes that all states require audiologists to be licensed, with requirements that vary by state.
Because the caseload is diagnostic, the results feed physicians' decisions — and the scope documents make the interprofessional character explicit: AAA's 2023 scope puts audiologists on the implant team, and ASHA's includes monitoring that supports the surgical team.
Expect documentation and physician communication to be part of the job rather than an add-on.
Two professional scope documents show how far the medical side of the profession runs:
- ASHA's audiology scope of practice includes measuring and interpreting sensory and motor evoked potentials, EMG and other electrodiagnostic tests for neurophysiologic intraoperative monitoring and cranial nerve assessment.
- The American Academy of Audiology's 2023 scope lists the same neurophysiological monitoring territory, adding nerve conduction and intraoperative monitoring of cranial nerve and spinal cord function.
The titles overlap in job postings; the setting and the caseload, not the word in the title, tell you what a given job actually is.
How does medical audiology differ from dispensing and retail audiology?
The difference is what fills the calendar.
In a medical setting the schedule is diagnostic: hearing and balance assessment that supports a physician's diagnosis, implant programming and monitoring during surgery.
In dispensing and retail settings the work centers on the hearing aid: AAA's 2023 scope includes determining the appropriateness of prescription and OTC hearing aids for people with hearing loss.
Neither description makes one setting more clinical than the other: audiologists in both hold the same state license, so the license — not the setting — is what carries over.
The practical differences are structural:
- Care model. Medical audiology works alongside physicians, so testing supports an ENT physician's diagnosis and treatment plan.
- Product involvement. Whether a given medical practice dispenses hearing aids or focuses on diagnostics is employer-specific, and dispensing is decided state by state for audiologists — retail and chain roles, by contrast, are built around the hearing aid itself.
- Employer. A medical audiologist's employer is a hospital, a physician group or a university; dispensing roles also exist in independent practices, chains and franchises.
- Pay structure. The same occupation earns different BLS medians in different industries — the next section has the figures.
For AuD students the two paths first diverge at the clinical externship: where you train shapes the cases you have seen and the skills you can demonstrate in an interview.
Where do medical audiologists work: ENT practices, hospitals and academic centers
Two sources describe where audiologists work, and they count different populations — BLS counts jobs, while ASHA surveys its certified members — so read each with its own base.
BLS's 2025 employer profile names offices of physicians (26%), offices of PT, OT, speech therapists and audiologists (26%), hospitals (16%) and educational services (10%) as the largest employers of audiologists.
ENT groups are physician practices, so they sit inside that offices-of-physicians share, and the 16% hospital share is audiologists employed by hospitals.
ASHA's 2025 profile of ASHA-certified audiologists reports 76.2% working in health care settings: 30.0% in hospitals and 45.5% in nonresidential health care, a group that includes private physicians' offices (11.9%) and audiologists' or speech-language pathologists' offices (7.1%).
The same ASHA profile puts 5.6% in colleges and universities and 6.6% in schools.
Pay tracks the setting too: BLS's May 2025 median annual wages for audiologists are $103,700 in hospitals, $98,110 in educational services, $92,620 in offices of physicians and $81,730 in offices of PT, OT, speech therapists and audiologists.
BLS reports audiologists as one occupation, so those medians describe all audiologists in each industry — our sources carry no separate "medical audiologist" wage.
The three medical settings are not interchangeable: the employer determines the referral base, the caseload mix and — in an academic center — whether teaching or research is part of the job.
What does the diagnostic caseload look like?
A medical caseload is built from the profession's assessment and treatment areas rather than from product appointments.
ASHA's 2018 scope lists assessment areas across the lifespan, including auditory processing and tinnitus, and says audiologists engage in hearing and balance assessment, nonmedical treatment and (re)habilitation, including diagnosis, for people of all ages.
Four workstreams anchor the medical caseload:
- Diagnostic hearing evaluation. Hearing and balance assessment that supports a physician's diagnosis — the referral work of a medical clinic.
- Evoked potentials and intraoperative monitoring. ASHA's scope includes sensory and motor evoked potentials, EMG and other electrodiagnostic tests for neurophysiologic intraoperative monitoring and cranial nerve assessment, and AAA's 2023 scope adds nerve conduction and monitoring of cranial nerve and spinal cord function.
- Vestibular assessment and treatment. AAA's 2023 scope says audiologists treat certain vestibular conditions, including canalith repositioning for BPPV, gaze stabilization exercises and adaptation, habituation and substitution training.
- Cochlear implants. AAA's 2023 scope places audiologists on the implant team for cochlear, middle ear, fully implantable and osseointegrated devices, where they determine audiologic candidacy and are principally responsible for device programming.
Which of these workstreams fills the week depends on the employer — the same license supports all of them, and a job posting shows which ones a given department emphasizes.
BLS notes that audiologists may work with audiology assistants, whom BLS classifies as a type of medical assistant — so support staff may be part of the department's staffing model.
What our research did not find is any source quantifying patients per day or appointment length; those depend on the department, so treat a caseload figure in a posting as that employer's own number, not an industry benchmark.
Skills and credentials medical settings expect
Every medical audiology job starts from the same baseline: a state audiology license — BLS notes all states require audiologists to be licensed, with requirements that vary by state.
Two national credentials are the ones AAA's member survey measures: ASHA's Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology (CCC-A) and American Board of Audiology certification.
In AAA's 2023 Compensation and Benefits Survey of Academy members, 83% said their employer required the CCC-A and 24% said ABA certification was required.
In the same survey, 77% of respondents held the CCC-A themselves and 32% held ABA certification.
Our research found no published pay premium attached to ABA certification, and neither AAA's nor ASHA's published surveys report one.
For specialty work, the American Board of Audiology currently offers the Pediatric Audiology Specialty Certification (PASC) and the Vestibular Audiology Specialty Certification (VASC) alongside ABA Certified and its general board certification.
The American Board of Audiology no longer offers a cochlear implant specialty exam: its Cochlear Implant Specialty Certification (CISC) exam was discontinued in 2018, and the board offers only reinstatement of lapsed credentials.
The skills underneath the credentials are the diagnostic toolset — evoked potentials, vestibular assessment, implant programming — plus the documentation and physician communication the setting involves.
Confirm requirements before you apply
Find medical audiologist jobs
Medical audiology jobs sit where the diagnostics are: ENT and otolaryngology groups, hospital audiology departments, academic medical centers and cochlear implant programs.
Conditions look different by setting, at least to the people working in them.
In ASHA's 2023 Audiology Survey, audiologists in nonresidential health care facilities (52%) were the most likely to say there were more job openings than job seekers in their setting, and hospital audiologists (36%) the least likely.
Those figures are respondents' own ratings of their local market, not vacancy counts.
Search titles beyond the exact phrase: ENT audiologist, hospital audiologist, clinical audiologist, diagnostic audiologist and cochlear implant audiologist all name medical-setting roles built on the same license.
New graduates should weigh the clinical externship setting carefully, because the cases you log there shape the experience you can point to in a first medical-setting role.
HearingHires lists openings across these settings on the medical audiologist jobs board, with filters for salary and benefits.
If you are on the other side of the table and need to hire a medical audiologist, start at the HearingHires hiring hub.
Career information, not licensing, legal, medical or billing advice — confirm license and credential requirements with your state audiology board and the credential bodies named.