How to hire an audiologist: where to find candidates, what to look for and what to offer

Hiring an audiologist is a capacity decision before it is a recruiting one. The signals live in your own books: appointments booked further out than your patients will wait, follow-up and recall work slipping, diagnostic slots crowding out hearing aid fittings, or a second test bay standing empty while the first runs all day. Set your own threshold from those numbers — our research found no published benchmark for when a practice is full.

Then decide which seat the work actually needs. Examining patients with ear conditions, diagnosing problems and creating treatment plans are typical audiologist duties in BLS's list, and pediatric and vestibular audiology are recognized specialty areas — the American Board of Audiology offers a specialty certification in each. On the cochlear implant side, AAA's 2023 scope statement puts audiologists on the implant team, determining audiologic candidacy and principally responsible for device programming.

Work that is mainly selecting and fitting hearing aids can sit with a hearing instrument specialist instead — an occupation BLS defines by selecting and fitting hearing aids. Whether a supervised trainee may carry part of that load is a state-specific permit question — your board sets the rules.

The market context is worth reading before you post. BLS Employment Projections put audiologist employment on an 11.0% growth path for 2025–35, from 14,200 to 15,700 jobs, with about 600 openings a year — a basis that counts self-employed audiologists too. The OEWS wage survey, which counts only wage-and-salary workers, put employment at 13,660, and BLS counted 2.2% of audiologists as self-employed in 2025 on the projections basis. With about 600 openings a year nationwide, every hiring employer draws on the same occupation, so the readiness decision deserves as much attention as the offer.

Readiness also has a payer side. If the new provider will bill insurance, participation and credentialing paperwork runs ahead of the start date, so decide before you post which payers the role joins and who sees patients first. Our audiology credentialing guide walks the enrollment sequence.

If you are reading this as an audiologist weighing a move rather than as a practice owner, our audiologist career guide covers the job search side. The rest of this page is written to the practice.

The non-negotiable requirement is the license itself. BLS notes that all states require audiologists to be licensed, with requirements that vary by state. Never assume one state's terms transfer to yours.

Ask for the license number in your application form, and say in the posting that you will verify it. Federal EEO guidance counts questions about education, work history and required certifications and licenses as ordinary qualifications questions, so requesting a state audiology credential number before an offer is permissible under EEOC guidance. Verify the number with the board that issued it rather than taking the resume's word for it.

On the degree, BLS lists typical entry education for audiologists as a doctoral or professional degree — typical, not universal, since state requirements vary. ASHA's standards for its CCC-A certification require a doctoral degree in audiology from a CAA-accredited program, a program in CAA candidacy, or an equivalent qualification. Confirm your state board's current education rule before you write the requirement into the posting.

National credentials sharpen the shortlist without replacing the license. ASHA's CCC-A is a national certification with its own doctoral-degree standards; it does not replace the state license, which every state requires separately. The American Board of Audiology offers its own board certification alongside specialty certifications in pediatric and vestibular audiology. Treat them in the posting as preferred qualifications and treat the state license as the gate. Whether an audiologist may dispense hearing aids on the audiology license or needs your state's separate dispensing credential is its own state-by-state question, so confirm it with the board before you write dispensing duties into the posting.

Skills should mirror your service mix rather than a generic template. A diagnostics-heavy, ENT-adjacent schedule needs strong testing and documentation habits; a dispensing-forward practice needs fitting, programming, verification and follow-up counseling depth; a pediatric or vestibular service line needs its own experience. Write the requirements around the schedule you actually run, and be honest in the posting about the split between testing and dispensing work.

Rules change and vary by state. Confirm the current license, education and dispensing requirements with your state board before you finalize the posting.

Post where audiologists already look. AuD programs are the entry pipeline: the American Academy of Audiology's HEARCareers site lists jobs and externships year-round, its listings include paid fourth-year externships, and students can post their information so employers can find them. Ask programs how they route employer requests, and consider hosting a fourth-year externship as a pipeline you can evaluate before you hire.

Hosting an extern carries supervision rules of its own. Under ASHA's certification standards, a supervised clinical practicum that counts toward ASHA certification must be supervised by an audiologist holding current CCC-A. That supervisor needs at least 9 months of full-time clinical experience (or its part-time equivalent) after certification, plus at least 2 hours (0.2 ASHA CEUs) of professional development in clinical instruction or supervision. A site whose supervisor lacks the CCC-A cannot provide hours that count toward the student's certification. State rules for supervising externs are separate, so confirm yours with the board.

Medicare draws a hard line around students. Its Benefit Policy Manual says a fourth-year AuD student holding only a state provisional license is not a “qualified audiologist” unless they already hold a master's or doctoral degree in audiology. Medicare does not pay for audiological tests performed by aides, assistants, technicians or others who do not meet its audiologist qualifications. Structure student involvement around that rule.

For experienced candidates, work the specialty job boards that serve hearing care, your state audiology association's classifieds if it runs them, your own careers page, and referrals from your clinical team. Loan repayment is the incentive a rural practice might reach for first. The federal NHSC Loan Repayment Program does not list audiologists among its eligible disciplines, which run from primary-care physicians and nurse practitioners to dentists and behavioral-health providers, so state repayment programs are the place to check instead. You can also post the opening on this board: the audiologist jobs page shows what candidates see here. Our research could not verify posting prices for the association boards we checked, so ask each for current rates.

Write the posting to the law as well. Federal EEO law makes it illegal to publish an ad that shows a preference for, or discourages, applicants because of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. The EEOC's own example of a problematic ad is one seeking “recent college graduates,” so an ad aimed only at new graduates carries the same concern.

Pay disclosure is the second posting rule. Washington requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose in each posting the wage scale or salary range — or the fixed wage — plus a general description of all benefits and other compensation, and postings placed through third parties count (RCW 49.58.110). New York requires employers with four or more employees to include compensation or a range in any advertised job performed at least in part in New York, and commission-only roles may state that pay is commission-based (Labor Law 194-b). Other states and cities have pay-disclosure rules our research did not verify, so check your own state before you post.

Screen in a fixed order so every candidate gets the same treatment. First the license: request the state audiology license number — permissible before an offer, because required licenses count as ordinary qualifications questions — and verify it with the issuing board.

If you bill Medicare or state health care programs, search the candidate in the HHS-OIG List of Excluded Individuals/Entities. No Medicare or state health care program payment can be made for items or services an excluded person furnishes. A positive match points to OIG's Special Advisory Bulletin on the effect of exclusion — and to its Self-Disclosure Protocol if the person is already employed. OIG's instruction to check the list monthly is addressed to state Medicaid agencies rather than private practices, and some state Medicaid programs add screening requirements of their own — ask your MAC or state program what applies to you.

The interview has bright lines set by the EEOC and the ADA. Before an offer you may ask about education, work history and required certifications and licenses, and whether and how the applicant can perform the job's functions. You may not ask whether the applicant has a disability, ask medical questions or require a medical exam before an offer, and workers' compensation history is off limits too.

Questions the EEOC lists as potential evidence of discriminatory intent cover pregnancy, marital status or plans to marry, number and ages of children or childbearing plans, child-care arrangements, and a spouse's employment or name. Religious affiliation, place or days of worship and religious holidays are similarly to be avoided for non-religious employers, and requests that disclose an applicant's race should not be made absent a legitimate business need.

Two more pre-offer rules. EEOC guidance says most employers should not ask whether an applicant is a U.S. citizen before an offer, and federal law prohibits running Form I-9 or E-Verify until the candidate has accepted one. On criminal history, EEOC guidance says employers can consider records in final hiring decisions but cannot refuse to hire simply because of an arrest, and a blanket policy rejecting everyone with any conviction is likely discriminatory.

After a conditional offer and before the start date, the ADA allows a medical exam or inquiry only if every entering employee in the same job category must go through it regardless of disability (29 CFR 1630.14(b)).

A working interview needs two safeguards. The FLSA defines “employ” to include “to suffer or permit to work,” which is the federal basis for treating productive working-interview time as compensable hours. No DOL regulation names working interviews specifically, so treat productive candidate time as hours worked and confirm the treatment with the Wage and Hour Division if you are unsure. And a candidate who is not yet licensed cannot perform licensed tasks on your patients under state law, so keep the visit observational or confirm licensure first.

Coverage thresholds matter for a small practice. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the ADA's employment title cover employers with 15 or more employees for each working day in 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding year. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act covers employers with 20 or more on the same calendar-week test. State fair-employment laws often reach smaller employers, so do not read those thresholds as an exemption — confirm with your state labor agency or counsel.

Structure the conversation around the job itself: the same core questions for every candidate, scored against the same criteria. Draw scenario prompts from your real workflow — an audiogram history that does not match the chart, a follow-up that went missing, an equipment fault mid-test. What you are scoring is judgment, documentation habits and patient communication, not memorized answers.

Start from labeled data, then adjust for your market. BLS's OEWS survey for May 2025 puts the national median annual wage for audiologists (SOC 29-1181) at $95,780, with the 10th percentile at $64,610, the 25th at $79,340, the 75th at $111,300 and the 90th at $133,120. The survey counts wage-and-salary audiologists — 13,660 of them — and excludes self-employed practice owners.

Setting matters as much as geography. In the industry row closest to private audiology practice — offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists and audiologists — the May 2025 median was $81,730, with a 10th-to-90th percentile range of $60,110 to $127,580. Physicians' offices, the row that includes ENT groups, showed $92,620, general medical and surgical hospitals $103,700, elementary and secondary schools $97,790, and health and personal care retailers $87,990. Among the 50 areas with published data, state medians ranged from $75,200 in Louisiana to $133,110 in Nevada.

Read those rows as competitive positions rather than verdicts. A private practice sits inside one labor market — the rows above are audiologist wages in hospitals, physicians' offices, schools and retail settings — and the right number for your practice is where your service mix, schedule and growth path put you within that distribution. Our research found no published sign-on, bonus or commission-split benchmarks for audiologists, so set incentive terms from your own books rather than an industry average. The audiologist compensation plans guide works through the structure options, and the audiologist employment contract guide covers the terms that belong in writing.

Classification is part of the offer. The federal white-collar salary threshold is $684 per week ($35,568 a year) as of 2026. The FLSA exemption for licensed practitioners of medicine (29 CFR 541.304) defines the physicians it covers as MDs, DOs, podiatrists, dentists and optometrists — audiologists are not named. Paying a salary therefore does not by itself settle overtime treatment; confirm classification with the DOL's Wage and Hour Division or a health-care attorney.

Schedule and benefits belong in the offer alongside pay. Predictable testing blocks, protected administrative time, support for license renewal and continuing education, and a written growth path are commitments your practice either makes or does not. Our research found no benchmark for these, so make them deliberately and say so in the offer.

The paperwork floor is federal. Examine each new hire's Form I-9 identity and work-authorization documents within three business days of the hire (8 CFR 274a.2), and retain each form for three years after the date of hire or one year after employment ends, whichever is later. E-Verify is the free online system that checks Form I-9 information against DHS and Social Security Administration records; whether your practice must use it depends on federal contracts and state rules, so check which side you fall on before the start date.

Payer setup follows. Medicare generally prohibits reassignment of a supplier's payments but allows payment to the employer of a worker who must turn over fees as a condition of employment — the mechanism a practice uses when it bills for its employed audiologists. If you instead bill for a contracted audiologist under a reassignment arrangement, the practice and the audiologist are jointly and severally responsible for any Medicare overpayment. Start the enrollment paperwork alongside the contract, and have your MAC or billing adviser confirm the setup for your practice.

Compliance orientation belongs in week one, not month three. Where OSHA's Bloodborne Pathogens standard applies, employers must offer the hepatitis B vaccination within 10 working days of initial assignment to exposed employees and provide bloodborne-pathogen training annually. CDC's Standard Precautions — hand hygiene, personal protective equipment whenever exposure to infectious material is expected, and proper handling, cleaning and disinfection of patient-care equipment — apply to all patient care and give your clinical orientation a practical backbone. The audiology practice compliance guide collects the HIPAA, OSHA and FDA topics in one place.

The ramp itself is yours to design; our research found no published productivity ramp to copy. Plan graduated time on the schedule, pair the new audiologist with your senior clinician for the first stretch, set review checkpoints in the early weeks and months, and be explicit about which service lines they own from which point.

Retention starts the day they sign. Our research found no survey data on why audiologists leave practices, so build your retention loop from your own exit conversations and turnover count instead. The levers above — pay set from labeled data, a schedule that holds, renewal and continuing-education support, and a growth path — are the ones you control.

From here, the rest of this cluster keeps going: the guides on hiring for your hearing practice pick up the contracts, credentialing, billing and compliance questions that start the day your new audiologist signs.

Employer information, not licensing, legal, medical, clinical, billing or coding advice. Rules change and are state-specific; confirm requirements with the board or agency named, and with a health-care attorney or your CPA for contract, classification and billing questions.