Audiologist or Hearing Aid Dispenser?

What’s the difference between an audiologist

and a hearing instrument specialist?

Article from www.hearingtracker.com provides a good comparison.

One key difference between an audiologist and a “hearing aid specialist” is the minimum amount of education required. Audiologists must currently earn a professional degree (the Doctor of Audiology or Au.D.) which typically involves 4 years of academic and clinical training in audiology, following a traditional 4-year bachelor’s degree. By contrast, very few educational requirements need to be before a non-audiologist can sell hearing aids; in fact, in many states, the minimum requirement is a high school diploma, passing a licensing exam, and some form of brief apprenticeship with a licensed hearing aid specialist. Another major difference between an audiologist and a hearing aid specialist lies within their scopes of practice. Audiologists are licensed and trained to manage many areas of hearing health care including:

Comprehensive audiological evaluations including tests of hearing sensitivity, speech understanding, middle ear function, inner ear, and auditory nerve function
Diagnostic tests for balance/dizziness disorders
Auditory processing evaluations for infants, children, and adults
Design, selection, fitting and verification of hearing instruments and assistive listening devices
Design, selection, installation, and monitoring of classroom amplification systems
Rehabilitation therapy for hearing disorders which might include strategies to improve aided and unaided hearing, speech-reading (including lip- reading) and sign language
Rehabilitation for auditory processing disorders
Patient and family counseling about living with hearing loss
Development of hearing conservation programs
Research and development of new evaluation techniques and rehabilitation strategies
Rehabilitation for vestibular (balance) disorders
Cerumen (earwax) management
Evaluation and management of tinnitus and hyperacusis

By contrast, the scope of practice for hearing aid specialists is very limited. They perform the following services:

Basic hearing tests exclusively for the purpose of selling hearing aids to adults
Hearing aid fitting and sales

Experience and attitude do count for something, however, so regardless of training or personality of the audiologist or dispenser counts a lot when it comes to a patient’s success with hearing aids. There are many dispensers with a vast amount of experience who can actually run circles around newly-graduated audiologists simply because of their time in the profession.