Salary Comparison for Audiologists

With many conflicting reports/statistics and interest over this topic from students here, I felt that this thread would help matters.

Professionals, share your salary with state, number of years experience, and work environment (VA hospital, ENT clinic, private practice, etc.). This information should help us all when negotiating salary in the future.

Example:
$60,000
Minnesota
4 Years Exp.
Hospital Setting

I know of a first year AuD who started at a hospital here in Memphis at 55k.

My experience with salaries in this industry are as follows:

My first gig (as a fourth year intern) - 20k
Hired at same facility (Head and Neck Specialist clinic) - 50k
Clinical Research - 70k
Private Practice (mostly hearing aids - getting dumber by the minute) - pay cut on base salary but overall higher pay than research

Keep in mind I only graduated in 06 so Im' still a newb.

Friends in the industry:
*4th year student at VA - 70k starting
*"Trainer" - Not sure exact figures but I know all the trainers made more than I did when I was in research - probably between 75 and 85
*Industry Sales - Salary slightly less than 70 with bonuses almost doubling salary

Basically when you come out of school with loans equal to a medical student, don't hope to ever pay them off with our current salaries. This is something our "older generation" doesn't seem to understand with their "online degrees." But as we get more and more intelligent, motivated, enthusiastic folks in the field - such as yourselves - we will not accept ****ty salaries any longer and hopefully our young students can eventually expect 80-100k salaries out of school. Maybe you all will even be able to see that.

Just my 2 cents. Where's our 2 cents forum smily btw?

-D

Originally Posted by DrAudio

My experience with salaries in this industry are as follows:

My first gig (as a fourth year intern) - 20k
Hired at same facility (Head and Neck Specialist clinic) - 50k
Clinical Research - 70k
Private Practice (mostly hearing aids - getting dumber by the minute) - pay cut on base salary but overall higher pay than research

Keep in mind I only graduated in 06 so Im' still a newb.

Friends in the industry:
*4th year student at VA - 70k starting
*"Trainer" - Not sure exact figures but I know all the trainers made more than I did when I was in research - probably between 75 and 85
*Industry Sales - Salary slightly less than 70 with bonuses almost doubling salary

Basically when you come out of school with loans equal to a medical student, don't hope to ever pay them off with our current salaries. This is something our "older generation" doesn't seem to understand with their "online degrees." But as we get more and more intelligent, motivated, enthusiastic folks in the field - such as yourselves - we will not accept ****ty salaries any longer and hopefully our young students can eventually expect 80-100k salaries out of school. Maybe you all will even be able to see that.

Just my 2 cents. Where's our 2 cents forum smily btw?

-D

I was under the impression that VA 4th year externships were in the 35-40k range with some form of COLA depending on locale. Where was this student practicing?

crap agreed

Most places in the great state of Minnesota that I've looked into pay between $55k and $85k for diagnostic and dispensing audiologists depending on the setting. I've heard it's more if you make the jump to industry but I don't know much about specifics there. Typically those in dispensing positions where hearing aids are a larger part of their caseload than diagnostic audiology make more (from what I've seen).

One important thing to note is that while the $55k seems like a lot less, those types of job offers tend to have a nice system of benefits including specific CEU and license credential (C's or ABA) reimbursement in addition to the regular health, dental, etc insurance whereas the $85k and similar positions tend to have more of a "slush fund" that you can apply to whatever you need but may end up working out to be less overall indexed benefit dollars than something like the $55k position.

This idea of a salary compared to cost of maintaining professional licensure and overall general well being is something to seriously consider. The people pulling $70k+ are making a nice chunk of change but a lot of them don't have good dental or vision and need root canals or other types of major procedures which ultimately comes out of their own pocket. Food for thought.

A couple weeks back we had an audiologist from California present a lecture at school. He co-owns/runs 4 offices that are somewhat of a hybrid between the private practice/medical model. We did an activity where we created a mock business budget for a year. When he heard we were starting a first year AuD at a 40-50k he was somewhat shocked. His response was somewhere along the lines of, "Well come work for me when you graduate. We pay better than that." That is nothing concrete or specific, but it sounds like at least one person out there is giving appropriate value to our degree.

Originally Posted by cmc271

A couple weeks back we had an audiologist from California present a lecture at school. He co-owns/runs 4 offices that are somewhat of a hybrid between the private practice/medical model. We did an activity where we created a mock business budget for a year. When he heard we were starting a first year AuD at a 40-50k he was somewhat shocked. His response was somewhere along the lines of, "Well come work for me when you graduate. We pay better than that." That is nothing concrete or specific, but it sounds like at least one person out there is giving appropriate value to our degree.

PM me the name of the guy. I'm in CA too.

The VA gig I was referring to was in the Chicago area.

-D

Our advisor updates us on the starting salaries of our graduates so we know what to expect. I would suggest asking if this information is available at your school. I don't want to publicly share this information without permission. I will say that there is a huge range in salary, I mean like 60K difference between the lowest and the highest. There are really so many factors. The best thing would be to find out what people are making in the setting and geographic region that you want.

A friend of mine graduated recently and this is what she got:

1st--private practice with 2 offices:
50k + commission each month after 12 hearing aid sales--no benefits

2nd--head of a newly established balance center in a hospital (no other AuD's within an hour of her):
63k + benefits

And if you are curious about externships, this is what I have been seeing at the places I have applied:
-No compensation
-about 18K--occasionally with benefits or other funding for travel to go to conferences

Originally Posted by AUDball2012

A friend of mine graduated recently and this is what she got:

1st--private practice with 2 offices:
50k + commission each month after 12 hearing aid sales--no benefits

2nd--head of a newly established balance center in a hospital (no other AuD's within an hour of her):
63k + benefits

And if you are curious about externships, this is what I have been seeing at the places I have applied:
-No compensation
-about 18K--occasionally with benefits or other funding for travel to go to conferences

What sort of commission did your friend earn? Thanks for posting this info.

There are websited that offer this info. Advance for Hearing Professionals or whatever thenew name is (just changed from Advance for Audiologists) I beleive has this info. Also, check ADA. I am pretty sure I saw it there as well.

Originally Posted by audiowoman369

There are websited that offer this info. Advance for Hearing Professionals or whatever thenew name is (just changed from Advance for Audiologists) I beleive has this info. Also, check ADA. I am pretty sure I saw it there as well.

Welcome to the forum!

There are many different sites that offer salary info, with an accordingly wide range of numbers listed. I think straight from the mouth (or keyboard) figures are what most of us are looking for.

I hope you will hang around and post with us.

I think we are making a mistake thinking in terms of 'salaries.' As a profession, we are never going to have higher compensation if we let others dictate the amount. My professor in the AuD program counseled us to start tracking our revenue in the 3rd and 4th years. Wow, what a shock. Most of us were generating $300-400,000. Why accept a $50k salary? We should understand our value and start negotiating. Better yet, do what I did and open your own practice. Yes, we all have student loans but my thinking was that in 5-10years I was going to have a mortgage, car loan, children, etc. Now, that's real debt. I went to the ADA meeting a few years ago and realized that I had the opportunity to make well into the 6 figures in my own practice. It's true. So, if you are going to be an employee, understand your value and start negotiating or just don't complain. The opportunities for serious compensation based on productivity are available.
Just my thoughts...

Originally Posted by AuD Doc

I think we are making a mistake thinking in terms of 'salaries.' As a profession, we are never going to have higher compensation if we let others dictate the amount. My professor in the AuD program counseled us to start tracking our revenue in the 3rd and 4th years. Wow, what a shock. Most of us were generating $300-400,000. Why accept a $50k salary? We should understand our value and start negotiating. Better yet, do what I did and open your own practice. Yes, we all have student loans but my thinking was that in 5-10years I was going to have a mortgage, car loan, children, etc. Now, that's real debt. I went to the ADA meeting a few years ago and realized that I had the opportunity to make well into the 6 figures in my own practice. It's true. So, if you are going to be an employee, understand your value and start negotiating or just don't complain. The opportunities for serious compensation based on productivity are available.
Just my thoughts...

Love.

So I've learned an interesting factoid recently from a recent graduate. Apparently buying groups such as AHAA, are pretty much almost price fixing the market. Buying groups are so powerful that they are basically telling their members what salary to set for their audiologists. So in essence they are manipulating the free market. And yet there are audiologists that join these groups because they get better prices on hearing aids. It seems to me that soon there maybe a civil war within the audiology community. I fore one will not put up with this crap, and I'm sure there are many others that won't either. We need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
The other ironic fact here is that neither AAA nor ASHA are addressing this issue. Seems like the only thing AAA is interested in is beefing with ASHA. If we want to change our pay we must do it ourselves as young professionals and not rely on the dinosaurs of this profession, who are essentially out for themselves and couldn't care less about us.

Originally Posted by BigAl

So I've learned an interesting factoid recently from a recent graduate. Apparently buying groups such as AHAA, are pretty much almost price fixing the market. Buying groups are so powerful that they are basically telling their members what salary to set for their audiologists. So in essence they are manipulating the free market. And yet there are audiologists that join these groups because they get better prices on hearing aids. It seems to me that soon there maybe a civil war within the audiology community. I fore one will not put up with this crap, and I'm sure there are many others that won't either. We need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
The other ironic fact here is that neither AAA nor ASHA are addressing this issue. Seems like the only thing AAA is interested in is beefing with ASHA. If we want to change our pay we must do it ourselves as young professionals and not rely on the dinosaurs of this profession, who are essentially out for themselves and couldn't care less about us.

Another excellent post! I completely agree with you, BigAl! I haven't started my program yet (I start in August), but I promise I'm going to get involved as much as I can because I don't want to put with that crap either. Hopefully, as young professionals and the future of audiology, we can make a difference.

I just completed my fourth year externship and was applying for externships all over the country. Many of my classmates were willing to move for their externships as well. It seemed like th going rate was about $30-40K, regardless of where the externship was actually located. That being said, there were a few externships that paid far less, or not at all. The people who took those took them because the experience they would obtain was so great they were willing to work for free. So not to worry, there are still plenty of paid externships out there. There were also some expternships that paid far better, but they were rare.

As far as salary, it seems to depend on where you are located and what industry you are in. Places that do a lot of hearing aids sales have the opportunity to make a very good living because many places bonus you on hearing aid sales, but when negotiating salary keep in mind that bonuses/comission get taxed heavily (47% I believe) so you may not be taking home as much money as you thought. VA jobs, Industry sales reps and trainers, and hearing aid dispensing seem to be where the highest compensations are.

Originally Posted by AuD Doc
I think we are making a mistake thinking in terms of 'salaries.' As a profession, we are never going to have higher compensation if we let others dictate the amount. My professor in the AuD program counseled us to start tracking our revenue in the 3rd and 4th years. Wow, what a shock. Most of us were generating $300-400,000. Why accept a $50k salary? We should understand our value and start negotiating. Better yet, do what I did and open your own practice. Yes, we all have student loans but my thinking was that in 5-10years I was going to have a mortgage, car loan, children, etc. Now, that's real debt. I went to the ADA meeting a few years ago and realized that I had the opportunity to make well into the 6 figures in my own practice. It's true. So, if you are going to be an employee, understand your value and start negotiating or just don't complain. The opportunities for serious compensation based on productivity are available.
Just my thoughts...

Excellent! This is exactly the mindset we need!

Originally Posted by BigAl

So I've learned an interesting factoid recently from a recent graduate. Apparently buying groups such as AHAA, are pretty much almost price fixing the market. Buying groups are so powerful that they are basically telling their members what salary to set for their audiologists. So in essence they are manipulating the free market. And yet there are audiologists that join these groups because they get better prices on hearing aids. It seems to me that soon there maybe a civil war within the audiology community. I fore one will not put up with this crap, and I'm sure there are many others that won't either. We need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
The other ironic fact here is that neither AAA nor ASHA are addressing this issue. Seems like the only thing AAA is interested in is beefing with ASHA. If we want to change our pay we must do it ourselves as young professionals and not rely on the dinosaurs of this profession, who are essentially out for themselves and couldn't care less about us.

As an experienced private practice audiologist that belongs to several buying groups I can tell you that is absolutely false. I used a large buying group to help recruit an audiologist and was never told what we should pay for salary. AHAA, Sonus, Audigy, etc. may tell me what average salaries are for audiologists of different experience levels and different settings, but that information is available several places including the internet and trade journals and nobody accuses them of price fixing.
There are internal politics that keep AAA from being an effective advocate for us. I agree a civil war may be coming in audiology. Private practice audiologists, manufacturers and buying groups will be on one side with academic, research, educational and the professional organizations on the other.

As a Three year intern - 65k
after it i stayed in company for 1 year and i made 115k.
I went into the veterance affairs and so I was very very specialized.

Queens medical center - 130k
hesterfield of royal hospital - 125k

Originally Posted by AuD Doc

I think we are making a mistake thinking in terms of 'salaries.' As a profession, we are never going to have higher compensation if we let others dictate the amount. My professor in the AuD program counseled us to start tracking our revenue in the 3rd and 4th years. Wow, what a shock. Most of us were generating $300-400,000. Why accept a $50k salary? We should understand our value and start negotiating. Better yet, do what I did and open your own practice. Yes, we all have student loans but my thinking was that in 5-10years I was going to have a mortgage, car loan, children, etc. Now, that's real debt. I went to the ADA meeting a few years ago and realized that I had the opportunity to make well into the 6 figures in my own practice. It's true. So, if you are going to be an employee, understand your value and start negotiating or just don't complain. The opportunities for serious compensation based on productivity are available.
Just my thoughts...

Excellent post! Thank you very much for sharing this with us! I couldn't agree more!

Originally Posted by AuD Doc

I think we are making a mistake thinking in terms of 'salaries.' As a profession, we are never going to have higher compensation if we let others dictate the amount. My professor in the AuD program counseled us to start tracking our revenue in the 3rd and 4th years. Wow, what a shock. Most of us were generating $300-400,000. Why accept a $50k salary? We should understand our value and start negotiating. Better yet, do what I did and open your own practice. Yes, we all have student loans but my thinking was that in 5-10years I was going to have a mortgage, car loan, children, etc. Now, that's real debt. I went to the ADA meeting a few years ago and realized that I had the opportunity to make well into the 6 figures in my own practice. It's true. So, if you are going to be an employee, understand your value and start negotiating or just don't complain. The opportunities for serious compensation based on productivity are available.
Just my thoughts...

Not to be nosey, but how is your practice doing? Did you start right after school? I personally think that's a bad choice for most people right out of school. The money it takes to start, the lack of clientele, and just overall lack of business and audiologic skills. I have nothing against opening a private practice, but I think waiting to get more exposure to real practice is key.

I had a few offers my first year (2007). One in Richmond, VA was in the 40s...30s after taxes...yikes! Galveston, TX - $58,000. Sarasota, FL - $55,000.

I do pediatrics for a large children's hospital. Pediatric Auds often get paid less than their non-pediatric counterparts (this is true across most medical fields) since so many children have state funded health insurance which has a very low reimbursement rate. The benefits are good but the hours can be tough. Pediatrics involves far more paperwork, insurance processing, and follow up. You definitely don't do it for the money. You do it for the kids. There are chances to work up to administration in a hospital setting which of course comes with more money and sometimes, in the case of Audiology, better hours.

My company pays hearing care professionals $250 per day and a 7% commission in a medical setting. Our goal is to raise the level of hearing care available.

Not trying to recruit just trying to add to the conversation.

Originally Posted by HPofA

My company pays hearing care professionals $250 per day and a 7% commission in a medical setting. Our goal is to raise the level of hearing care available.

Not trying to recruit just trying to add to the conversation.

Originally Posted by HPofA

My company pays hearing care professionals $250 per day and a 7% commission in a medical setting. Our goal is to raise the level of hearing care available.

Not trying to recruit just trying to add to the conversation.

I think if you're looking for HHPs, you might want to talk to more Hearing Aid Dispensers and Audiology students.

BTW, did anyone else's professor forward the email from Starkey about their new Entrepreneurial Audiology program? Sounds pretty interesting. They are looking for audiologists interested in private practice and will provide them with educational tools and practice systems to help us build our own practices. They were pretty clear that they don't want to own the practice but want to help us build our own practice. No product commitment to participate. I am checking it out to see if I can use the tools in my practice. About time someone is talking about investing in audiology rather than trying to own and hire us!