Salary Comparison for Audiologists

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

DrAudio said:

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

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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?

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.

cmc271 said:

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.

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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

Myexperience with salaries in this industry are as follows:

As a fourth year intern - 70k
I stayed at the same company for the next 2 years. Year 1 I made 110k and Year 2 I made 125k.
I went into the neurophysiology aspect of audiology and so I was very very specialized, but I think it is important for people going into the AuD to understand that this type of salary and beyond is out there but they are few and far between.


Friends in the industry:
Private practice - 120k
Hospital in Nashville - 90k
Pediatric Audiologist - 65k


Hope this helps!

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.

Thanks Dustbug,
I don't know if TN is one of the highest paying states for audiologists, I am sure that it is for the South. My externship was in Southern California. Which is definitely one of the highest paying states for audiologists.

1st gig as a 4th year in a non-profit clinic - $25k

1st gig as a practicing audiologist at a non-profit hospital in Ohio - $55k plus excellent benefits and a sweet schedule

I turned down several other job offers in states such as NC, NM, PA, IN, and VA

Highest offer was 85K a year (large ENT group)
Lowest was 40k a year (was a pediatric hospital)

The average was around 60k with various benefits



It's kind of disheartening when you put in the same amount of years as a medical doctor and make less than what a lot of RN's or PA's make. I'm hoping as more AuD's join the field and we get more medically minded folks that are motivated that the salary will start rising. It's definitely an uphill battle.

like audball, i also thought VA externships are around 35-40K range across the nation as VA money comes from federal fundings, more or less depending on locality but not by 25+K. 70K would be on a GS-12 payscale and that's the payscale for audiologists and not externs. my stipend is nowhere near 70K, neither is that of my fellow colleague in southern california VA.

draudio, did something happen between 05 (your externship year?) and now that the stipend is so drastically different?

The typical range I've seen regardless of geographical location is typically for starting audiologists is around 50-70k

The southern states last trend I saw was mid 60's for the carolina's and a wee bit higher in Florida. Now mind you this is median income and base income, not including benefits or commission.

The clinic I did my 4th year at was awesome. I was given a lot of autonomy and was able to be a huge driving force in guiding business practices. I also gave a lot of lectures to undergrad classes, taught a couple classes, and did a huge amount of community outreach for Audiology, and towards the end even answering questions from younger grad students, but I never was in a supervisory role.

If you like community outreach and a little variety of everything a university clinic is not a bad place to look for an externship. I know many schools will take outside students in their clinics.

It was great to come across this discussion...I'll be finishing up my externship this spring, so I'm curious about what to ask for in starting salary. It's obvious from this thread (and research) there's a wide range, particularly depending on geography/population concentration.

I've been checking salary.com to get rough estimates for median salaries of auds in particular areas. I'm wondering how accurate it really is. Any thoughts?

I graduate in August, and am also very interested in this topic. I actually did some research and found that the range in Georgia in around 63,000. I'm also very surprised to see so many 4th year externships pay. I receive 0$ at my externship. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, because the experience is definitely awesome, but a little gas money wouldn't be a bad thing either. ;-)

I know you were looking for salary offers from individual experiences but I found this site to be very helpful in obtaining info regarding employment statistics:

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291121.htm

Also, there has been some talk on here regarding concerns over the future of the profession and the salary of audiologists. I am far from an expert (I'll just be entering my first year as an AuD student this fall), but I share the same concerns and think it's important that we all do our part to contribute to the growth of the profession. I believe a good first step is in joining an association and becoming an active member. I plan on joining AAA: http://www.audiology.org/Pages/default.aspx

Does anybody else have tips on some things each of us can do to promote growth and advocacy for the profession?

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...

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!

AuD Doc said:

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...

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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.

AuD Doc said:

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...

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

BigAl said:

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.

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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.

Oh, and someone had asked about bonuses: I've worked in two offices that bonus on hearing aid sales. One of them gave $100 per hearing aid up to a certaqin number (15 I think?) after that your bonus increased to $150 per aid. That office had a lot of hearing aid patients (I usually saw one or two a day, some of the audiologists saw 3 or 4 a day). We had a quota to reach each month (mine was 20, others were supposed to reach as much as 40) and we were expected to have around an 80% closure rate meaning we sold to 80% of the people who were hearing aid candidates. The base salary wasn't great but there was a lot of opportunity to make commission.

My current position bonuses $50 per aid and there are far fewer hearing aid patients (I see one or two a week now) but the base salary is much higher and the benfits are better (so is the job security).

If you're interviewing with a place that has a bonus system, it's important to get a sense of how many hearing aid patients you'll be seeing. Also budgeting is important if a large portion of your income is based on hearing aid sales. I was in a practice in New York where summers were very busy and winters were very slow because a lot of the nearby residents went south for several months. Even the residents to stayed the winter had a lot of transportation issues and often could not make it into the office.

after finishing a rotation at a hospital this summer, i went form having little interest in private practice to being extremely motivated.

at the place i worked, the audiologists were working anywhere from 50 to 80 hours a week. my supervisor worked all weekend just trying to catch up on reports and admin stuff. the department was short-staffed on secretaries because they are viewed as nonproductive staff. as an intern i was working 11 or 12 hour days, and that was probably only seeing around 6 patients a day.

the difficulties in getting money from the hospital for equipment or supplies were enormous, and it definitely impacted clinical care. working with hearing aids is totally different from how most healthcare professions operate and the billing process was laborious and we pretty much did it all ourselves. our director was a physical therapist, so that makes things more difficult in terms of leadership and advocacy.

i don't know how much the audiologists were getting paid, but i know that when you consider their hours, it probably was not very much. if i'm going to spend that much time at work, i'd rather be making my own clinical and procedural decisions and keeping the profits.

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!

AuD Doc said:

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...

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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.

Dustbug10 said:

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And what are you questioning? What we are paying or that I am not trying to recruit? Did I post my company link? Did I list my number?
I know what i pay my HHP's so it cannot be that. I think any of the dozen HHP's who work for me would be happy to tell you about the 120K they earn working full time.
And look, I still did not post a website, phone number or even my company name!

HPofA said:

And what are you questioning? What we are paying or that I am not trying to recruit? Did I post my company link? Did I list my number?
I know what i pay my HHP's so it cannot be that. I think any of the dozen HHP's who work for me would be happy to tell you about the 120K they earn working full time.
And look, I still did not post a website, phone number or even my company name!

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Sorry, have to agree with Dustbug10. There was just something about how you worded your original post that while I can't place my finger on it, just slightly gives a uneasy vibe. The $250/day on a 50 week year yields $62.5k which is definitely a decent salary (disregarding commission of course). Does that $250 apply for PT or FT or both? Benefits included? I feel that how Dustbug took it and how I interpreted it also is something to the effect of a laborer. Pay me at the end of every day because I may not come back tomorrow! Would you be willing to include the region of the country your company operates in? Working with that $62.5k annual salary in my region (Arkansas/Tennessee) would provide an individual with a very different standard of living than someone in NYC or SoCal.

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.

HPofA said:

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.

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

BigAl said:

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.

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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

Externship: $35,000
First job: $70,000 with excellent benefits.

TheEarDoc said:

It's kind of disheartening when you put in the same amount of years as a medical doctor and make less than what a lot of RN's or PA's make. I'm hoping as more AuD's join the field and we get more medically minded folks that are motivated that the salary will start rising. It's definitely an uphill battle.

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Hello EarDoc,

I appreciate your viewpoint on these matters. I also feel that as our education and training have increased, so should our income. However, I did want to clarify a few things, primarily because the information you supplied is slightly in error. Not only am I a graduating Au.D., my wife is also a Chief Resident in OB/GYN. A comparison might surprise you.

Me:
4 years for B.S.
4 years of Au.D. degree - (externship often provides 1 year of income)

My wife:
4 years for B.S.
2 years for M.S. (optional but improve medical school chances)
4 years for M.D. or D.O. (no paid year / 4 years of tuition)
4 years of residency (prior to board certification - hospital privileges)
Residents often make between $32k and $60k (and have $100k to $450k of student loans).

I agree that we should be paid based on our training and knowledge; therefore, our pay should be increasing. However, we will make the best allies if we are armed with accurate information regarding the JOINT difficulties we face. In this, our goal of building the audiology profession will gain the greatest ground.

Oh...
California, veteran's hospitals and pediatrics experience
Contracted audiology for government programs
1st gig out of school - approximately $58k
2nd year - same job transitions to approximately $74k
Steady increase from there.

Just a quick look at some of the numbers that ASHA (2012) collected with regard to average salary across a variety of settings. The sample size wasn't gigantic or broadly distributed across the whole US, so you can take the numbers with a grain of salt. But, it is still worth a look for those that are interested.

http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/2012-Audiology-Survey-Salaries.pdf

AudioEngineer said:

Hello EarDoc,

I appreciate your viewpoint on these matters. I also feel that as our education and training have increased, so should our income. However, I did want to clarify a few things, primarily because the information you supplied is slightly in error. Not only am I a graduating Au.D., my wife is also a Chief Resident in OB/GYN. A comparison might surprise you.

Me:
4 years for B.S.
4 years of Au.D. degree - (externship often provides 1 year of income)

My wife:
4 years for B.S.
2 years for M.S. (optional but improve medical school chances)
4 years for M.D. or D.O. (no paid year / 4 years of tuition)
4 years of residency (prior to board certification - hospital privileges)
Residents often make between $32k and $60k (and have $100k to $450k of student loans).

I agree that we should be paid based on our training and knowledge; therefore, our pay should be increasing. However, we will make the best allies if we are armed with accurate information regarding the JOINT difficulties we face. In this, our goal of building the audiology profession will gain the greatest ground.

Oh...
California, veteran's hospitals and pediatrics experience
Contracted audiology for government programs
1st gig out of school - approximately $58k
2nd year - same job transitions to approximately $74k
Steady increase from there.

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Trust me I know the amount of years a physican undertakes to get to the end of their training. I was going to be an ENT. 4-5 years for the undergrad (which I have two of the common entry degrees for medical school), then 4 years MD or DO (I was accepted to two DO programs) often without tuition assistance, then depending on specialty residency (ENT is closer to 8) all while making nothing and being worked to death.

My gripe is not with physicians at all. They bust their butts and sacrifice a lot and deserve to make multi hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

My gripe is that Audiologists are consider mid-level practitioners yet many other mid level practitioners make substantially more than AuD's coming right out of school.
Psychologists (especially now with the purely clinical PsyD) make substantially more than audiologists
Nurse practitioners (many with only 4-5 years higher education) make substantially more than audiologists
Physicians assistants (granted they often have a BS in Biology and then a masters degree and I know their programs are medically based and fast paced) make substantially more than audiologists

That is my gripe. I am sorry if I offended you or made it seem like I don't acknowledge the hard work and sacrifice that folks like your wife make. It was not my intent.

Oh and I forgot

Normal gig VA medical center 75k per year with great benefits
Side gig at large University Med Center making 2k per month

TheEarDoc said:

Trust me I know the amount of years a physican undertakes to get to the end of their training. I was going to be an ENT. 4-5 years for the undergrad (which I have two of the common entry degrees for medical school), then 4 years MD or DO (I was accepted to two DO programs) often without tuition assistance, then depending on specialty residency (ENT is closer to 8) all while making nothing and being worked to death.

My gripe is not with physicians at all. They bust their butts and sacrifice a lot and deserve to make multi hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

My gripe is that Audiologists are consider mid-level practitioners yet many other mid level practitioners make substantially more than AuD's coming right out of school.
Psychologists (especially now with the purely clinical PsyD) make substantially more than audiologists
Nurse practitioners (many with only 4-5 years higher education) make substantially more than audiologists
Physicians assistants (granted they often have a BS in Biology and then a masters degree and I know their programs are medically based and fast paced) make substantially more than audiologists

That is my gripe. I am sorry if I offended you or made it seem like I don't acknowledge the hard work and sacrifice that folks like your wife make. It was not my intent.

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A quick clarification on this point: psychologists aren't actually mid-level providers (not that I'm making that assertion about audiologists, either), and I don't know that I'd say they make "substantially" more than audiologists. The average starting salary of a doctoral-level psychologist is probably in the ~70-75k range; a starting assistant professor will make a bit less (probably closer to $60-65k), while the VA and most academic medical centers will pay a bit more.

Although yes, the influx of not the Psy.D. degree specifically, but the multiple professional schools that churn out large numbers of questionably-trained practitioners could end up dragging salary numbers down for the profession as a whole, as these folks may have a tough time finding jobs and thus would be willing to take lower-paying positions (especially once the student loans come due).

As for NPs and PAs, their starting salaries are slightly above psychologists on average, depending on where it is they're working. In a private hospital, it'll likely be a bit higher. Nurses have a very, very solid union, though, so NPs have certainly benefited from that with respect to both pay and independent practice rights.