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A report in The Hearing Review describes how hearing care practices are responding to difficulty hiring audiologists by delegating routine tasks, training support staff, using students and adjusting schedules. The approaches are presented as operational strategies; the source does not provide outcome data showing how much they reduce waits or workload.
Hearing care practices facing difficulty hiring audiologists are trying to meet patient demand by shifting routine work to trained support staff, bringing students into clinics and redesigning schedules, according to a report by The Hearing Review. The approaches aim to reserve audiologists’ time for clinical tasks, though the report does not quantify their effect on wait times, capacity or staff workload.
Hunter Gerhart, director of audiology at Livingston Hearing Aid Centers, told the publication that recruiting audiologists has been extremely difficult at his organization, which operates in Texas and other states. The report describes the shortage as contributing to full schedules, longer patient waits and concern about provider burnout, but does not provide workforce statistics or data measuring those effects.
One proposed response is to identify tasks that do not require an audiologist and train other employees to handle them. Gerhart cited Bluetooth pairing and instruction on hearing-aid cleaning as tasks that may be delegated to an audiology assistant. Kira Savin, who leads practices in California and New York, said assistants in her California clinics can help with troubleshooting, device preparation and patient education during fittings.
Support staff can also handle some basic service requests. Savin said trained patient care coordinators can ask triage questions to distinguish urgent concerns from routine ones, while front-office staff may resolve simple problems such as reconnecting a hearing aid to a phone. She described those fixes as potentially taking minutes rather than requiring a longer appointment. The report also points to hearing instrument specialists, internal career development and student placements as ways clinics may add capacity.
Keeping Clinical Time for Patient Care
The staffing approaches matter because they seek to make scarce clinician time go further without treating every patient need as requiring an audiologist’s full appointment. If support employees can safely take on suitable routine tasks, audiologists may have more time for work that requires their training, and clinics may be better able to manage incoming demand.
That potential depends on appropriate training, supervision and the rules governing each role. The report notes that audiology assistants are not an option in every state: Savin said her New York offices cannot use them, unlike her California locations. The strategies are examples from practitioners, not proof that every clinic can adopt them or that they will produce the same results.
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Role Changes and Clinic Scheduling
The report, written by Melanie Hamilton-Basich for The Hearing Review, frames staff-resource changes as an immediate operational response while practices continue recruiting. Its examples span different clinic settings. Gerhart said his organization has a roughly equal mix of audiologists and hearing instrument specialists, particularly useful in rural areas where he said its applicant pool includes more specialists. He said the practice’s adult hearing-aid focus allows the roles to be similar in scope.
Both Gerhart and Savin described employees who advanced into clinical roles after beginning in patient-care positions. Savin also encouraged clinics near university audiology programs to host interns and externs, arguing that students arrive with useful training and gain practical experience in return. The source excerpt introduces block scheduling as another way clinics structure high-demand days, but does not include the detailed scheduling methods that follow in the original report.
“I have had extreme difficulty finding audiologists and hiring them.”
— Hunter Gerhart, director of audiology at Livingston Hearing Aid Centers
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Results and Local Rules Vary
The source does not report measured changes in patient waiting times, appointment capacity, costs or clinician burnout after clinics adopted these approaches. It also does not establish how widely the strategies are used or whether they work equally well across different practice sizes and patient populations.
Staff duties and assistant roles may depend on state rules, training and clinic oversight. The report specifically contrasts California, where Savin employs audiology assistants, with New York, where she said they are not an option. The supplied excerpt also ends as it begins discussing block scheduling, leaving the specific scheduling practices and any results from them unclear.
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Hiring and Workflow Changes Continue
The report presents recruitment as an ongoing challenge and workflow redesign as a way practices can respond while they seek qualified staff. Clinics considering delegation would need to decide which tasks fit each role, train employees and check applicable state requirements. The article offers practitioner accounts rather than a formal evaluation, so further evidence would be needed to assess whether these changes measurably improve access or staff workload.
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Key Questions
What staffing problem does the report describe?
Difficulty finding and hiring audiologists is the central challenge described by practitioners in The Hearing Review report. It links that pressure with packed schedules and patient waits, but gives no workforce or wait-time figures.
Which tasks may be delegated from audiologists?
The practitioners cite tasks such as Bluetooth pairing, basic hearing-aid troubleshooting, cleaning instructions and patient education. What can be delegated depends on staff training, oversight and local rules.
Can every clinic employ an audiology assistant?
No. Rules and available roles vary by state. Savin said she uses audiology assistants in her California clinics but cannot use them in her New York offices.
How might students help hearing care practices?
Savin said interns and externs can assist with clinic needs while gaining practical experience. The report does not provide data on how many practices host students or measure the effect on clinic capacity.
Do the strategies reduce wait times or burnout?
The report describes the strategies as ways to improve how practices use staff, but does not present measured outcomes for wait times, appointment capacity or burnout.
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