This article is a part of the September/October 2017, Volume 29, Volume 5, Audiology Today issue.
As the field of audiology continues to grow and evolve, so does the need to examine existing policies and laws pertaining to the field that may be outdated. One such problematic policy that currently impacts many audiologists is dual licensure, which requires an audiologist to hold a state license in audiology and a separate state license to dispense hearing aids.
In Nebraska, the advocacy of hearing instrument specialists led to the passage of the Hearing Instrument Specialists Practice Act in 2009, which required licensed audiologists to also obtain a license to dispense. Laws such as this exist throughout the United States. Prior to the beginning of 2017, there were 16 states in the country that still required a second license for this purpose, according to the National Council of State Board of Examiners for Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology (NCSB, 2017).
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