Audiologist-Hearing Aid Fitter: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

An audiologist/hearing aid fitter is the professional who specializes in evaluating and treating people with hearing loss, conducts a wide variety of tests to determine the exact nature of an individual's hearing problem, presents a variety of treatment options to patients, dispenses and fits hearing aids, administers tests of balance to evaluate dizziness and provides hearing rehabilitation training. This classification should be used where individuals are licensed as "audiologist-hearing aid fitters" as opposed to states that license individuals as "audiologists".

Reading the sole-proprietor share

Among this specialty's records, the 10.8% sole-proprietor share means 624 active records have that NPPES flag. Because the field is self-reported, it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not by itself establish ownership, employment arrangement, or independence from an organization.

By state

New NPI registrations by year

Counts reflect the year each NPI was first issued, among records still active today. The final year is partial: this data covers through 2026-01-11.

Data notes

• The sole-proprietor field is self-reported by the provider in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice.
• A sole-proprietor count shown as <11 is suppressed: the true value is below 11, which could include zero.
• These figures count active NPI records with this as the primary taxonomy, not necessarily distinct clinicians or every professional providing these services.
• First-enumeration year indicates when an NPI was issued, not when a provider began practicing in this specialty.
• Providers are counted once, by their primary taxonomy code only.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Data Dissemination file, FOIA-disclosable public data under CMS-6060-N. Aggregated by Hero EMR on 2026-08-03; deactivated NPIs excluded; specialty assigned from the primary taxonomy code (NUCC 25.1). Counts below 11 are suppressed. Individual providers are never published. All provider data pages.

Common questions