The Kansas licence to practise the fitting and dispensing of hearing instruments, issued by the Kansas Board of Examiners in the Fitting and Dispensing of Hearing Instruments under K.S.A. 74-5801 et seq., authorises the holder — who uses the protected title “Hearing Instrument Dispenser” — to fit and dispense hearing instruments in Kansas. Its examination pairs a national written paper, the International Licensing Examination adopted by the Board in 2017 and administered by the International Hearing Society, with three practical examinations the Board administers itself. The PassProfessor Kansas Hearing Instrument Dispenser program, described on the companion program page at /kansas-hearing-instrument-specialist-exam-prep/, prepares candidates for that examination set.
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The credential at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | Licence to practise the fitting and dispensing of hearing instruments in Kansas; protected title “Hearing Instrument Dispenser” |
| Licensing authority | Kansas Board of Examiners in the Fitting and Dispensing of Hearing Instruments; K.S.A. 74-5801 et seq. |
| Examination | A written examination plus three Board-administered practical examinations. The written examination is the International Licensing Examination for Hearing Health Care Professionals (ILE), adopted by the Board in 2017 and administered by the International Hearing Society (IHS). Only the three practical exams are administered by the Board: Audiometric Testing; Audiogram Analysis with Speech and Masking; and Earmold Impression Technique |
| Passing standard | 75% required to pass an individual section, as published in the Board’s Licensure Examination Overview (Kansas only, in that published form) |
| Written examination fee | $225, as currently stated in the Board’s Licensure Examination Overview; the money is all paid to IHS |
| Eligibility to test | An applicant notified by the Board that the requirements of K.S.A. 74-5811 are fulfilled appears for written and practical tests as the Board designates; supervised practice before licensure runs under a Temporary License |
| Route | Qualify under K.S.A. 74-5811 → Temporary License (supervised practice, where held) → written ILE and three Board practicals → licence, effective for one year |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Kansas Board of Examiners in the Fitting and Dispensing of Hearing Instruments or with the International Hearing Society |
Kansas rewards candidates who read the credential as the Board built it: a national written paper laid over a state practical day. The written half is borrowed — the Board adopted the profession’s international licensing examination in 2017 and lets IHS administer it — while the practical half is entirely the Board’s own: three performances, scored section by section, in front of its examiners. Around both halves runs a trainee tier with hard clocks — a temporary license that ends 30 days after the next examination and can never exceed 16 months. The guide below takes each verified element in turn.
Reading the verified facts
Every fact in the table above was pinned to Kansas primary material — the Board’s own Licensure Examination Overview and the Kansas Statutes at kslegislature.gov — during this program’s research pass. Three reading rules apply throughout the guide. First, the 75% standard is printed only in the form the Board publishes it: the overview states that each portion of the practical exam is scored on a percent-correct basis and that a candidate must obtain at least 75% to pass an individual section. That is a practical-section standard stated by the Board for its own practicals; this guide does not extend it into a published ILE cut score, because the overview verified does not publish one for the written examination. Second, the three documents of the route — application under K.S.A. 74-5811, Temporary License, and licence — are never merged: the temporary license is a supervised training document with its own clocks, and figures belonging to it are stated only for it. Third, administrator roles are kept exact: IHS administers the written examination and receives its fee; the Board administers only the three practicals — the overview says so in those words — and the Board, not IHS, approves the application that starts the sequence.
The route, step by step
Step one — qualify and be approved for the examinations. Satisfy the Board that the requirements of K.S.A. 74-5811 are fulfilled. The applicant the Board notifies has crossed the eligibility gate: appearance for written and practical tests follows at the time, place, and before the persons the Board designates. Step two — take supervised practice under a Temporary License, where that tier is used. The qualifying conditions are cumulative: the K.S.A. 74-5811 requirements fulfilled, the training hours established in the Board’s rules and regulations completed, and no temporary license held within the preceding three years. The applicant must show the Board that they are or will be employed, and in that employment will practise under the supervision of a person holding a valid licence. The temporary license then runs to 30 days after the next examination. Its discipline is strict: a holder who does not take that next examination cannot renew except for good cause shown to the Board’s satisfaction; a holder who takes it and does not pass may be renewed once; and no individual may hold a temporary license for more than 16 months, whatever the examination calendar does. A temporary license may also be revoked, suspended, or otherwise disciplined on the same grounds as a full licence. Step three — sit the written ILE. On Board approval, the applicant’s information goes to IHS, which emails the examination process and the locations offered near the applicant. The fee is $225, all paid to IHS. There is currently no limit on the number of times an applicant can take the ILE, and the Board strongly recommends passing it before the practicals. Step four — sit the three Board practicals across the better part of a day, each scored percent-correct with 75% required to pass an individual section. Step five — the licence. The temporary licensee who passes is issued the licence on payment of the licence fee; the examination-route applicant generally must also submit the documentation K.S.A. 74-5814 requires, including verification that the calibration of the applicant’s audiometric testing equipment has been tested and verified as accurate within the preceding two-year period. The licence is effective for one year. Two other doors stand in the same section and are taken up below: the licensed-audiologist route and the out-of-state route.
The outline in full
Kansas has no single blueprint document a candidate can download and memorise; it has a statute that scopes the examination and a Board overview that describes its delivery. K.S.A. 74-5813 divides the scope in two: tests of knowledge — the basic physics of sound; the human hearing mechanism, including the science of hearing and the cause and rehabilitation of abnormal hearing and hearing disorders; the structure and function of hearing instruments; and other areas relating to fitting as the Board determines — and tests of proficiency in ten named techniques, from pure tone audiometry to the hearing instrument act itself. The four instruments below deliver that scope, and they are stated here in the order a candidate meets them, because in Kansas they interlock: the written paper carries the knowledge tests, the practicals perform the proficiency list, and the analysis practical is where the two halves are graded together.
The written examination: the ILE
The written examination is the International Licensing Examination for Hearing Health Care Professionals, adopted by the Board as its written examination in 2017 and administered by the International Hearing Society. Its register is the profession’s shared knowledge base, read against the Kansas statute’s knowledge list: sound and its measurement; the hearing mechanism and the science of hearing; what abnormal hearing is, what causes it, and how it is rehabilitated; and how hearing instruments are built and what they do. The Board’s listed study materials show the expected depth and the expected blend — the IHS study guide alongside Exercises in Audiometry, the Handbook of Clinical Audiology, and a study guide to hearing and hearing aids — text study that the Board insists be used in conjunction with hands-on work. Two mechanics matter as much as the syllabus. The candidate does not book the ILE cold: Board approval comes first, the Board sends the applicant’s information to IHS, and IHS initiates contact by email. And the sequence the Board recommends is a recommendation with a reason — pass the written paper first, while retakes are unlimited, and arrive at the practical day with only performance left to prove.
Practical one: Audiometric Testing
The first practical is a hearing test, performed for real. Each examinee performs an actual hearing test on one of the examiners, who responds in a preset manner to specific thresholds — not necessarily the examiner’s actual thresholds. That single design choice defines the test: the candidate cannot read the person, only the procedure, because the responses were fixed before the candidate entered the room. All aspects of testing are examined and scored in one-point increments against specific objective points of importance, and the examiner is permitted to see the candidate’s audiometer during testing without the candidate being scored lower for it — the Board is grading the test’s conduct and its record, not the candidate’s ability to shield an instrument. The practical carries the statute’s first proficiency items in performed form: pure tone audiometry including air conduction and bone conduction testing, executed in correct sequence, with correct instructions, and recorded so that another practitioner could rely on the audiogram. A candidate using a computer- or laptop-based audiometer is directed to download the standalone version beforehand, eliminating reliance on the internet — a small instruction that separates candidates who read the overview from candidates who skimmed it.
Practical two: Audiogram Analysis with Speech and Masking
The second practical is the examination’s reasoning test. Each examinee discusses the results found in audiometric evaluations and is graded in one-point increments against specific, objective items. The Board names the discussion’s ground precisely: completeness and accuracy regarding the test battery, including speech testing and masking, worked through standard examples case by case — the candidate is given an individual case and asked to discuss it. What is examined is the statute’s middle proficiency band performed as judgement: live voice or recorded voice speech audiometry understood rather than merely administered; effective masking recognised where it was needed, and its absence recognised where the record is therefore unreliable; and the recording and evaluation of pure tone audiograms and speech audiometry carried through to the question the whole battery exists to answer — whether this person is a candidate for a hearing instrument, and on what evidence. This is the practical that reading alone prepares worst, because its items are conversations about cases: the candidate who has only ever produced audiograms, and never defended one, meets it underprepared.
Practical three: Earmold Impression Technique
The third practical is the craft test, and it is examined on a real ear. With the candidate’s own materials, the candidate makes an actual impression on a person the candidate brings, and the examiner scores all aspects involved in obtaining an earmold impression — the inspection and preparation before anything enters the ear, the placement and delivery of the material, the set, the removal, and the finished impression judged against the anatomy it must reproduce. Attached to the same practical is its written modification component: written questions on the modifications and adjustments that may arise with hearing instruments, covering different modifications of earmolds, troubleshooting, and the tubing mechanics of earmolds — which is where the statute’s selection, adaptation, and testing of hearing instruments, and its troubleshooting and modification items, are graded inside this sitting. The logistics are part of the examination whether the Board scores them or not: own materials, and a person to impress, arranged by the candidate in advance. The candidate who arrives equipped and accompanied starts the practical ahead of the candidate who arrives with either missing.
The law inside the proficiency list
One item on the proficiency list deserves its own paragraph, because candidates misfile it as paperwork: the hearing instrument act and its rules, listed alongside the FDA medical referral criteria as examined proficiency. Kansas has no separate jurisprudence sitting in the set the Board’s overview describes — the written paper is the ILE, and only the three practicals are the Board’s — so the act and its rules are examined territory inside the qualifying examination as the statute scopes it, not an optional extra after it. The referral criteria sit there because the dispenser’s daily work includes the consumer who must not be fitted but referred; knowing that line is the examined duty, and the statute closes the point by providing that the tests shall not include questions requiring a medical or surgical education.
How the Kansas standard works — and what is not published
A slower pass over the scoring mechanics is worthwhile, because Kansas publishes an unusually concrete practical standard and a deliberately partial-retake rule, and both shape preparation. Each portion of the practical examination is scored on a percent-correct basis — the performances broken into one-point increments against objective points — and to pass an individual section the candidate must obtain a score of at least 75%. Three consequences follow. First, the sections do not compensate for one another: the standard attaches to the individual section, so a candidate prepares three passes, not one average. Second, failure is correspondingly contained: a temporary licensee who fails a portion retakes only the failed portion at the next scheduled examination, provided the temporary license is renewed and in good standing — the passed sections stand. Third, the consequence of a low score is not purely arithmetic: for scores below 75%, the Board states that aptitude will be evaluated based on consumer protection issues, and renewal of the temporary license may carry restrictions or may be withheld. What Kansas does not publish in the overview verified for this guide is a passing score for the written ILE, and none is printed here: the honest preparation target for the written paper is its syllabus covered at working depth, with the practical standard — 75% per individual section — kept in its own, published place.
The practical day itself
The Board’s overview describes a sitting with a character of its own, and candidates should rehearse it as a day, not as three appointments. The three practicals take the better part of the day, and examinees may not leave for lunch — snack food and drinks may be brought into the exam room. Objectivity is engineered in: each examinee is given a number and is known only by that number through every portion, and the overview asks the examinee to remember the number on the enclosed schedule. Within each practical, the examiner asks the candidate to proceed exactly as if working with an actual client, gives clear and specific instructions, and — a detail nervous candidates should hold onto — there is time to stop and think, or to move on and return later, and the candidate need not be afraid to suggest it. The examiners state their purpose plainly: to verify basic knowledge. The day is long, anonymised, and deliberately unhurried inside each task — it rewards working pace over panic pace.
The other two doors in K.S.A. 74-5814
The licensure section holds two further doors, stated here exactly. The audiologist route: licensure for an applicant currently licensed as an audiologist who holds a doctoral degree or its equivalent in audiology from a nationally or regionally accredited college or university — an alternative statutory route to the same licence, not the only route — on the same closing conditions: licence fee, and calibration documentation verified within the preceding two-year period. The out-of-state route: the Board may license a person currently licensed in another jurisdiction who demonstrates, on the Board’s forms, continuous licensure during the five years immediately preceding the application with at least the Board’s minimum professional experience by rule, and no disciplinary actions of a serious nature in the other jurisdiction. Both doors rest on credentials earned elsewhere, judged on paper; neither is preparation territory for this program.
A study plan built on how this examination is actually put together
Build the plan in the order the examination’s risks fall. First, the written syllabus, early. The ILE carries the statute’s knowledge tests, and the Board’s sequencing advice is to pass it before the practicals, while its attempts are unlimited; a written pass banked early converts the practical season into pure performance training. Study it the Board’s way: text in conjunction with hands-on work, never text alone. Second, audiometric performance. Full hearing tests on real people — correct sequence, instructions, and record — rehearsed until the procedure survives the preset-threshold problem, where the person in the chair answers a script and only procedure keeps the record honest. Third, case discussion. Audiograms defended aloud, case by case: battery completeness, masking indicated or missing, candidacy argued from the record — because the second practical grades a conversation, and conversations are trainable. Fourth, the impression chain and its modifications, rehearsed end to end with your own materials, modifications and troubleshooting alongside. Fifth, the statute’s remainder and the day itself: referral criteria, the act and rules, then the logistics rehearsal — number remembered, impression volunteer confirmed, standalone software downloaded, food for a day without a lunch break.
The working method: turning the outline into a performance
Kansas preparation fails most often as a modality problem: candidates study a performance examination as if it were a reading examination — the precise error the Board’s overview warns against. The working method that answers it has four parts. Perform weekly, from the start. Full audiometric runs, case discussions, and impression sequences on real people with real materials, every deviation named and corrected on the spot; supervised practice under a temporary license, where held, is the raw material, and deliberate rehearsal refines it into examination performance. An error log keyed to the sections. Every missed written item, botched masking decision, indefensible candidacy call, and skipped impression step filed under its section, so that after a month the log — not the candidate’s confidence — assigns the remaining study, against a standard that is itself sectional. Cases before conclusions. Battery first, masking second, candidacy third, on every practice audiogram, until the sequence is procedural memory. Administrative dry runs. Before the practical day, walk its checklist cold: approval confirmed, IHS email received, examinee number known, impression volunteer confirmed, materials complete, audiometer software standalone, snacks packed. Kansas voids more candidacies through logistics than through audiometry, and logistics is the easiest failure to rehearse away.
The errors this examination is built to catch
The Kansas set catches a recognisable set. Studying the practicals as theory — knowing how masking works without having masked, under observation, repeatedly — meets an examination that watches the candidate’s hands and listens to the candidate’s reasoning. Averaging the sections in your head concedes the standard’s actual shape: 75% is required in the individual section, and a brilliant impression does not lift a 70% audiometric performance over a line that was never shared. Sitting the practicals before the written pass reverses the Board’s own recommended order and spends the temporary license’s short clock on the component with unlimited attempts. Letting the temporary license drift — the next examination untaken, the renewal assumed, the 16-month ceiling uncalendared — ends the retake right along with the licence to practise under supervision, because both live inside the same document. Arriving without the impression volunteer, without materials, or with an internet-dependent audiometer converts a prepared candidate into an improvised one. And treating the act, the rules, and the referral criteria as paperwork abandons examined territory the statute places inside the proficiency list itself.
The credential in one view
The Kansas licence in one view is a chain of demonstrated competence, tested at both ends of the dispenser’s work. The written paper certifies the knowledge the craft reasons with — sound, hearing, and the instruments themselves — borrowed from the profession’s international examination because that knowledge is the same in Kansas as anywhere. The practical day certifies what cannot be borrowed: this candidate’s hands, on this audiometer, over this audiogram, in this ear, scored point by point by the Board’s own examiners against a published sectional standard. The temporary license wraps the chain in supervision and in clocks, so that the practice that precedes licensure is real practice with real consumers, bounded by the next examination and by a 16-month ceiling that forces the sequence to conclude. The candidate who studies the set as one event at two registers — principle on paper, performance in the room — finds the halves reinforcing each other: audiometric theory explains masking practice, case analysis explains candidacy, impression practice explains modification, and the act and rules explain why the whole sequence is supervised in the first place.
After the practical day: the licence and its clocks
Passing converts the candidate, but it does not end the paperwork, and K.S.A. 74-5814 states the closing steps exactly: the licence fee, and documentation that the calibration of the licensee’s audiometric testing equipment has been tested and verified as accurate within the preceding two-year period. The licence that issues is effective for one year — Kansas licensure is an annual fact, renewed on the Board’s terms, practised under the same hearing instrument act and rules the examination sampled. The disciplines the route built are the disciplines the work requires: equipment whose calibration the licensee can document, referral criteria applied at the counter without hesitation, and records another practitioner could rely on. The dispenser who treats the practical day as the examination’s final, longest rehearsal — supervised in form, independent in substance — arrives at licensure already working the way the licence expects.
Frequently asked questions
Which Kansas sources govern this route?
The Board’s Licensure Examination Overview for the examination’s delivery — its components, scoring, and sitting rules — and the Kansas Statutes for its scope and route: K.S.A. 74-5812 for the examination and the Temporary License, K.S.A. 74-5813 for the knowledge and proficiency the examination must cover, and K.S.A. 74-5814 for licensure itself. Candidates should read the overview in full before the practical day; most of the sitting’s mechanics are published there and nowhere else.
Why did Kansas adopt the ILE, and what does the Board still examine itself?
The Board’s overview records the adoption in one sentence: the Board adopted the International Licensing Examination for Hearing Health Care Professionals as the written examination in 2017, and the exam is administered by IHS. What the Board kept is the performance half — in the overview’s words, only the three practical exams will be administered by the Board. The division is deliberate: shared knowledge is tested on a shared paper, and Kansas-specific judgement about Kansas candidates’ hands is tested by Kansas examiners.
Is the 75% standard a written-examination standard too?
The Board publishes the 75% figure as the practical standard: each portion of the practical exam is scored percent-correct, and at least 75% passes an individual section. The Board overview verified for this guide publishes no passing score for the written ILE, and this guide prints none. Any percentage quoted by third-party material for the Kansas written examination should be treated as unverified.
What should I do after failing one practical section?
Use the Board’s partial-retake rule as written: only the failed portion is retaken, at the next scheduled examination, provided your temporary license is renewed and in good standing — so protect the renewal first. Then rebuild the failed section as performance: audiometric failures call for supervised live rehearsal, analysis failures for case discussion practice, impression failures for end-to-end repetitions with your own materials. Note the Board’s further statement: for scores below 75%, aptitude is evaluated on consumer protection grounds, and temporary-license renewal may be restricted or withheld.
Who contacts whom for the written examination?
The Board moves first: once an application is received and approved for the examinations, the applicant’s information is sent to IHS, and IHS contacts the applicant by email explaining the process and the locations where the exam is offered near the applicant. A stale email address is therefore a scheduling failure the candidate built themselves; keep it current with the Board.
Does the examination test the diagnosis of ear disease?
No. K.S.A. 74-5813 provides that the tests shall not include questions requiring a medical or surgical education, and the credential is a fitting and dispensing licence. The FDA medical referral criteria are examined precisely because the dispenser’s duty at that boundary is recognition and referral, not diagnosis.
Can an out-of-state dispenser become licensed in Kansas without the examination?
K.S.A. 74-5814 provides a route the Board may grant: current licensure in another jurisdiction, demonstrated on the Board’s forms, with continuous licensure during the five years immediately preceding the application, at least the Board’s minimum professional experience by rule, and no disciplinary actions of a serious nature in the other jurisdiction. It is a records route judged by the Board, not an automatic transfer.
What may I bring to the practical day?
Your own impression materials, the person on whom you will take the impression, your audiometer arrangements — with standalone software downloaded if it is computer-based — and snack food and drinks: the test takes the better part of the day and examinees may not leave for lunch.
How does the audiologist route differ from the examination route?
It substitutes a credential and a record for the sittings: current Kansas audiologist licensure plus a doctoral degree or its equivalent in audiology from a nationally or regionally accredited program of the standard the statute names, with the same closing conditions — licence fee and two-year audiometric calibration documentation. It leads to the same licence to practise the fitting and dispensing of hearing instruments.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Kansas Board or with IHS?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider. The Board alone licenses; IHS administers the written examination under its adoption by the Board.
When does enrollment open for the PassProfessor program?
The program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address on this page and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program.