The Tennessee Hearing Instrument Specialist license, issued by the Council for Licensing Hearing Instrument Specialists under the Board of Communication Disorders and Sciences, Tennessee Department of Health, authorizes the holder to fit and dispense hearing instruments in Tennessee. The licensing examinations behind it — the International Hearing Society written examination, the International Hearing Society practical skills examination, and the Tennessee Jurisprudence Examination, all under Rule 1370-02-.08 — are reached only when every other licensure requirement is complete. The PassProfessor Tennessee Hearing Instrument Specialist program, described on the companion program page at /tennessee-hearing-instrument-specialist-exam-prep/, prepares candidates for that examination set.
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The credential at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | Tennessee Hearing Instrument Specialist (Licensed Hearing Instrument Specialist), the license for fitting and dispensing hearing instruments in Tennessee |
| Licensing authority | Council for Licensing Hearing Instrument Specialists, under the Board of Communication Disorders and Sciences, Tennessee Department of Health; Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. Chapter 1370-02 |
| Examination | Three components under Rule 1370-02-.08. Written: the International Hearing Society’s examination (the ILE) or its successor — the passing score is the overall passing score as determined by the International Hearing Society. Practical: the International Hearing Society’s practical skills examination or its successor, taken only after the written examination is passed, on the same IHS-determined standard. Jurisprudence: the Tennessee Jurisprudence Examination, on the HIS statute (Title 63, Chapter 17, T.C.A.) and Council rules — the passing score is a minimum of seventy percent (70%) |
| Eligibility | Eighteen years of age or older, and education equivalent to two years of accredited college level course work or National Board for Certification in Hearing Instrument Sciences (NBC-HIS) certification (Rule 1370-02-.04); all other requirements for licensure must be completed before the Council approves an applicant to take the examinations |
| Fees (state-published) | Application fee $450; practical examination $175 (first attempt) and $125 (retake), per the Rule 1370-02-.06 fee schedule; examination and retake fees must be received before the examination date |
| Route | Qualifications and application → written examination → practical skills examination, with the Tennessee Jurisprudence Examination → Hearing Instrument Specialist license; Registered Apprentice is the supervised trainee tier |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Council, the Board, the Tennessee Department of Health, or the International Hearing Society |
Tennessee rewards candidates who read the credential as the Council built it: a complete application first, then an examination set that audits it. The rules place the examinations last in the application sequence, order the written paper before the practical performance, give Tennessee law its own scored component with its own published standard, and surround the whole set with clocks — sixty days, thirty days, ninety days, twelve months — that are as examinable in effect as any audiometric principle. The guide below takes each verified element in turn.
Reading the verified facts
Every fact in the table above was pinned to Tennessee primary material — Chapter 1370-02 as published on the Secretary of State’s official publications site (June 2024 revision) and the Council’s own Department of Health pages — during this program’s research pass. Three reading rules apply throughout the guide. First, passing standards are printed only in the form the rule publishes them: for the written and practical skills examinations, “the overall passing score as determined by the International Hearing Society” — a delegation, not a number, and any Tennessee percentage quoted for those components by third-party material is an invention; for the jurisprudence examination, the rule’s own published minimum of seventy percent (70%), printed here because Tennessee prints it. Second, the apprentice and the licensee are never merged: the apprentice license, with its one-year maximum and its sponsor structure, is a different document from the Hearing Instrument Specialist license, and figures belonging to one are stated only for that one. Third, the fee schedule is quoted as a schedule: Rule 1370-02-.06’s Examination Fees lines list the practical examination at $175 and its retake at $125, alongside the $450 application fee — and list no separate written-examination fee, so none is stated anywhere in this guide.
The route, step by step
Step one — qualify. Be eighteen or older, and hold either education equivalent to two years of accredited college level course work — proved by an official transcript sent by the college directly to the Council’s Administrative Office, under seal — or current NBC-HIS certification, proved by the National Board’s own submission. Step two — file a complete application. The rule’s intent is stated plainly: all steps necessary to accomplish the filing be completed prior to filing, and all materials filed simultaneously — application, documentation, the nonrefundable application fee, and the examination fees, with a passport-style photograph taken within the preceding twelve months, a certified photocopy of the birth certificate, the required disclosures, and a criminal background check submitted directly from the vendor the application materials identify. Supporting documents the Council requests must arrive within sixty days of the request or the file closes. Step three — be approved to test. All other requirements for licensure must be successfully completed before the Council approves an applicant to take the examinations; for the practical, the file must additionally have received the Council Consultant’s initial determination that its documentation is accepted, and at no time may an applicant sit the practical before that determination. Step four — the written examination, the IHS examination the Council has adopted, taken to the IHS-determined standard. Step five — the practical skills examination, approved only after the written is successfully completed, and the Tennessee Jurisprudence Examination on the Title 63, Chapter 17 statute and the Council’s rules, at its published seventy percent minimum. Step six — the license, issued by the Council and Board to the applicant who has passed all three. Results throughout are mailed; the Council does not provide them by telephone, facsimile, or email.
The outline in full
Tennessee’s outline is a rule, and it is quoted in substance here because Rule 1370-02-.08 is short enough to be exact and specific enough to be a syllabus. It opens with its gate: all applicants for licensure as a hearing instrument specialist, or for registration as an apprentice hearing instrument specialist, must successfully complete the applicable examinations described in the rule — and all other requirements for licensure or registration must be successfully completed before the Council will approve an applicant to take them. The three components follow, in the rule’s order.
The written examination: the IHS examination, adopted
Rule 1370-02-.08(1)(a) provides that the Council adopts as its written licensure examination the International Hearing Society’s examination or its successor examination — the International Licensing Examination (ILE) — and that the passing score shall be the overall passing score as determined by the International Hearing Society. The paper’s territory is the profession’s shared knowledge base: the physics of sound and the anatomy and physiology of hearing; audiometric evaluation in its pure tone and speech forms, with the masking judgement that keeps a threshold honest; hearing instrument technology, selection, and fitting grounded in measurement; verification, follow-up, and counseling. Tennessee adds one written-examination provision of its own, aimed at applicants who arrive already licensed elsewhere: the applicant shall direct NBC-HIS to submit evidence of current certification, or direct IHS to submit documentation of having passed the written examination under this rule — the written record, in Tennessee, travels through the bodies that issued it, not through the applicant’s own papers.
The practical skills examination: three named areas, performed with your own equipment
Rule 1370-02-.08(1)(b) makes the order explicit — successful completion of the written examination requirements must be accomplished before the Council will approve an applicant to take the practical skills examination — adopts the International Hearing Society’s practical skills examination or its successor on the same IHS-determined passing standard, and names what all applicants will be required to demonstrate knowledge in: audiogram interpretation, advanced audiometric techniques, and earmold impression technique. The examination is administered by the Council or its designated representatives, under proctor provisions that have proctors travel to the Council’s Administrative Office in Nashville on scheduled testing dates set in advance. The bring-list, quoted in the program page, deserves its weight here: an audiometer with audiogram forms and proof of current calibration; an otoscope; all materials needed to make an ear impression; equipment needed to program, troubleshoot, or modify hearing instruments and earmolds; red and blue ink pens; and an individual to be the subject for the ear impression and the hearing test. Read as a whole, the list is the examination’s philosophy: Tennessee tests the candidate as a practising dispenser, with the dispenser’s own calibrated instrument, materials, and subject — the sitting reproduces the workplace and grades what happens in it.
The jurisprudence examination: Tennessee law, at a published standard
Rule 1370-02-.08(1)(c) is the shortest component and the only one with a home-grown number. Applicants will be tested on their knowledge of the Hearing Instrument Specialist statute, Title 63, Chapter 17 of the Tennessee Code Annotated, and the Council’s rules and regulations; the passing score shall be a minimum of seventy percent (70%). Its territory is therefore fully enumerable: the statute the license is issued under, and Chapter 1370-02 itself — the definitions, the scope of practice and its no-treatment boundary, the supervision and cosignature duties, the apprenticeship program, the fees, the renewal and continuing education structure the candidate is about to live under. It is also the set’s most portable obligation: both reciprocity routes require it, so the experienced out-of-state licensee and the first-time Tennessee applicant meet on exactly this component.
The apprenticeship: the route beneath the route
A slower pass over the apprentice tier is worthwhile, because for many Tennessee candidates it is the actual road to the examinations, and Rule 1370-02-.14 builds it with unusual precision. The apprentice registers with the Council under Rule 1370-02-.05, on the same age and education qualifications as the licensee, with a sponsor’s letter evidencing training, direct supervision, and an outline of training. The apprenticeship must be supervised by a Tennessee licensed hearing instrument specialist holding a current, unsuspended, and unrevoked license, who dispenses on the premises; a sponsor may supervise no more than two apprentices concurrently; changes in the application information must be reported to the Council in writing within ten working days. The period of apprenticeship training must be no longer than one calendar year from the date the apprenticeship license issues — the license cannot be extended or renewed — and inside it, Rule 1370-02-.10’s direct supervision has a defined shape: the sponsor directs, reviews, and approves each act of service, without needing to be constantly physically present; the sponsor reviews and cosigns all hearing tests and earmold impressions the apprentice gives, and all bills of sale the apprentice prepares, and keeps the records. For at least the first three months the apprentice functions under that direct supervision with the sponsor making the final selection and fitting of the hearing aid. The exit is dated: ninety days after the apprentice license issues, the apprentice may apply to upgrade to licensure by examination — no duplicate documents required — with the upgrade application fee and examination fees paid, and proof of sixty classroom hours of approved instruction in hearing evaluations and hearing aid fitting, which Rule 1370-02-.14 also frames as coursework approved by the National Institute for Hearing Instrument Studies. The apprentice who treats the year as a waiting room wastes it; structurally, it is a supervised rehearsal whose every cosigned test and impression is practicum material, on a clock that does not renew.
The retake discipline: sections, thirty days, three failures
Rule 1370-02-.08(3) deserves its own pass, because Tennessee’s retake rules are more forgiving in one dimension and more severe in another than most candidates assume. Forgiving: an applicant who fails any section of either the written examination or the practical skills examination will be retested in the section or sections failed only — the passed remainder stands. Severe, twice over. First, the clock: on or before the thirtieth day from receipt of the examination results, the applicant shall submit the retake fee; failure to do so closes the application file, and a closed file means a new application, with all fees, before the Council acts again. Second, the ceiling: after three failures of the written or practical skills examinations, the applicant must wait twelve months before sitting for a retake — and the twelve months are not idle, because during them the applicant must receive training assistance from a Tennessee licensed hearing instrument specialist, whose name the applicant must notify to the Council in writing within ninety days of the third failure’s notification. Initial and retake examination fees must in all cases be received in the Council’s Administrative Office before the examination date. The discipline the rules teach is administrative adulthood: the results letter starts a clock the day it arrives, and the prepared candidate calendars it before opening the envelope.
The sittings themselves
Rule 1370-02-.08(5) fixes the frame: the location of the examinations shall be designated in advance by the Council, and examinations shall be held not less than annually at such time and place as the Council specifies, if there are applicants eligible — and at other times as, in the Council’s opinion, the number of applicants warrants. The practical’s proctor machinery points to Nashville: proctors, themselves Tennessee licensees holding current NBC-HIS certification who have observed at least one practical skills examination, travel to the Council’s Administrative Office there on testing dates set in advance; either side may seek a Council member’s recusal from a particular applicant’s examination, on the applicant’s written request received at least ten days before the scheduled date. The candidate’s part of the sitting is the bring-list and the subject, arranged in advance and checked twice. Results are mailed to the applicant under Rule 1370-02-.08(6) — not provided by telephone, facsimile, or email — which makes the mailing address on file a small but real eligibility document, and the wait for the envelope part of the sitting’s design.
A study plan built on how this examination is actually put together
Build the plan in the rule’s architecture. First, the file — because no examination can be sat until every other requirement is complete and the Council approves: qualifications proved through the proper channels, the application filed complete and simultaneously, the fees in. A study plan that ignores the file’s timeline prepares a candidate the Council cannot yet examine. Second, the written syllabus — the IHS examination’s professional knowledge, studied to working depth, with the plan’s honesty about its standard: the target is the syllabus itself, since Tennessee publishes no number for this component and aims the candidate at IHS’s determination. Third, the practical performance — audiogram interpretation from unfamiliar records, advanced audiometric techniques performed rather than described, and the earmold impression sequence rehearsed whole, with the candidate’s own audiometer, its calibration proof in date, and a subject who has agreed to both the hearing test and the impression. Fourth, Tennessee law as a scored subject — Title 63, Chapter 17 and Chapter 1370-02 read as the jurisprudence examination’s named territory, against the one published number in the set: seventy percent. Fifth, the clocks — sixty days for requested documents, retake fees inside thirty days of any result, the apprentice year’s ninety-day upgrade point and its non-renewable end — calendared from the start, because in Tennessee the calendar fails more candidacies than the audiometry does.
The working method: turning the outline into a performance
Tennessee preparation fails most often as a modality problem compounded by a paperwork problem: candidates study a performed examination as a reading exercise, and study at all before the file that unlocks it is complete. The working method that answers both has four parts. Perform under cosignature, from the apprenticeship onward. Every supervised test and impression is already being reviewed by a licensed sponsor — invite that review to grade against Rule 1370-02-.08’s three named areas explicitly, so the apprenticeship’s ordinary work becomes the practicum’s rehearsal. An error log keyed to the three components. Every missed written principle, fumbled technique, flawed impression, and misremembered rule filed under written, practical, or jurisprudence, so that after a month the log — not confidence — assigns the remaining study. Law learned in the licensee’s tense. The statute and rules applied to the practice the candidate is already performing under supervision — a cosignature, a bill of sale, a calibration certificate — because the jurisprudence examination tests the law of a working practice, and the two Tennessee-law continuing education hours in every renewal cycle will test it again. Administrative dry runs. Before each stage, walk its checklist cold: transcript or NBC-HIS evidence travelling through the proper channel, photograph in date, background check submitted by its vendor, fees received before the examination date, subject confirmed, calibration proved. Tennessee’s rules publish their traps; rehearsing them away is the cheapest preparation in the set.
The errors this examination is built to catch
The Tennessee set catches a recognisable set. Sitting out of order — preparing the practical as if it could precede the written, or treating the examinations as available before the file is complete — meets a rule that gates both, in terms. Aiming the written preparation at a percentage chases a number Tennessee does not publish; the standard is IHS’s overall passing score as IHS determines it, and the syllabus at working depth is the only honest target. Leaving Tennessee law to the final week concedes the one component with a published numeric standard and the one territory — the candidate’s own governing rules — that no general material covers. Arriving at the practical without the kit — uncalibrated or unproved audiometer, no subject, no programming equipment — converts a prepared candidate into an unready one on the rule’s own list. Missing the thirty-day retake window after a failed section closes the file and restarts the fees — the single most expensive envelope in the process. And treating the apprentice year as extendable discovers, at its end, that the license cannot be extended or renewed, and that the upgrade, the classroom hours, and the examinations were all meant to fit inside it.
The credential in one view
The Tennessee Hearing Instrument Specialist license in one view is a supervised apprenticeship audited by three examinations and governed for life by the law one of them tests. A registered apprentice learns the craft under a sponsor’s cosignature for a single, non-renewable year; the state then tests the result three ways — what the candidate knows, on the profession’s international paper; what the candidate can do, performed with the candidate’s own calibrated instruments before the Council’s proctors; and whether the candidate knows the Tennessee statute and rules the doing is governed by, at a published seventy percent; and the licensed specialist then practises inside that same legal frame, renewing on a biennial cycle in which Tennessee law is a standing two hours of every twenty. The examinations sit at the hinge of that chain, built in the chain’s own image: the written component certifies the knowledge the education supplied, the practical certifies the hands the apprenticeship trained, and the jurisprudence certifies that the new licensee can read the rulebook — fittingly, since the rulebook is where the whole credential, this guide included, comes from. The candidate who studies the three components as one event at three registers — principle, performance, and law — finds them reinforcing each other at every joint.
After the sittings: the license and its clocks
The result arrives by mail, and the biennial cycle begins. Renewal is planned, not remembered: the due date is the expiration date on the renewal certificate, renewal may be completed online, the schedule’s renewal fee is $700 with the $10 biennial state regulatory fee, and the continuing education — twenty hours across the two calendar years preceding the renewal year, two of them on Tennessee statutes and rules — accumulates on the calendar whether the licensee tracks it or not. The working records run alongside: calibration certificates retained for every audiometer at the place of business, bills of sale retained for every hearing aid sold, and compliance documentation kept for four years and produced within thirty days if the Council asks in writing. Reinstatement of an expired license re-imposes the continuing education for every expired year and calibration certificates for every expired year — the clocks do not forgive an unattended interval. The specialist who treats Chapter 1370-02 as the practice’s operating manual, rather than as an examination hurdle cleared once, meets each renewal as the formality the system’s design intends.
Frequently asked questions
Which rule governs the Tennessee examinations?
Rule 1370-02-.08 of Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. Chapter 1370-02, read with Rule 1370-02-.04 (preliminary qualifications), Rule 1370-02-.05 (procedures), Rule 1370-02-.06 (fees), and Rule 1370-02-.14 (the apprenticeship training program). The Council’s Department of Health pages describe the Council itself — created in 1995, five members appointed by the Governor.
Why must all other requirements be complete before the examinations?
Because Rule 1370-02-.08 says so in its opening paragraph: all other requirements for licensure or registration must be successfully completed before the Council will approve an applicant to take the examinations. The examinations audit a complete file; they are not a way to hold a place while the file is assembled.
Is the seventy percent figure the pass mark for the whole Tennessee set?
No. Seventy percent is the published minimum for the Tennessee Jurisprudence Examination only. The written and practical skills examinations carry the standard the rule states for them — the overall passing score as determined by the International Hearing Society — and no Tennessee number attaches to either. Material quoting a single Tennessee percentage for all three components misstates the rule.
What does “advanced audiometric techniques” sit alongside in the practical?
Two other named areas, in Rule 1370-02-.08(1)(b)’s own list: audiogram interpretation and earmold impression technique. All applicants are required to demonstrate knowledge in the three, and the practical is approved only after the written examination has been successfully completed.
How does the apprentice upgrade actually work?
Ninety days after the apprentice license issues, the apprentice may submit a request to the Council’s Administrative Office to upgrade to Hearing Instrument Specialist licensure by examination — without duplicating documents already filed — paying the upgrade application and examination fees, providing a photocopy of the apprentice license, and proving sixty classroom hours of approved instruction in hearing evaluations and hearing aid fitting. Passing the Rule 1370-02-.08 examinations is then a prerequisite to licensure.
Can the apprentice license be renewed while I finish the classroom hours?
No. Rule 1370-02-.14 fixes the apprenticeship period at no longer than one calendar year from issuance and provides that the apprentice license cannot be extended or renewed. The classroom hours, the upgrade application, and the examinations are all planned inside the single year.
What happens after a third failure?
A twelve-month wait before sitting for a retake, spent receiving training assistance from a Tennessee licensed hearing instrument specialist — whose name the applicant must notify to the Council in writing within ninety days of the notification of the third failure. Before that point, failures are retested in the failed sections only, provided the retake fee is submitted within thirty days of receipt of the results.
Does the jurisprudence examination apply to experienced licensees entering Tennessee?
Yes — it is the common component of both reciprocity routes in Rule 1370-02-.04, for applicants with NBC-HIS certification and for those without it. Tennessee examines its own law of every entrant, whatever their standing elsewhere.
How are examination dates set?
The Council designates the location in advance; examinations are held not less than annually at the time and place the Council specifies if there are eligible applicants, and at other times as the number of applicants, in the Council’s opinion, warrants.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Council, the Board, or IHS?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider. The Council alone licenses; IHS supplies the written and practical skills examinations the Council has adopted.
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.