Bill > HB444

This bill amends the definition of the "practice of audiology" in Kentucky law to include evaluating, diagnosing, managing, and treating auditory or vestibular conditions, as well as prescribing, ordering, selling, dispensing, or fitting hearing aids, sound processors for osseo-integrated devices, and sound processors for cochlear implants. A "sound processor" is defined as an external unit that attaches to an internal osseo-integrated device or cochlear implant. The bill also clarifies that the practice of audiology includes certain health screenings, removal of foreign bodies and cerumen from the external auditory canal (unless impacted and requiring anesthesia), ordering specific lab tests and non-radiographic imaging of the external auditory canal, ordering radiographic imaging related to auditory or vestibular conditions, and administering or prescribing topical otologic pharmaceutical agents. Importantly, the bill explicitly states that the practice of audiology does not include surgery, osseo-integrated device surgery, cochlear implant surgery, the preparation or performance of radiographic imagery, or the independent diagnosis or treatment of suspected malignancies of the ear, external canal, or skull base, which must be referred to a physician.

Labor and Employment

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26RS/hb444.html