Abstract / Summary
This study examines expert perspectives on the future of the audiology profession using the Audiology 2050 framework as a guiding analytic lens. A structured, open-ended survey was distributed to 52 invited subject matter experts representing eight professional segments of the audiology workforce, with 41 responding (79%). Responses were analyzed using two-stage qualitative analysis: inductive thematic coding followed by framework-based recoding across the seven Audiology 2050 domains. Findings reveal that the profession's most frequently cited challenges - scope limitations, inconsistent practice standards, workforce strain, reimbursement barriers, and constrained autonomy - are not independent problems but structurally interdependent system components that must mature in a coordinated sequence. Scope of practice modernization emerges as the foundational enabling condition upon which evidence-based practice standardization, workforce redesign, professional socialization, and advocacy collectively depend. Medicare Limited License Practitioner (LLP) reclassification is identified as the critical structural inflection point, functioning as a multiplier of upstream alignment rather than a standalone solution. Primary care entry point status for auditory and vestibular conditions is positioned as the culminating, profession-wide outcome. These findings are synthesized into a proposed phased roadmap to 2050 and a dependency network illustrating the sequencing required for coordinated structural reform. The analyses suggest that professional autonomy is achievable, but only if dependency relationships among foundational domains are acknowledged and addressed in sequence.