There are an estimated 165 job titles used to describe neurodiagnostic professions. That makes it nearly impossible to communicate about industry-specific policies, ensure fair and consistent salaries, and outline education, board exams, and career paths for students and those entering the field. Taking steps to unify the field and overcome these challenges, ASET has published and promotes industry approved job descriptions.
Neurodiagnostic (ND) technologists often express frustration with a lack of recognition of the profession, stemming from unfamiliarity with the field among the public, hospital administrators, educators, and other allied health professionals. A key contributor to this problem is the industry’s plethora of job titles with inconsistent definitions and qualifications. Technologists can overcome these challenges with shared language and standards. A solid starting point for unifying the profession’s nomenclature is the recently published Guidelines for Qualifications of Neurodiagnostic Personnel (QNP). When the industry utilizes the QNP as the preeminent reference for standardized terms, it will aid advocacy efforts, increase awareness of the valuable work that technologists do, inform salary setting, and illustrate career paths for college students, among other benefits to the profession.
Background: Standardized Job Titles
The QNP is a 2023 joint position statement that lists suggested job titles for ND professionals with corresponding qualifications and supervision requirements. It was collaboratively created by:
- The American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS)
- The American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM)
- The American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring (ASNM), and
- ASET—The Neurodiagnostic Society.
Despite these agreed-upon definitions, standardized titles and qualifications are yet to be reflected in job postings, and many disparate terms are used by technologists, their superiors, and human resources (HR) departments.
The QNP1 outlines technologist roles, including modalityspecific subtypes. It also includes positions in education, supervision, and management, and defines physician and nonphysician senior-level roles. If we remove these specialized roles, there are eight job titles for “core” technologist roles (Table 1). The QNP recommends the responsibilities, education, experience, certification, and required supervision for each of these
Table 1. Neurodiagnostic job titles of the Guidelines for Qualifications of Neurodiagnostic Personnel joint position statement.1
Job Title | Modality-Specific Subtypes | |
1. | Neurodiagnostic Assistant | N/A |
2. | Neurodiagnostic Technologist I | N/A |
3. | Neurodiagnostic Technologist II | N/A |
4. | Neurodiagnostic Technologist III | N/A |
5. | IONM Neurodiagnostic Trainee (Technologist I) | N/A |
6. | Neurodiagnostic Technology Specialist I | 6a. LTME; 6b. ICU cEEG; 6c. IONM; 6d. NCS; 6e. MEG |
7. | Neurodiagnostic Technology Specialist II | 7a. LTME; 7b. ICU cEEG; 7c. IONM; 7d. NCS; 7e. MEG |
8. | NeuroAnalyst |
Additionally, at least 11 other physician and nonphysician job titles exist in the neurodiagnostic profession
Neurodiagnostic Job Titles Remain Inconsistent and Varied
The number of ND job titles used by employers and educators is much higher than those suggested in the QNP statement, and their associated qualifications vary widely. Job postings reveal this variety; an Indeed search of the term “EEG” in June of 2025 returned 127 unique job titles in the first 20 pages of results, after discarding physician roles. With positions in polysomnography, IONM, and EMG discarded, and modifiers like “registered,” “non-registered,” and levels I, II, and III removed, the total was reduced to 26. Main terms used in job titles for technologists who perform EEG included “neurodiagnostic,” “neurophysiology,” “electrodiagnostic,” “electroneurodiagnostic,” “neuro,” “neuroscience,” and “EEG.” These were followed by a variety of descriptors, including “technologist,” “technician,” “tech,” “specialist,” “assistant,” “associate,” “reviewer,” and “technical specialist.” The desired experience and qualifications varied among analogous titles.
Similar results appear when searching for IONM roles, with terms including “associate neurophysiologist,” “intraoperative monitoring technician,” “IONM surgical neurophysiologist,” “neuro CNIM technologist,” “neurodiagnostic technician IONM,” and “neuromonitoring specialist,” among others.
The variety of titles used in the field is further exemplified by the data collected in ASET’s 2022 Neurodiagnostic Salary and Benefits Survey.2 Despite the questionnaire offering 32 job titles represented by 17 answer choices, 133 additional titles were entered as free text for the “other” answer option, indicating a total of 165 titles in use among survey respondents. Some were special titles for management and education positions, but many of the free-text answers simply showed a lack of consistency in the use of titles in the field.
The structure of answer choices was revised in the 2025 survey to reduce the number of “other” answers and improve data collection, so it is unknown whether less variety would have been observed following the publication of the QNP document; however, the varying titles examined in recent job postings indicate that there are still many titles in use, as was observed in the 2022 survey answers.
Implications
Inaccurate Salary Data
In the current Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), ND technologists fall under the category “Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other.” This category also includes dialysis technicians, oxygen therapy technicians, perfusionists, respiratory therapy technicians, and other healthcare professionals.3,4 The information provided for this category lacks relevance to neurodiagnostics, and being grouped with non-related roles in a generic category results in less recognition. This affects access to, and the quality of, information for individuals researching ND technology as a potential career path. The current salary data is also inaccurate, resulting in artificially low averages when compared to the data collected through the ASET Neurodiagnostic Salary and Benefits Survey. For example, O*Net currently lists the average salary for technologists as $48,790.6 While this figure appears on the Neurodiagnostic Technologists page, it is derived from the more general category of “Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other.” For comparison, the 2025 ASET Salary Survey reports an average salary range of $56,743 to $88,313 for the core QNP titles listed previously (Table 2).
Table 2. Average salary ranges for the “core” technologist roles listed in Table 1. Source: The ASET 2025 Neurodiagnostic Salary and Benefits Report. *Some titles were combined to reduce the survey complexity
Job Title* | Mean (National) |
Neurodiagnostic Technologist I | $56,743 |
Neurodiagnostic Technologist II or III | $68,865 |
Neurodiagnostic Specialist I or II | $79,393 |
NeuroAnalyst | $88,313 |
The ASET salary survey results are not publicly available, and therefore, they are not a resource for individuals researching potential careers. As a result, it is more likely that they will obtain salary data from publicly available government sources, such as O*Net. Since the O*Net figure is lower and not specific to neurodiagnostics, it is misleading and could deter people from pursuing neurodiagnostics.
In 2024, ASET submitted a request to the BLS to include ND technologists in the 2028 revision of the SOC. The Society took this step with the goal of facilitating accurate reporting of the number of individuals working in the field, percentage of credentialed technologists, and of salary and occupation information. However, the considerable variability in job titles threatens our acceptance in the SOC. The BLS states, “For a detailed occupation to be included in the SOC, either the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Census Bureau “must be able to collect and report data on that occupation.”5 While information can be collected through either business surveys or household surveys, household surveys are the primary source of demographic information. The BLS notes that “occupational categories with complex definitions or fine distinctions from one another are generally not collectable in household surveys.”5
Undermining Advocacy Initiatives
A lack of standardization in job titles for the profession can also negatively impact legislative licensing efforts, scope of practice codification, and overall advocacy efforts. Legislators look to national organizations for guidance in their deliberations when crafting legislation and regulations. ASET has implemented the QNP terminology in its advocacy efforts when communicating with these decision-makers; it serves as the basis on which the organization educates them about the role of ND technologists. This effort can be jeopardized when differing job titles are injected into the conversation.
When creating legislative language at the state level, it is common practice for lawmakers to rely on information and legislative language from related efforts in other states. If other states are using different job titles for the same profession, it introduces complexity and causes confusion when determining legislative definitions for specific jobs and responsibilities. While the intent may be to have cohesive legislation from state to state, the lack of standardization could result in a patchwork of inconsistencies in legislatures across the country, impacting regulations, definitions, and codes that govern the profession.
There are also potential impacts on federal laws, rules, regulations, and definitions. What happens when one stakeholder group visits the Hill and communicates with Congress using a nomenclature that differs from another related stakeholder group also communicating with Congress and advocating for the profession? It becomes increasingly difficult to craft meaningful public policy due to confusion among legislators, which can make it more difficult to garner support. Lawmakers and regulatory agencies rely on the stakeholder profession when determining policy and prefer consistent terminology. In the absence of that consistency, advocacy efforts become mired in unclear messaging and lose their effectiveness.
Varying nomenclature not only leads to confusion in legislative areas but can also create the perception in the workplace and among the public that there is divisiveness and ambiguity in the profession. This perception can lead to a loss of credibility and encourage other professions to encroach on the scope of practice of neurodiagnostic technologists. Perception matters, particularly when it comes to advocacy.
Additional Challenges
The changing nature of the profession and misperceptions by HR departments further complicate the challenge of job titles. The Scope of Practice for Neurodiagnostic Technologists is expanding7 and is no longer restricted to diagnostics. It now includes neuromodulating procedures, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct cortical stimulation. Additionally, some have reported greater success with efforts to increase pay scales by moving away from the term “diagnostic” and towards “neurophysiology.” While this move could have benefits, a change from previously used terms could also significantly set back, or even undo, previous efforts for advocacy and standardization.
What Can You Do?
Here are three steps you can take to help unify the profession, ensure fair and consistent salaries, and outline career paths for students as well as those looking to pursue professional development and advance in their career.
- Review key documents! These include the QNP as well as ASET’s companion quick reference and National Competency Skill Standards. You can also check out the Board of Trustees statements such as “Definition of a Qualified ND Technologist” and “Minimum Education and Credentialing Recommendations.”
- Share the QNP document with your HR department or ND educator or school. Utilize the QNP when drafting internal policies, procedures, and/or training.
- Properly list your own credentials using this resource.
In addition, ASET members who are subject matter experts are encouraged to review the ASET Standards and Practices Committee’s documents that are put forth for public comment. Contact Monica Mikulec, ASET Director of Communications and Publications, at [email protected] for more information.
References
- López JR, Ahn-Ewing J, Emerson R, et al. Guidelines for qualifications of neurodiagnostic personnel: a joint position statement of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine, the American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring, and ASET—The Neurodiagnostic Society. J Clin Neurophysiol. 2023;40(4):271-285. doi:10.1097/WNP.0000000000001004
- ASET – The Neurodiagnostic Society. The 2022 neurodiagnostic salary and benefits report. 2022 Edition. ASET – The Neurodiagnostic Society; 2022.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational employment and wage statistics: 29-9099 Healthcare practitioners and technical workers, all other. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; May 2023. https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes299099.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Direct match title file. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2018. https://www.bls.gov/soc/2018/soc_2018_direct_match_title_file.pdf
- Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget. Standard occupational classification manual. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2018. https://www.bls.gov/soc/2018/soc_2018_user_guide.pdf
- O*Net OnLine. Neurodiagnostic Technologists. https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-2099.01
- ASET – The Neurodiagnostic Society. Scope of Practice for Neurodiagnostic Technologists. https://www.aset.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Scope-of-Practice-forNeurodiagnostic-Technology-11.14.2024.pdf
- ASET – The Neurodiagnostic Society. Job Title: Neurodiagnostic (ND) Technologist I. https://www.aset.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Neurodiagnostic-NDTechnologist-I-Job-Description-11.6.2025.pdf
