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OSHA 1910.95(m)(2) requires employers to retain audiometric test records “for the duration of the affected employee’s employment.” That phrase answers the minimum question. It does not answer the operationally important question: what happens to those records when the employee quits, is terminated, retires, or when the company is sold or closes? The answer matters enormously in workers’ compensation defense — hearing loss claims are routinely filed years or decades after employment ends, and the audiometric record is the primary document determining the former employer’s exposure.
Soundtrace’s cloud-based audiometric record system retains records for the full duration of employment and beyond — accessible to former employees, successor employers, and OSHA on request.
A worker leaves employment after 15 years in a 95 dBA manufacturing environment. Ten years later, they file a workers’ compensation hearing loss claim. The baseline audiogram from their first week — showing pre-existing loss from prior employment — is the document that limits the current former-employer’s liability. An employer who discarded that record at termination has no way to present that defense. The full hearing loss presented at the time of the claim may be attributed to the current employer.
OSHA 1910.95(m)(2)(ii) requires that audiometric test records be retained “for the duration of the affected employee’s employment.” This means through the date of termination, resignation, or retirement. Under this minimum, an employer could technically discard audiometric records the day after an employee leaves. In practice, almost no employer’s legal or HR team would recommend that approach.
Noise exposure measurement records have a separate, shorter minimum: 2 years under 1910.95(m)(1). These are often discarded at the 2-year mark by employers who are unaware of their WC exposure, even though those records are equally important in defending a hearing loss claim.
OSHA’s Access to Employee Exposure and Medical Records standard at 29 CFR 1910.1020 imposes a broader and longer retention obligation for employee medical records. Under 1910.1020(d)(1)(i)(A), employee medical records must be preserved and maintained for at least 30 years. Audiometric test records are medical records for purposes of 1910.1020, which means the 30-year retention obligation applies in addition to — and substantially extends — the 1910.95(m) minimum.
The 30-year clock runs from the date the record is created, not from the termination date. An audiogram taken on January 1, 2010, must be retained until at least January 1, 2040, regardless of when the employee left.
Under 1910.1020(e), employees and their designated representatives have the right to access their own audiometric test records during employment. Former employees retain access rights to their own records after termination. This means an employer must be able to produce a former employee’s audiometric history on request — including baseline and all annual audiograms — regardless of how long ago the employment ended, within the retention period.
When a business is sold or its operations are transferred to a successor employer, audiometric test records must be transferred to the successor employer. The successor employer then inherits the retention and access obligations for all transferred records. This includes the baseline audiograms for any worker who continues employment under the new ownership, which the new employer needs for ongoing STS comparisons.
When an employer ceases operations without a successor who will take possession of the records, 1910.1020 requires the employer to notify the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) at least 90 days before the intended destruction or disposal of records, and to transfer records to NIOSH if the agency requests them. Failure to provide this notice or to transfer requested records is a federal violation.
The regulatory minimums set a floor, not a ceiling. The real driver of audiometric record retention decisions should be the workers’ compensation statute of limitations in the states where employees worked. WC statutes of limitations for occupational disease and hearing loss claims vary from 1 to 10 years by state, and many states have discovery rules that toll the statute until the worker learns of the occupational origin of their hearing loss — which may be years after the last audiogram.
Cloud-based audiometric record systems cost essentially nothing to maintain records indefinitely. The risk calculus is simple: the marginal cost of retaining a digital audiometric record for 30 years versus 5 years is near zero. The difference in WC exposure between having and not having a 15-year-old baseline audiogram when a claim is filed can be measured in tens of thousands of dollars. Indefinite digital retention should be the default policy.
Soundtrace’s cloud-based system retains audiometric records indefinitely — accessible to active employees, former employees, successor employers, and OSHA on request — at no additional cost per record retained.
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