I feel very fortunate. I stumbled on this forum pretty quickly. I got tested by my Kaiser audiologist and was told that I was on the edge for needing hearing aids (wasn’t really recommending them) I checked out Costco and the whole process was rather painless. I think things that made it easier for me was starting the process before I desperately needed hearing aids. I guess the hardest thing is that one can’t really compare specs and comparison shop, but if one can accept that it’s a lot easier.
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What a great question! My key problem was that some audiologists don’t understand the technology they are fitting. Hearing aids are designed by engineers and fit by people who sometimes don’t have the background to understand the technology and give the patient all the benefits. Another part of my struggle was the focus on reception of speech without education about the complementary visual approaches that supplement or sometimes replace speech comprehension. I wanted to receive information, including in noisy environments. I didn’t care how it came to me. For me the breakthrough didn’t come until I was on a zoom call with an audiologist who said to me, “you don’t hear like other people.” That opened a different perspective on DIY programming to me–an awareness of the parameters that needed to be tweaked so that my ears could transmit signal not garbage. Another hard part is the stigma about hearing loss that even some audiologists take into the clinic with their patients. Look at how an Australian hearing aid seller leveraged that to sell less visible HAs with a photo of a shrimp behind a woman’s ear and the caption, “hearing aids can be ugly.” There were many upset parents of HOH children after that ad was placed. What other industry gives themselves permission to insult their customers? To distill this on the positive side, I would look for a holistic approach enabling reception of information, fitting skills and a mutual respect in the audiologist patient relationship. The other pain points like cost, time to optimize and acceptance of loss can’t be fixed, but might be a little easier to bear.
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Nope, far from it. It’s almost the anthem of the hard of hearing.
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I teach a continuing education class at UNF on 10 Smart Ways to Hearing Better. One full class is about hearing aids so I try to learn all I can about them and I learn a lot from my class. The concerns I hear is about where to go/how to find an audiologist. I have to tell them I have no way for them to find a good audiologist - just ask for referrals from ENT/friends/others at HLLA chapter meetings. The cost is a major barrier, the lack of transparency makes people feel that they can’t know if they are being taken, and the poor fittings some people get so the HA end up in a drawer.
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OK thanks for clarifying!
I found another incentive for the app while traveling… MUTING the Roger On V2. It only streams TV when sitting in its cradle, and won’t mute during commercials unless I cycle out of the program or turn the Roger off.
Sure am loving the TV streaming with it!
I totally agree! Even more galling, the audi may not even USE aids! So how would they ever understand the concept of nuanced hearing preferences?
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I had been a Phonak user since PIC’s 1 and was annoyed when my audio switched me to Widex aids as an insurance upgrade.
I subsequently learned that Widex paid for a return trip for two from southern New Zealand to their Danish headquarters.
Nepotism sux.
Now back with Phonaks and happy.
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Watch the You Tube video by Dr Cliff of Arizona where he reviews the Sony OTC hearing aids and how he tweaks the programming to make sure the gain at all frequencies provide as close to the audiogram with out providing excess gain at some frequencies and or losing gain at some frequencies. That kind of tweaking is not available to clients or it is impossible to find an Audi that will tweak to get the best possible profile to match the hearing loss. The REM, the Audiogram, the Hearing loss all have to be accurate and how unaccurate the HAs are after leaving the AUD is never known. I have not heard of an AUD that test the hearing with the hearing aids in the clints ears and the AUD try to explain the remaining missmatch! Also the AUD never offers HAs with less capability even if the Audiogram shows that the 7 or 10 channel aids will work as well as the 20 to 64 channel HAs
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The hardest thing for me is finding accurate information about the technical features of the various brands and models and levels of hearing aids - things like bluetooth features, streaming devices, how things work, exactly which features are avaiable, and what they do, etc.
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Jack F’s Audiogram shows errors at some frequencies of 10 or 5 db - needs to be repeated two or three times to remove these errors before programming the HAs. This Audiogram does show that topline HAs are required and more frequency test points!
Hi LawyerFL, I may have some concrete complimentary suggestions that could help your students, if you would like me to share them.
Barb Cohen
“ScientistMA”
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Thank you for your suggestion, but I don’t understand what you mean by “errors”
Jack.
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I’m “all ears” if you will excuse the pun!
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Some tech info on Paradise I found that might be helpful. I think all of the premium hearing aids have similar performance levels.
Paradise levels of technology.pdf (257.8 KB)
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A perfect audiogram would be accurate to 2db and where hearing loss is changing fast the test will adjust to track this. The HAs have 20 or more channels vs audiogram that test 8 frequencies
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Those are not errors, most audis do the test with 5db steps (because that’s faster?). Even in-situ testing in some (most?) programming softwares is set to 5db by default. I was able to change it to 1db while programming my Signias.
[Also this forum doesn’t allow for input of more accurate results]
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I spent 2 years of bad hearing with my audiologist who provided my Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s. He couldn’t set them up.
My new practitioner did. He also provided two Target reports for me. User Report. Profesional Report.
I didn’t know they existed. It showed exactly how he set up my Phonaks.
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Excellent post can you test at more frequencies
OK. That is unacceptable “payola” that only confirms that we need to go with our gut instinct when it comes to the final purchase decision.
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