Costco messed up my dad's hearing aids for 3 years

We have had Costco employees recommend not going to certain Costco locations for hearing aids. So this doesn’t surprise me.

However, we have had reports that some independent audiologists are not any better.

Unfortunately, I suspect that there a lot of folks with poorly adjusted hearing aids no matter where the hearing aid was bought from.

This would be a good case to report to Costco. They might want to implement even better QA to detect bad staff or bad locations. It seems a simple AI tool could spot the error and flag it for supervisor review. At the very least it should be easy for customers to flag to senior staff above the local level.

Costco is massive and sometimes getting things fixed can be a challenge. Good data like this is hard to argue with and more likely to get executives to see there are problems with staff not doing the job.

Yes. My local one in Iowa did a good job with mine back in 2022, which is why I recommended he go to his in Arizona.

I can tell you that this problem is not a Costco only problem. You’ve hit on one of the most common issues across the industry. Someone even posted on here that they went to a Dr Cliff recommended provider and the provider told him that REM doesn’t work. I’d have to look that up. I’m going off of what I remember from the posting. Many audiologists and hearing aid dispensers fight real ear measurements tooth and nail. Usually saying things like: NAL-NL2 is too loud. Users don’t like it. Etc.

Also a fair amount of users might dislike an occluded fitting on the right side. And it appears you could increase the gain in the left even with the double dome. As long as you aren’t hearing sound leaking from his canal. Though you’d want to ensure that the probe tubes were calibrated and that you performed some sort of stored equalization, and also that you’ve run a real ear unaided gain and the response doesn’t dip below 0db before 6khz (-5db at worst if 0dB doesn’t seem possible) to ensure tube placement.

That being said, I’m a huge believer in real ear measurements because of situations just like you described. The benefits are too big to ignore. And it’s amazing that you’ve learned all of this.

@DrJimmyJoeJimbob said:

Does anyone know why they woud fit him so wildly wrong?

Cuz some providers are inexperienced and/or under-educated and/or stupid and/or lazy.

I bet they don’t understand real-ear. They fit him with open domes because people who don’t understand real-ear also don’t really understand the consequences of open domes on low frequency gain. They didn’t worry about the feedback measure because people who don’t understand real-ear don’t understand the consequence to high frequency gain of a poor feedback measure. Because your father was in open domes and was getting insufficient low frequency gain, he probably went back and said “they sound tinny” and the provider cranked the gain down until they sounded “less tinny” and were doing just about nothing.

He just contacted me again over-the-moon. Says he’s not letting anyone touch them and they’re perfect. LOL I’ll let him ride and re-assess in the spring . I kind of wonder if those low frequencies are amplifying correctly and just leaked on the REM with the probe tube affecting the seal while the 50 and 65 db tests were running. That’s why I didn’t keep “chasing the curve” when I was increasing the gain and the REM curves weren’t going up below 1 kHz.

That’s great! Glad he’s doing so well. Some of the best diy I’ve seen.

I took the Hearing Aid Academy Course this Fall and have read some books (Compression for Clinicians, Essentials of Modern Hearing Aids, Fitting and Dispensing Hearing aids, Introduction to Audiology 13th addition, and Speech Mapping and Probe Microphone Measurements). I’m going to the Hearing Aid Academy Bootcamp in February. However, the HAA unfortunately doesn’t teach REM or much modern fitting. I’m a non ENT physician, so didn’t have a lot of hearing training in my formal schooling. My only hands on experience is with myself as my guinea pig the last 2 years LOL. When I first started fitting myself, I dealt with myself chasing and over-amplifying low frequencies and having those mask the higher speech frequencies, so I was very cautious about doing that to my dad when I won’t see him for several months.

Half the stuff though I’ve learned on this forum. However, I still know less than I would like to!!!

For 15 years I’ve been unhappy listening to recorded music. All I can say is , ‘This recording sounds almost OK. This one is unintelligible. It just sound wrong.’

I haven’t me an audi or HIS who can translate that into adjustments that make the music sound better.

@DonRadlauer said:

So we’re ruling out evil?

Kind of a shame… One of the few exciting things about entering the world of hearing aids was the prospect of meeting evil audiologists.

Heh. I have a hard time believing that any one person is truly evil. I’m sure they are out there, but statistically it’s very small and “audiologist” is not the job title that appeals to them.

@DrJimmyJoeJimbob said:

However, the HAA unfortunately doesn’t teach REM or much modern fitting.

Audioscan runs some workshops for clinicians that give a very good overview. They are certainly targetted at the Verifit which is not a machine it really makes sense for you to have, but all the basic principals are the same.

Yep my equipment is all eBay specials. All calibrated though, and some are officially calibrated LOL.

We have here a verified reason to avoid any big box store for anything nearing professional help. At best it’s hit or miss and at worst it’s terrible advice. While I have no doubt that there are good Costco (fill in any other big box location) audiologists, I also feel that those attracted to said locations for employment may not always cut it in the private sector, regardless of their profession, and that includes the plumbing and lumber departments as well.