Your opinion…if visiting a new provider and buying new aids, do you think that it’s good practice for them to review your current settings in the old aids?
I just ordered the Sonite Rise at Costco, and just thinking ahead to the fitting appointment. Wondering if he’ll even look how these are set up. I doubt it….
On one hand it could be a good way to see my preferences… after all the settings in my old Phonak aids have evolved over quite a few visits to adjust this and tweak that based on my lifestyle and my preferences. Since these aids are the same manufacturer, I’d imagine that some of that would carry through even though I’m upgrading tech by a few generations.
But on the other hand, maybe the old ones aren’t right…or as good as they could be…
and maybe really only makes sense to start fresh.
Anyway, I’m not trying to steer this new fitter. Only just wondering what you expereinced fitters do.
Yes, I look at old settings and take that into account. Although it can be less useful between manufacturers.
But I look at old and take that into account more than old programming. The last thing I want to do is give a patient reduced; audibility with new devices.
update. I ended up going in for my fitting. He did not look at my old settings, said he couldn't/doesn't have the ability...... but I couldn't help but to point out to him that he's using Phonak Target and he could :)
In framing the question, I even framed it around looking at settings such as how much the external mics turn down when streaming so he could see what I'm used to....not that it's right necessarily or where it needs to be, just that it's what I'm used to.... and at least start a conversation about where it needs to be
Anyway, he set me up, used , and except for the REM sort of stuff did zero questioning or asking what I liked, how it sounded, etc.... Walked through the app set-up on my phone but didn't do a test call, test streaming, none of it. Sent me packing. He went back into his room and shut the door, I did not leave. standing in the hearing center counter area, I pulled up something to test streaming and immediately noticed that the background noise was not suppressed. Then I made a test phone call to my sister. She reported that the background noise was worse than it has been (I've been talking with her for years through my Phonaks)
So I knocked on his door. He was annoyed, and asked for my phone to show me how to adjust it in the app. I explained that I do not play with the app. The app settings do not stick, & that I wanted it set on his end through target. He was not even aware that he could do that, so I helped him to find the setting in his computer..... then we had to take a wild guess as to how much to turn it down. He chose -1dB out of the air. Didn't even have me try it, just sent me packing again to see how it works. It's better, good enough till I go back for my next appointment.
Later at home, I pulled up my marvel settings. Thanks to folks here on the forum I have an old version of Target. Sadly, I never really took the time to figure out how to use it effectively, but I can see that my marvels were set to -6dB. I'm not really sure, -2dB might be good enough but I might ask for him to reset it to be -3dB or -4dB
Now after some time with the Sonite aids, I know that the settings for Autosense car is too muted. It's taking them down so low that I can't understand my daughter sitting in the passenger seat!
And yesterday in church, it was horrible! Our church is very echoic. They recently upgraded their sound system so that I have very good understadning using my Marvel aids...but these were sa bad I asked my daughter.....she confrimed that teh sound system sounded pretty much normal. I found that if I turned up the volume about for pushes, then I oculd understand but it was very bad. High freqs were way too hot, bad echo, and all teh background noise was overwhelming. I didn't have my phone with me so I was unable to see which program autosense was choosing. I'll take it next week.
What settings should I check in my Marvels so that i know how to coach the Costco guy to get these new aids set up correctly for these two trouble areas?
My audiologist always uses my previous settings to set up new aids for me then makes needed adjustments to ensure my new aids are taking advantage of the new features
If you have Phonak Target and your acoustic parameters are similar with the Sonite devices have you considered backing up your Sonite aid settings and then transferring your settings from the Marvel devices to the Sonite devices to see whether you have better outcomes?
Yes, well in a way.... I thought about just looking through the settings to get familiar. To actually program them I'd have to learn a lot about the side of things first..... but sadly these Costco aids seem to be locked down (or maybe it's just incompatible with whatever version of Target that I have). I was unable to connect to them
I experienced way too many audiologists like this, which is why I learned as much as I could about . I have been programming my own hearing aids for about 7 years no & am much happier.
I have been programming my Phonaks from the beginning, starting with Bolero V70's I purchased on ebay. When I acquired a used pair of Marvel M90 aids I used the V70 settings as a starting point, and with a little tweaking my Marvel's were good to go.
About 2 years ago when I had my hearing checked at the in San Francisco, the first thing she did was to download the settings from my Marvel m90’s for their records. She said it would be very helpful when the time came that I asked for new aids.
If you have the Target software and interface device, I suggest you update Target, and get to work on programming them yourself. As long as you keep saving your settings, you can always revert back in case you screw up something. As you learn your way around, you'll find that no one can do it better than you. It's very liberating, and no appointments required!
I would expect your audiologist to be making some effort to match the settings of your previous devices as a starting point for a new fitting if the signal processing is similar, you are satisfied with your existing devices and your hearing hasn't changed much. They're just making everyone's life unnecessarily harder in not doing so.
If you have the Target software and interface device, I suggest you update Target, and get to work on programming them yourself. As long as you keep saving your settings, you can always revert back in case you screw up something. As you learn your way around, you'll find that no one can do it better than you. It's very liberating, and no appointments required!
Yeah, I think that that could be the best approach, except he said that they are locked and when I checked that seems to be the case.
Bradw, Is there another Costco in your area? For me, an hour or three of driving is better than 30 or 45 minutes of aggravation.
yes, I have two others that aren't unreasonably far away
and there are other techs at the Costco I go to, so I could go to a different tech.
That said, I went in the day after my fitting to get a change out to a different size of domes and worked with the audiolgist/manager. I was a little suprised that she didn't go into my settings to tweak a couple of things that I had reported to her. (for example, I reported that in car mode the noise cancellation was kicking in too hard so I couldn't understand my daughter. I fully expected that with that report she would have gone in and tweaked it. I know that it could be done in minutes...) She did verify that I have an appointment on the schedule, and she entered some notes for that and gave me a different dome to try.
I'm just having the sense that this is Costco's business model..and I guess I'd expect it to some degree given the price point, but I did expect a little more customer centered service
What does look at old mean? Is that something you can do with your patients but another provider who does not have the old REM could not do as this is not saved in the aids? What are you looking for in the old REM sessions?
Your provider can sometimes match the output of your existing hearing aids to the new ones. It is possible to measure the existing output and then overlay it as a target in the audioscan verifit 2, medrx awrc and interacoustics affinity compact verification systems. This means if you loved your output settings and your hearing hasn't changed they can be closely matched to what you already had.
Yes, what Hearing Potential said. In tricky situations you can do an exact match. I had one memorable patient who couldn't speak English and her comment on her new hearing aids was always just "they don't sound right" and she luckily had one old functioning hearing aid so that I could match it and test box and it turned out that she was looking for a very odd, peaky sound that she was getting from her old analog device. Severe profound users often benefit from an exact match because they are a trickier fit.
But more generally than that, I'm looking at old to see whether the patient was hitting prescriptive targets, or whether they were below Target at the highs and if I want to try to bring them up I'm going to have to do some counseling on adaptation and auditory access, or whether they actually preferred to have their devices way above prescriptive targets in which case if I'm just aiming at prescriptive targets they're probably going to be unhappy, etc etc. Most providers have the REM output saved on their computers and yes it's unlikely that another provider would have access to it. Presuming the old hearing aids are working well the new provider can just take a measurement of them, although I will send them out to providers given the chance on the hopes that other providers can use them. Most commonly I'm probably sending them out and circling that it's child targets with 10 circles.
I haven’t even started target in about 8 or 9 months. When I did the ultra update then went in the the audiologist for some program changes, and he couldn’t do it because he was stuck on the older target (pre-ultra), I stopped for the while. At some point I’ll get the bug and go in again. But it is on my son’s computer, I don’t have admin rights so updating software is a PITbackside. And I’ve been up to my eyes in a bunch of projects which compete for my time (like, why did I ever think to volunteer to teach the men’s study on Hebrews this year? While I’m trying to get a house built?)
All that to say I seemed to recall your comment about having older target. Hope someone else gives you great instrux!
Geneva, Switzerland
Hot Springs Village, Arkansas
