Hearing Aid Practitioner employed at Costco…Ask Me Anything!

I bet your Rx is spot on. However, there are clinics that run rather slipshod. What’s the method to tell which is which?

Many here have commented that the Costco test was the most thorough one they’d ever taken.

As a consumer, how do you tell if a test was thorough or not?

As a noob dispenser I did not know how crappy my mentor’s testing procedure was. He always touted how great his service was and how thorough… Then I learned more and found out that there was more to testing than 4-point air conduction audiograms. But we routinely had patients telling us that we were the most thorough test they had ever received and thats why they bought from us.

Then I insisted on doing full air and bone and WR… And the patients were so shocked that there was MORE! They thought that we had invented a better wheel…

THEN when I went into practice, I added SRT and QuickSIN. And QuickSIN especially made them swoon because it is a noise test which was their biggest concern… They were amazed at how much audiology was changing (These tests are not that new).

THEN I started doing aided and unaided testing. Patients were horrified that this had never been done anywhere else.

THEN I added REM and speech mapping… I started having patients die in the chair from amazement.

My point being… what people think is thorough may or may not be.

“I started having patients die in the chair…”

!!! someone call the cops.

I have Bernafon Juna 9 HA with Auto T-coil. I have attached magnets to my Clarity telephone receivers, but I am able to decern any effect from the HA.

Clarity says the E814CC phone is HA compatible and should work with my telecoil. How do I trouble shoot this problem?

Thanks all for the response. So my t-coil now works, and the auto on feature works as well.

1. The feature was not turned on in the Oasis software. It’s under options and the last feature after Soundgate phone, Soundgate TV etc…

2. Some of the small black magnets the Costco HIS gave me were not actually magnets. Two were magnets so I’ve equipped 2 of my land line phones, but the other six little black disks are actually plastic and non-magnetic. They look like they were stick on feet for some small electrical appliance, but they kind of look like a magnet so they were thrown in a drawer with the other magnets.

They are magnet covers, you place the round magnets that come with them on the Receiver and then put the adhesive covers over them to stop them falling off.

Thanks for that info Steve! The magnets that I received are larger then these covers and have their own adhesive on the back. A magnet that could be held in place by these plastic pieces would need to be less than half the size of the magnets with the adhesive on the back I was given. I’ll ask about the covers and the magnets they should have come with the next time I’m at Costco.

Not 100% on this, but for other recent Sonova circuits, you need an iCube2. Shouldn’t be an issue for the Brio, based on the Q series. You’d definitely need the correct install patch/model list added for it though.

Looking at the accessories for the Brio, they list the DECT, ComPilot, and TVLink (NOT the DECT II, ComPilot II, and TVLink II)

This would lead me to believe that the ICom, and not the Icom II should work with the Brio.

RodeoGeorge

Thanks Um bongo. I think I discovered a few new things this morning. First, I realized that Phonak Target will tell me whether a fitting device is compatible with various instrument choices. It tells me that neither the iCube nor iCube II is compatible with either the Virto V or Virto Q. It will, however, let me select Hi-Pro. I found that a bit odd since the Virto Product Information document lists all of iCube II, Hi-Pro, and NoahLink as programming devices, but perhaps that doesn’t mean any of those for any model.
Sigh, I guess I was right back when I got my Audeos to think “maybe I should go with the most widely applicable fitting device.” But the wireless technology was just too much convenience to pass up. So now I have to decide whether to roll the dice, spend the money on a Hi-Pro, and hope that it will recognize it as a Virto. I’m thinking that’s a decent bet, since there is a post from Dan Schwartz, Editor of The Hearing Blog, that the Brio’s are unlocked and should be programmable by any audiologists with Target, not just the “special” Target software that Costco uses (which is apparently restricted to the Brio line).
BTW, the vent opening on the Brio (a crescent shape) looks much more like the pictures of the Virto V than the Virto Q. So maybe the Brio brand is keeping up with the latest generations in the mainline Phonak offerings.

@Stomper said:

Does the iphone 6s work with the Kirkland Signature Choice APP? It says the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus work,but doesn’t mention the 6s.

The 6s and 6s Plus are supported. See here: KS6 User Portal

@fuhgettaboutit I would like to take you up on your offer “to ask anything”. I am planning to to get my first set of of HA. Based on my research, so far, I am sure that I will get it at Costco. It will be one of the stores in the Toronto area. The big question for me: which one? Can you recommend a preferrable store? Any suggestion or advice from you would be greatly appreciated.

Kal

Hi fughettaboutit,

I hope your offer of asking anything is still open. I decided to try Costco for my 3rd set of hearing aids last October, and got the Rexton Trax 42. My previous HAs were Oticon Delta 4000 & Phonak Versata Art. From my research, I’m confident that the Trax 42s are better than either of my previous HAs, and I was really pleased with the price, but I’m having to ask people to repeat themselves more often now. I feel that this is due to my hearing aid tech at Costco. After his initial setup and 2nd tuning of them (not really a tuning, but he added some programs), I had my biannual appointment with an audiologist at the hospital. She gave me test results that indicated I needed more amplification at 6 kHz & above. When I asked the tech at Costco to align the HAs to the hospital test, he retested my hearing, and let the software do an automatic alignment from that. They’re now worse. And he (probably inadvertently) removed the extra programs which I was relying upon for certain situations. And he doesn’t like to get out of bed for appointments before early afternoon.

So I have 2 questions: first, can I take these to a different Costco hearing center HA tech, or am I stuck with the one I have? I asked him if he’d like me to see someone else who likes morning appointments, but he didn’t want me to change techs. And second, can Costco HA techs manually adjust amplification of particular frequencies, or is everything automated in the Siemens (Rexton) software? For my previous HAs I had audiologists who were able to do very specific customization.

Thanks for any advice you can give! and my wife also thanks you… she’s pretty tired of repeating herself.

Yes, you can go to any Costco.