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Costco vs Audiologist

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@whahuh said:

when I first got the KS8s.

8-1, is what I meant. Wishful thinking, 'cause I would like the iPhone thing. Though I’ve got Android now. Maybe when my cell contract runs out in a year or so I’ll make the move. I’m pretty okay with the KS8-1s.

One way to look at this w.r.t whether you should wear a hearing aid on the better (left) ear or not is to think in terms of getting eye glasses. If you have a bad eye and a so-so eye, would you want just the bad eye corrected and not get the improvement on the so-so eye as well? I would think that you’d want to get corrected vision in both eyes because your so-so eye does not have perfect vision and can still benefit from it, no matter if the benefit is not as great as with the bad eye.

The point about vision correction and hearing correction is that if you correct only the worse side, then the other side becomes the bad side, although it used to be the better side.

Personally I’d want to wear hearing aid on the left side as well if I had your hearing loss. To me, balance is important and spatial cues are important and if I have an opportunity to improve my balance and spatial cues then it’s worth it to me.

In reply to @Corona1

Corona,
Curious how “extensive” your was? Mine was run at 65dB level and it was within “range” (I think about ± 10dB) and it was called good enough. From comments from Abram, it sounds like a thorough REM would measure at 50, 65 and 80 and adjust to match. My Costco did REM lite. :>)

@Waynetc said:

Since I am new to all of this how would i know if a real-ear verification test was performed?

You should have gone through something like this:

In reply to @Corona1

@Corona1 said:

I’d be curious to hear what the pro’s have to say on this.

Everyone has a bias. If you believe the manufacturer hype, your bias is going to be that two is definitely better than one because of all the extra processing (even though evidence that this extra processing does much for speech comprehension in real life situations is thin on the ground). If you have a strong memory of how hearing aids worked in the 1970s you probably won’t recommend a hearing aid for borderline loss (older ?.. although we have some evidence now that low amplification with modern for people with normal hearing and auditory processing issues can be benificial). If you are trying to please the patient by making a judgement of their circumstances without asking them directly (e.g. looks like the price tag of two will be tough for this patient), you might go one way or another. And so on and so on. Mostly practitioners are trying to do what’s in your best interests.

The questions for borderline loss are 1) will the benefits of the hearing aid outweight the irritants (much more likely today than years ago) and 2) will those benefits be worth the cost to the patient. I try as much as I can to leave that descision in the patient’s hands–try two hearing aids, try one, see if there’s a difference.

(Frankly, those are the questions for all hearing loss. If someone has a significant loss but doesn’t feel that they are getting benefit from a well fit set of hearing aids, who am I to tell them otherwise? But different patients have different personalities. Some of them want an emotional appeal, want to be told what to do, and are stressed out by making the decision. They don’t want to worry about it. I know I can be a weak audiologist for those patients because that’s not the type of person I am–I want to be given all of the information and then make the decision myself. This forum seems to run towards the latter type of person as well.)

First - I’m glad that I posted this thread as it has led to interesting discussion, and my pulling my hair out (lol)
What I am beginning to wonder is if it is a matter of $. Not the money that I’ll pay out, but perhaps because of how good my wife’s benefits package is with the hospital (major / very large / mult-isite system) that they decided to provide one OPN1 (my OOP is 1250.00 plus a little more for the rechargable ver.) to start me off with. hmmm

I guess all I can do is also pick up a pair at Costco (perhaps the Phonak or Bernafon pair) and take both for a test drive for a month (one month trial on the OPN1) and see what the outcomes are.

which leads to this question -
If I get the single from the hospital and the pair from Costco, how often should I trade off (each day? every three days) any opinion? thank you

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

One way to look at this w.r.t whether you should wear a hearing aid on the better (left) ear or not is to think in terms of getting eye glasses. If you have a bad eye and a so-so eye, would you want just the bad eye corrected and not get the improvement on the so-so eye as well? I would think that you’d want to get corrected vision in both eyes because your so-so eye does not have perfect vision and can still benefit from it, no matter if the benefit is not as great as with the bad eye.

The point about vision correction and hearing correction is that if you correct only the worse side, then the other side becomes the bad side, although it used to be the better side.

Personally I’d want to wear hearing aid on the left side as well if I had your hearing loss. To me, balance is important and spatial cues are important and if I have an opportunity to improve my balance and spatial cues then it’s worth it to me.

I quoted the entire piece because it is worth repeating. I am, who you describe, vis-a-vis the vision element. I could get by quite nicely with a monocle, but why?

Shucks, if I had one perfect ear, I would ask about sticking a dummy in it, just to stave off the tired, old comments and questions over and over and over.

I disagree somewhat with the sentiment that the “better” ear should be fitted with a hearing aid (for "balance " or whatever rationale you choose), and here is why. Anyone that has worked in pro audio is well aware that as soon as you take an acoutsic sound, run it through a mic and reproduce it with a speaker, you are already at a huge disadvantage sonically. So you are taking the good ear, compromising it and then attempting to compensate for that. And you are applying louder than ambient sounds to the good ear.

Where this falls apart is when the good ear is already bad enough that it needs compensation to improve speech recognition or whatever. But as long as the good ear is not that bad, I think one aid is better sonically overall. The tricky part is knowing when to move from air to aid on the better ear. But, this can be tested for quite easily if you visit an audiologist and get fitted for the second ear.

You could perhaps get two aids and leave one in the box until needed.

In reply to @Waynetc

@Waynetc said:

I guess all I can do is also pick up a pair at Costco (perhaps the Phonak or Bernafon pair) and take both for a test drive for a month (one month trial on the OPN1) and see what the outcomes are.

Would that not be apples and pomegranates?

Hmm…funny…I interpreted it the other way…L/R.
I’m not sure hearing is involved in balance. I think that’s an inner ear bone thing or something. Like we have a built-in gyroscope. All physically around about the ear and all of its workings but not necessarily to do with hearing per se. Do deaf people have balance? Depending on any physical reason for being deaf of course.
But… what do I know.

In reply to @Waynetc

My take is that there was considerable influence of money in the recommendations. You got sold one premium aid (which I’m guessing has higher markup than lower level aids. It is very difficult to sort out conflict of interest. Trying to run detailed comparison of hearing aids is extremely difficult because so much of getting benefit out of hearing aids is getting used to them. If there’s one specific circumstance you can compare–maybe, but wearing one one day, or even several and then switching is going to drive you nuts. Personally I think the best option is to make a choice based on whatever criteria you want (price, color, location of shop, whatever you want) and go for it. Work like heck to make it work. If it doesn’t, then try something else. If it works, don’t look back and wonder if something else might have been better.

In reply to @Waynetc

@Waynetc said:

I guess all I can do is also pick up a pair at Costco (perhaps the Phonak or Bernafon pair) and take both for a test drive for a month (one month trial on the OPN1) and see what the outcomes are.

Some of us are pretty sweet on our bargain-basement ('cept they’re not) Costco KS aids. And Costco will let you trial for 6 months.

In reply to @MDB

MDB: But isn’t money always the case? The OP has a benefits package through his wife that is only good for her employers products and services. He would have to pay out of pocket for the Costco solution. Totally understandable of him to make that choice.
Might it be a conflict if they’re trying to keep the benefits expenditures to a minimum by selling only one aid? Maybe.
I think if I were him I would try to cajole the hospital to also provide the other aid and still be on the benefit. Does he need top of the line aids? Maybe not.
But I think it always comes down to money. These things are expensive. Heck there was a guy around here earlier who seemed to say he has all kinds of money but that he would just as soon try to make sure he got VALUE for his money. Fair enough.

I’m with you on the rest of your post.

Edited

Lots of good and valid arguments have been put forward regarding the one vs. two option for Waynetc. One point that favors the one HA option, which I haven’t seen raised, is the fact that with almost any HA in any ear, you lose some or all functionality of the pinna (the fleshy outer ear that focuses sound waves into your ear canal). With I assume you maintain this functionality, with I think you lose some of this functionality, and with (including , etc.) you lose all of this functionality (except that the pinna provides something on which to hang the HAs). IMO, the pinna is fairly effective for humans. And super effective for some animals!

In reply to @z10user2

I must admit I don’t understand the hearing aid benefits he has available to him, and I don’t understand how the audiologist is compensated. He may be salaried and whether or what OP buys has no impact on income. But the recommendation feels strange. I can’t think of a good analogy so I won’t confuse matters with it, but the juxtaposition of recommending only one hearing aid combined with recommending one of the highest priced hearing aids out there seems odd and makes me consider motivation. I think hearing aid BUYERS should consider price and value in their purchasing decision. I don’t think hearing aid SELLERS should let profit margins impact their recommendations, although any kind of commission based structure will encourage that, either conciously or subconciously

Well certainly he hasn’t provided all the details of his wifes benefits package and of course he has zero obligation to do so.
As for the sellers well…follow the money. Neville may have some ideals that would suggest he follows himself but the skeptic in me would think that money rules all in business.

Just to clarify (and I will add more later) I was given many choices at the hospital audiologist. On the high end were Phonak, Oticon and Resound. I did not even ask about low end as the biggest trouble I face is when I am out in noisy environments, especially stores (like my Costco) and out dining. I did like the sound of the Oticon more than the Resound in the tests that I did. I can’t deny that three mics in the Oticon were also an influence to order that one (since I suppose one could call me an audiophile)…Even though I also have Tinnitus in the 'bad ear" (the very high freq type) I chose Oticon (at least for this trial) based on the quality of sound I experienced with it.

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