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Costco Kirkland Signature 10.0 (Product Information)

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I don’t think they were trying to start an argument. I think they were trying to separate wheat from chaff. All I’m confident of is that Costco appears to not want to deal with tinnitus issues. A brief internet search could find no information implying that states forbade it. I did find one post from Miracle Ear that implied that hearing aid fitters could adjust tinnitus settings.

Precisely! Separating truth from assertion early keeps the “I heard somewhere that…” myths from becoming established.

The original post was saying the hearing aid fitter said they had no idea how to do tinnitus masking with the 10’s. If you actually have direct knowledge of state laws regarding the subject, then fine. I do not know and was repeating what I have learned including a provider on this forum who stated this as fact. If Costco does not allow their fitters to do the masking or if it may be a matter of state law is something beyond the scope of my response.

I have not asked the fitter for my KS-10’s if they can or can’t in Colorado. I am not sure covering up one sound with another is the way for me. Is it urban myth or opinion or fact. ?

Edited

I feel really fortunate to be able to get my hearing aids courtesy of Veterans’ Affairs Canada, but - after reading more and more about CostCo - I’d probably give them a try if my devices were on my dime.

I don’t actually know which I think is more reprehensible: CostCo obliterating the independent audiologist, or the outrageous margins the latter seem to impose for their professional services.

This is a forum with many opinions as to fact. The Costco fitter was being blamed for the op not getting the ha’s Tinnitus masking turned on. Why this is so, only that fitter knows the answer. Placing blame on that individual was certainly not appropriate for anyone on this forum without direct knowledge.

That was the original intent of my post. Do you have facts to back up the urban myth theory?

Here’s the Ashland Audiology “Blog.” It claims audiologists can treat tinnitus but hearing care specialists cannot. It says hearing care specialists are mainly trained to fit adult hearing loss whereas audiologists are also trained to deal with infant and juvenile hearing loss and to recognize various medical conditions associated with ear problems and hearing loss. The implicit message seems to be that “specialist” is an apt name for a hearing care technician who is trained more narrowly and limited much more in scope as to what can be determined and addressed under their purview. (one can find carbon copies of this “blog” on other sites so it may very well be a derivative work).

For anyone having trouble finding such stuff, two searches turned up articles claiming to explain the difference, e.g. “What can an audiologist do that a hearing care specialist can’t do?” and “Differences between an audiologist and a hearing care specialist?” I used Bing as my search engine.

Perhaps one reason the treatment of tinnitus is limited to an audiologist is that rather than just saying, “Oh, you have tinnitus. It’s easy to mask it. Let’s just turn that functionality on! We’ll be good to go,” there might be some more serious medical condition other than just your usual age-related hearing loss, etc., behind the tinnitus. The audiologist is qualified (from my limited reading here) to ~“medically” look into what might be causing the tinnitus, which could be an important determination, whereas the hearing care specialist is not - more restricted to just fitting hearing aids to compensate for hearing loss in adults. The audiologist is qualified (but not as much as an MD) to begin to look into the causes of symptoms. The hearing care specialist has a more limited purview to treat the symptoms themselves.

Sorry if I’ve gotten that wrong. Audiologists and hearing care specialists are welcome to correct my impression here.

Audiologist or Hearing Aid Specialist? What’s the Difference? (ashlandaudiology.com)7

Considering that this link deals with just two stats (Michigan and Wisconsin) I wouldn’t consider it definitive. Although hopefull there is some overlap, each state has their own regulations. To me it suggests one of the differences between physicians and nurses. Physicians can diagnose. Nurses can’t. There MIGHT be something similar with audiologists/hearing aid dispenser (California’s term) Something that also might factor in is that hearing aid dispensers MIGHT be able to do more things (like tweak tinnitus settings) if under the SUPERVISION of an audiologist. (There are parallels in nursing, but I don’t know if that’s the case for audiology. You make an excellent point regarding tinnitus possibly having medically treatable causes and some sort of assessment being of value.

An even better link from the American Tinnitus Association (emphasis in quote is MINE, not the ATA’s):

Tinnitus Health-Care Providers

If you, or someone you know has tinnitus that is causing a problem, this is a great place to find help.

You can seek help from a wide variety of health-care providers, including but not limited to, audiologists, otolaryngologists, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, dentists, and physical therapists. Below is a description of provider training and possible ways they can help. Each provider listed below is required to be licensed by the state in which they provide services. Licensure can be verified by checking the licensing board in your state.

All providers on the list support the mission of ATA, but may not necessarily specialize in the evaluation and management of tinnitus. Please note that tinnitus treatment is not within the scope of practice of hearing aid dispensers in every state.

Source: Tinnitus Patient Navigator | American Tinnitus Association (ata.org)3
(sorry - couldn’t figure out how to get emphasized title and one continuous block quote! - formatting for site software is not the greatest!)

A quote from a Costco hearing aid fitter on the Facebook page when asked about fitting for tinnitus on the KS10:

Our Phonak rep confirmed there is nothing in the software or the app for us and she suspects the word “tinnitus” printed on the quick start guide was an editing error when they adapted Paradise packaging to Kirkland.

But Costco loves to not tell us everything, so maybe there is a loophole out there somewhere.

I upgraded my Kirkland 6s to the new KS 10s today. I like them a lot so far but one big difference is the earpiece that sits over the speaker. The 10s have a softer, more pliable earpiece but it has no openings and I get a more occluded sound. Is that something that I will just have to adapt to or are there other earpieces similar to those in the 6s that can be used. I go back in a couple of weeks and will see how things work as I get more experience with these.

@hobbydog said:

The 10s have a softer, more pliable earpiece but it has no openings and I get a more occluded sound. Is that something that I will just have to adapt to

The domes/molds are based on your hearing loss. The fitter decided were best for your hearing loss.
Most people do get used to the more occluded acoustics.

In reply to @d_Wooluf

I was having a little trouble repairing my aids to my iPhone yesterday and, oddly enough, they switched to what must be a tinnitus program when I pushed the program change button. They played a noise sound, alternating between lower and higher frequencies about every 2 seconds. It did indeed seem to mask my tinnitus but this may be a bit of confirmation bias. So the KS10s do seem to have a tinnitus program but it’s not clear how to enable it.

As others have noted, I’m frustrated by my KS10s constantly switching back to the automatic program every time the iPhone makes a sound. This makes other programs and customizations useless. I got this reply from Phonak today:

The hearing aids will switch back to the Automatic program because that is the main program for the hearing aids. It will not remember the last program it was on when a alert or sound is being detected.
There is no fix for it at this time unless you unpair the hearing aid for calls and music streaming.

This is very discouraging since I have to choose between hearing phone sounds and changing programs, both of which are critical to why I purchased smart hearing aids. I don’t know what the designers were thinking leaving in such an obvious deficiency. If no fix is forthcoming, I’ll have to return my aids and my wife’s as well.

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