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Why do most audiologist refuse to reprogram online purchases?

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Edited

I didn’t say it originally. I repeated it because I felt it was offensive and unnecessary. All because the individual didn’t get what he wanted. But like I said. I spoke my piece. PS. I like my audiologist and he has never tried to screw me. Oops, there it is again

And (someone has to say it), this is why Costco is selling so many aids. Almost as cheap as ebay, definitely as cheap as online, and free programming forever. Yes, some of the hearing aid techs at costco are not fantastic, but same with some ’s. And at costco you can always go to another one.

Yes, I actually tried theirs just for those reasons.
Unfortunately, with my apparently abnormal reverse slope hearing loss, I just didn’t get the same quality from theirs that I did with Oticon.
So here I am, back with Oticon.

I have been out of town for a couple of weeks and found this thread when I got back. I find it interesting with the comments. By the time a person spends a couple of hundred thousand dollars to get their , you expect them to take you with a potentially unreliable hearing test, on as a patient for two or three hundred dollars??? Without a complete case history and an accurate hearing evaluation as well as a speech in noise test, the professional would only be guessing as to what you needed. That being said, when I sold my practice in 2005 and retired from the industry in 2017, I still would take on patients for programming. I am not so sure I would still do it today. The hearing profession as a whole does not owe you anything. When you spend your money on instruments, that is all you are buying, instruments. To decide how to get them working properly, well that is something else. I can see where many practices will not jump into the middle of an unsatisfactory fitting. But given the limited information they have when you come in with hearing aids from elsewhere, I can see where many will do the programming for a modest fee. Just remember that they have not made the recommendation or done the detailed background information gathering that is required for a successfull fitting.

Edited

Goodness the snippy responses I’ve received for my simple question.

I never said anyone owed me anything😒

I simply asked why.

And regarding the $200-300, The audiologists refused to even give a price for testing or a “proper” fitting unless I bought from them.

The same audiologist programmed and did my previous fittings in the past, on several of my sets (bought through her and online). Now she will not due to a policy change.

I never said I wouldn’t pay for proper re-testing or fitting…but couldn’t even get that far unless I bought from them directly.

Thankfully I found another audiologist that will, for $250… that’s the cost they requested, not me.

Remember what I said at the very beginning, to ask them why they wouldn’t, just so you could see who could come up with the most inane reply, well you got quite a few! hard to say which gets the gold medal tho…

In reply to @sonya_g

Some masters out there should organize a Zoom Training session on how to fine-tune their own hearing aids. They are very helpful.
No point arguing with the Audi, it is their rice bowl. No right or wrong. We just have to find our own path to move away from them. We just have to Google and find the cheapest HA in the world!. I found mine at half the price. Fine-tuned at 20 USD per hour at the local Audi clinic.
I saw the Oticon More been tuned using NOAHlink hardware and Genie 2 (correct me if I wrong). Take your time to read the info on this Blog.
Good Luck.

Well my Audi is free programing forever. Anything less I would consider unaccetible. But he can’t beat Costco prices and trial period.

Perhaps some audiologists dont care to do programming on self bought units because programming is usually not a one time occasion. So if they agree to program, how many follow-up adjustments does that include, etc?

In reply to @SpudGunner

Agreed that its billable.
But can easily imagine that someone that pays $250 and then the next day realizes the volume for (example) streaming needs to be adjusted up… walks back in office and doesn’t agree to paying another $250. and on and on and on. If I was a provider, it wouldn’t take too many of these occurences for me to no longer offer the service to a non-purchase customer.
Anyway, just a possible reason.

In reply to @SpudGunner

In the U.K. it will come down to a few of things.

1: As the retailer you enter into an explicit contract with the purchaser, this includes honouring the warranty terms and being liable to resolve claims - the bricking example I quoted above is an area where liability becomes confused. The purchaser has effectively used a ‘third party’ to program the . The original vendor can quite rightly say they are no longer liable if someone else has been ‘under the hood’.

2: If it’s wide scale, it becomes damaging, say one supplier just makes online sales but assures people adjustments can be made ‘anywhere’. The online provider takes all the profit, the local audiologist is expected to ‘provide a service’ but in doing so detriments the local multiplyer effect which diminishes local margins, payments to staff and more importantly the inherent value of the service purchased by all the other customers at that location.

3: Also, as described above, what if that customer gets an initial programming they are dissatisfied with, do they get several extra visits FOC?

4:We don’t mention that we do it, but I will re-program HA where a client has moved to our area, inherited/or been gifted HA, especially if we were something to do with the original supply or know the recipient. Also people in genuine financial hardship. There’s still a fee payable though.

I can see why some firms don’t do it though: it can get ‘messy’ and messy where there’s negligible gross margin is just cost. I think that it’s unfair to dump that cost at the door of my existing customers if the only reason is to allow the online purchaser to ‘game’ the system for their own selfish advantage.

I thought you had valid points up until your closing. I don’t think of myself as selfish or gaming the system for paying $2k online instead of $8k at audiologist. In my opinion, they’re selfish and gaming consumers.

I respect your opinion though and appreciate your feed back.

That’s also a fair point. 8k for a pair of hearing aids is a bit bonkers, it’s about double what you’d pay here.

My ‘gaming’ reference was really only meant to reference that purchasing like this bumps a significant short term advantage, but comes with the risk of a lack of long term aftercare.

Imho: if a market becomes too greedy, then the space opens up underneath first for ‘Homebrew’ approaches to existing tech and then new market entrants.

Why do I get the feeling that the manufacturers are somehow behind this and discouraging audiologist from programing aids purchased from a third party. They control everything else

In reply to @Um_bongo

@Um_bongo said:

if a market becomes too greedy, then the space opens up underneath first for ‘Homebrew’ approaches to existing tech and then new market entrants.

This is my point in the first instance, has just become so much more popular with the masses, because of so many having the door closed in their faces for whatever reason in the industry, it’s also the reason was pushed through, who can afford upto 8k for ,so many people were missing out, these reasons were very damaging and people simply had to find a way around this, and here we are today.

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