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Why do most audiologist refuse to reprogram online purchases?

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I think you should try and program them yourself. You can find noahlink wireless on eBay. I don’t know what software you need but I’m sure someone here will help you with that.

I did my Phonak marvels

It’s not personal - strictly business.
If you have a choice to get $200 or $2000 from your customer, what would be your choice?
To make more money they hope to drive more people to their packaged services with such approach.

On the other hand rarely does one appointment get full satisfaction after being adjusted. Probably it would take 3-4 visits or more even so in the long run they are not out of pocket that much.

In reply to @yury_mak

My unsolicited 2 cents worth coming up. Yes, while it is busy, it’s ok to make big dollars from a customer who is purchasing a new hearing aid. It is also true that very few hearing aid dispensers/distributers are busy all the time with new buyers. Whats wrong with using some of that “free” time to make some money on a “side hustle”? Maybe Monday and Tuesday mornings reserved for helping folks that have aids needing adjustment that were not purchased by the company. Some providers will not do it for any amount of money, no matter what.
Dan

@sonya_g said:

Is purchasing the Noahlink software a smart decision?

I did so and am very glad that I did. Of course there is some learning curve but this forum in the area is very helpful. One of the first things one typically does is to save in the software the current settings (which were probably chosen by an audiologist) - with this then it is easy to revert back to it, so the concern that some have that they will mess things up by tweaking and experimenting with settings I don’t think should be much of a concern as some commenters have expressed. While I got and work with fitter at Costco by knowing and playing with settings for my KS/(Phonak) I am much more intelligent about how settings interact for me; know more of what parameters can be “manipulated/adjusted” and thus can listen for and give much better and more detailed feedback to the Costco fitter who can then use their greater experience to my benefit.

My story is that I went to a High Street chain, who do glasses and hearing. I bought some Starkey Livio aids, they fitted them and I made an appointment for a month later to get them adjusted. Covid happened and that appointment never happened. I bought a Noah link and downloaded the Starkey software. After much tinkering I got them to an acceptable performance. These were low grade Livios and I decided to buy some Phonak Audeo Paradise p90’s and got them from an online company who would do adjustments remotely, or if I went to them, a long journey, for a great deal less than High Street prices. They were set up close to perfectly on arrival. A year later I found an independent local company to do a full hearing assessment (very thorough and with best practices) and they adjusted them without any fuss. I paid for both services. I will now stick with them, so it was good business to do so. I am delighted with the Phonaks. Two points, one, you cannot get the software for most brands in the UK, they don’t want you to have it. Two, do some research and go to a good and if possible independent audiologist. They actually care, unlike some of the big chain companies, in my experience!

In reply to @blfl06

Nice idea: but that’s not how perceived obligation works in the eyes of consumers - especially those who can write you a poor review in seconds, because ‘you broke their hearing aid’.

Like I said before: it dilutes the offering to your existing customers and has the propensity to get ‘messy’ with current and future cost implications.

Just yesterday we had someone scream at us over the phone because we reprogrammed their hearing aid 10 months ago and over the past 2 months it ‘doesn’t sound good’ and we quoted a fee for them to come back in. How dare we charge them a second time when we didn’t get it right the first time (even though they were happy on follow-up and happy for 8 months).

I gotta say, there’s a special place in hell for patients who are all peaches and cream with me but scream bloody murder at my reception.

Yes @Neville …. There is always one!!!

Poet John Lydgate, wrote these immortal words;

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”

Later adapted by; President Abraham Lincoln.

That truth, doesn’t alter over time, some folks are only happy when they are crying…. :rofl: :upside_down_face: :joy:

In reply to @Neville

@Neville said:

I gotta say, there’s a special place in hell for patients who are all peaches and cream with me but scream bloody murder at my reception.

@Neville: Neville, before you make a statement like that … have you listened in on a friend calling your receptionist and leaving a message? I don’t yell at my audiiologist’s reception, but (and I keep a record) 4 out if 5 times that I try to leave a message, the audiologist doesn’t get the content I left with the receptionist, as I left it. I think she is incompetent, and it probably shows in my voice, because she tells her boss that I’m rude. Just make sure you consign to your special spot in Hell those who truly are meritorious.

In reply to @Edma

@Edma said:

I am much more intelligent about how settings interact for me; know more of what parameters can be “manipulated/adjusted” and thus can listen for and give much better and more detailed feedback to the Costco fitter who can then use their greater experience to my benefit.

Boy would I love to be at that point. While I’m articulate in describing how sounds (ambient, speech, music) are sounding to me with my new Phonak Life aids, I’d get to that final, perfect end point of having the “perfect” hearing aids a lot faster if I could just tell my audi exactly what needs to be changed where in the software.

Without being able to talk the talk, patients like us can easily run up against a wall of disbelief or resistance from our audis if we REALLY want more bass, less high frequency or whatever. Hearing is such an individualized experience, yet we have to rely on someone completely outside our body to somehow get inside our EARS and figure out how we want our hearing aids to sound.

@1Bluejay said:

Boy would I love to be at that point. While I’m articulate in describing how sounds (ambient, speech, music) are sounding to me with my new Phonak Life aids, I’d get to that final, perfect end point of having the “perfect” hearing aids a lot faster if I could just tell my audi exactly what needs to be changed where in the software.

My own experiential conclusion is that chasing the “perfect” settings is most likely a no-win situation. Acoustic landscapes are very dynamic even one on one and whether person is articulating or slightly turning their head and the frequency structure of what they are saying AND how familiar I am with the topic we are discussing and what they might typically be conveying. For me there is a range of settings that seems to be perhaps?? good enough; meaning that they are optimal for moment “X” and less so for moment “Y” whereas for some other choice of settings that might be reversed. Of course we hope for the magic bullet that is a sweet spot for a very wide range of moments.

I have shifted my hearing strategy to continue to include the vital importance of my HAs and to perhaps every 6-8 months wondering about changes in settings based on primarily objective testing of my hearing, but in between time focus on what I can do from moment “X” to moment “Y” to improve the communication. As with my eyesight, letting go of too much efforting and straining to hear and understand tends to improve things along with focused attention on what is coming through clearly (as if I am telling my brain “thank you for that clarity, would love more of that”). Don’t get me wrong, I still have frustrations with hearing and HAs and ask for things to be repeated etc. but somehow softening my attitude toward what I experience has me happier about my communications. Sometimes when hearing every word accurately is not an issue e.g. I am not following instructions, giving some attention to the feeling being expressed create more of a connection with someone than decoding clearly each word. All of this is easier with those whom I am close to rather than newly met people and there is a clarity threshold below which I find that I have almost completely lost the person, yet allowing what I hear clearly be somewhat dynamic is often ok. Sometimes I move into a mode of hearing someone as if I am listening to music and allow my attention to shift to different aspects of the “vocal instrument.”

Seems like from what you wrote, you have good self observation on what hearing is and isn’t working for you … hope you find the sweet spots as you go forward.

Edit PS my comment has moved this thread far off from what the OP started with; my apologies.

@Edma said:

For me there is a range of settings that seems to be perhaps?? good enough; meaning that they are optimal for moment “X” and less so for moment “Y” whereas for some other choice of settings that might be reversed. Of course we hope for the magic bullet that is a sweet spot for a very wide range of moments.

Yes. But that is the SAME situation for folks with perfect hearing, I’m thinking! I actually think I can achieve a level of “perfection” for my relative situation. I may not hear like someone without aids, but my hearing is very nuanced - it’s just from a different level/perspective.

I totally agree with your sentiment on “CONNECTING” to the individuals or settings in which we are communicating. That sets the context and helps our brain fill in the blanks as needed. We pick up cues from facial expressions and inflection, and like a bloodhound, those cues are what we train our ears to hear, like a hound picks up scent to track. :slightly_smiling_face:

@mike_g said: (unavailable)

They could be counterfeit or stolen or refurbished ones or factory rejects or made from pieces and then were repackaged as new.

Your source for this misinformation?

In reply to @SpudGunner

Yeah, calls coming into our office are recorded.

I get the other issue too–we’ve had some reception change-over which means a lot of training. When patients tell me that they didn’t feel heard on the phone it’s useful for me, I take steps to address those issues with staff member training. We did indeed have someone on staff ages ago who would yell at the patients when she got flustered, but she didn’t last long.

The ones that are friendly to clinicians and rude to staff are a very small subset (happily), and generally repeat offenders.

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