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Recurring costs for hearing aid owner

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In reply to @cleimer101

@cleimer101 said:

I have a lot of wax too. Somehow though, my old Oticons didn’t require changing the filter very often. The Philips 9030 I now have gets clogged fairly often.

Assuming you don’t have any ear canal or eardrum problems that would rule it out, you could try squirting warm water into each ear, with an ear syringe, once a day. I produce a lot of wax, and it became unmanageable when I got custom molds with the completely exposed at the tip. My audiologist suggested water, and now wax is a non-issue for me, to the extent that little or no wax is found when my ears are examined.

The test was done a couple of weeks before the recommendation, and Medicare paid for it. :slight_smile:

To your larger point, I agree it’s a service that is well worth paying for. Besides, I much prefer their approach to the ‘you need this for $6,000’.

In that particular meeting, I don’t know exactly where the line was between the recommendation and the offer to sell, and I don’t think the location of that line is important. After all, a large part of selling a product like an HA is educating the customer. Even $1,600 for an aid at Costco requires a significant commitment of cash.

My point of reference for pricing is the pre-inflation '60s, when $1600 paid a year’s tuition at my college. Being stuck in the '60s is, no doubt, part of the problem with the $6,000 price tag, but it’s pretty standard human behavior. :slightly_smiling_face:)

I was just at a clinic the unbundles all services except the initial fitting. They do offer lifetime services for $2500 but nobody pays that. The normal visits are $40.

I bought outside my home state. Apparently they will not do remote services to out of state residents due to state licensing laws.

In reply to @philbob57

@philbob57 said:

My point of reference for pricing is the pre-inflation '60s, when $1600 paid a year’s tuition at my college. Being stuck in the '60s is, no doubt, part of the problem with the $6,000 price tag, but it’s pretty standard human behavior. :slightly_smiling_face:)

Yeah, every time my mum says, “Oh, but I only made $14000/year when I started teaching!” I reach for the inflation calculator. :wink:

I try to keep the sales talk to the very end after hashing out the correct style and coupling options and what other assistive devices might be indicated. I don’t like it, so it’s a lot of “here’s what the manufacturers would say the differences are, here’s my clinical experience of what they actually are, here’s what I WOULDN’T get, I will answer all of your questions and then you get whichever one you like and if it doesn’t work we’ll switch”. A certain type of patient seems to appreciate that, a certain type of patient definitely doesn’t and just wants me to tell them exactly what to get which I struggle with because I don’t want to make financial decisions for them. Sometimes I wonder if I should literally say, “this is the end of the medical recommendation part of this discussion and we are now moving on to pricing and marketting.”

Neville, I agree with most of what you say on the forum but I have to disagree with putting a number of option out and making the patient decide. If I go to a professional, I want a professional recommendation. If I wanted to decide on my own I probably would not have gone to a professional in the first place. Where patients wait an overage of 7 years (if that is still an accurate number) before doing something about their hearing, the last thing I want to do is give them an excuse to put it off even farther by thinking about it. When I make a recommendation, I have enough confidence in it to give and explain why. If it does not work, I will gladly exchange once I know what the problem is. Given three price points, most people will choose the one in the middle, but if lifestyle suggests the premium level, are you really doing them a service?

@gorgeguy said:

I have to disagree with putting a number of option out and making the patient decide

That depends on how knowledgeable the patient is. They know their own priorities better than the professional. After we discussed, primarily their 3 most common brands and models I was asked to choose. I already had some information and a preliminary ranking. The discussion, along with pricing differences cemented my choice.

Personally I have had too many bad experiences where the professional does what they see as best with little or no regard for the patient’s needs or concerns.

In reply to @gorgeguy

@gorgeguy said:

but if lifestyle suggests the premium level, are you really doing them a service?

I suppose I’m not convinced that as practitioners we actually have any rational way to determine which sensorineural loss patients will be happy in a mid versus a high level device. Certainly the manufacturers try to convince us that it is lifestyle related and that mid level devices are for quiet homebodies, but. . . in my experience that correlation is really loose. I’ve run multi-technology level trials with patients quite regularly and some people notice a big difference and some people don’t, and as far as I can tell lifestyle is not the critical factor.

Edited

I very much appreciate the contributions of registered providers on this forum. Thanks.

I, too, like to know both my options and what the pro recommends. I’m not sure of this, but I suspect that participants in this forum are somewhat different from the usual customer, so perhaps normal customers have different desires. :slightly_smiling_face:

In reply to @prodigyplace

@prodigyplace said:

Personally I have had too many bad experiences where the professional does what they see as best with little or no regard for the patient’s needs or concerns.

Yes, indeed. I’m reminded of an experience I had (maybe 12 or 15 years ago?) at Cleartone. The gal who tested my hearing fitted me with a pair of their SIE , and when she went out of the little room and closed the door gently behind her the click was so loud it startled me like a gunshot. I told her when she came back that they were set too high but she replied that they were set where I needed them and I should try to get used to it.

It was autumn. The sound of leaves rustling in wind was maddening. Every squeak and rattle of my truck was magnified out of proportion. I hated it. Add to that the way their “deep insertion” design made my ears itch like crazy. Fortunately I had a month to decide for sure, so after 3 weeks I returned them and got my money back.

That experience made me a bit gunshy (audi-shy?) and caused me to buy a pair online from America Hears, mainly so I could self-adjust if necessary. I feared being ‘at the mercy’ of some audi who wouldn’t respond to my concerns.

Edited

I had my hearing test today at the office, and I’ve posted my . A pair of More2 are on order and should arrive in about 2 weeks, upon which I’ll go in for the fitting. The audi said she’d have recommended More1 if I were younger and working full time in situations that had a lot of background noise, but I’m 64 and now working in quiet environs for less hours (98% driving, 2% brief sales pitches in school offices). The most noisy situation I face is playing pickleball in a gym full of shouts and echoes, but even there I can usually converse quite well with someone who’s right next to me. With my insurance plan right now, my deductible and copay are so low the audi said she’d never seen a total out-of-pocket cost so affordable… $318. I guess it occasionally pays to be poor! :sweat_smile: (A big Thank You to all the taxpayers who subsidize my insurance plan!)

Since I already wear Sonics, she felt the switch to Oticons was the obvious choice, and I agreed. They also handle GN Resound and Widex. She said her 2nd choice would have been Resound, so I asked why not the Widex? Her reply was, she thinks they’re best for mild-to-moderate and doesn’t feel they tend to do as well with severe loss.

@3dslides said:

if I were younger and working full time in situations that had a lot of background noise, but I’m 64 and now working in quiet environs for less hours

I am a little older but have quite a few virtual meetings where I stream to my aids. I pick up my More 1 aids next month.

Anyone know what the fitting bandwidth would be on my Enchants? I am wondering i they get into the 6k-8khz range the way the More2 does. Looking forward to getting the new ones.

They are Enchant 60 mini bte. What got me wondering is, I went in today to the old and got my Enchants adjusted upward for “s” sound and cleaned (I expressed interest in scheduling a hearing test but he didn’t take me up on it). When he gave them back, he informed me that they would no longer be repairable (over 5 years old) and he said that new ones today can help with the 6k-8k hz “where I probably need it” but the Enchants cannot. It made me wonder if that was true or if he was just blowing smoke to get me thinking about buying new ones.

I wasn’t about to tell him I’ve already ordered a new More2 set from a office. No reason to antagonize him, even if I don’t trust him.

You do know that the average Hear Aid Clinic makes a 20% profit? Yes, we have to pay for a service but when greed is a motiving factor like most businesses today the one who absolutely cannot afford these are ones that suffer.

In reply to @Neville

Good points Neville! I think lifestyle is a cop out in my case. I want to try them out from the library to a ski slope myself

I think they are all different slightly between individuals regardless. I did a online hear test in a loud resturant by 4 of the best selling ai chip manufacturers. I rated the phonak & Omnicon as the clearest automatic at table voice clarity including wearer voice and speech by friends at table. The Omnicon might have been slightly better at lowering background clutter but both very close.

Now I think I should go back to that online audiologist and repeat the same test without any aids in my ear to see which 4 styles does better. I have mid to slightly profound hearing loss at 2500 to 4500 decibels on a simple earphone hearing test. Prob. not necessary and the first one with aids in is the perceived best test.

Our purchase price included 3 years of full service with at least 2 visits/year including , adjustments, cleanings & . At the end of 3 years, we could extend the services for 2 years for $600. After 5 years, we are on our own at which time we will most likely but new HAs.

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