Audiologist "doesn't do" REM?

Might be easier to like an AuD you find then find one you like. How would you evaluate liking before finding?

I asked.

I work for a school board with 260 schools. My source referred me to my first audiologist. She was amazing.

However she sold her business.

I tried again. Next Audi had one good partner. When she left things got bad quickly.

I tried again. Kind gentleman….

So I ask around.

Hearing treatment and sleep apnea have similar issues. Key is finding someone good
Good luck!

Uh, yeah. Well, I have chosen an audiologist in New York and so far I like her a lot. Expensive, though. I’m paying $250 for custom moulds and $300 for REM and programming, plus $75 for regular checkups. Can any Americans tell me if this sounds about normal? Thanks.

Yes. I think this is very reasonable.
If she reads this she might raise her prices.

Everything around the big cities, esp NYC, either is way more expensive or way less than less urban areas. There are higher costs of space and what-not, but sometimes economies of scale play out to flip costs upside down.

I just think REM isn’t worth an “extra” cost, unless you just wanna say “at least I did it” now if only it could magically restore your hearing…

I don’t think she would. She’s either salaried, and not pushed to make sales (it’s a hospital clinic, so this seems plausible), or just a supremely nice person.

She quoted me $7,200 for the Intent 1, which would include custom moulds, REM, and a year’s worth of aftercare appointments. I paid ~$4,750 in the UK, so just paying for the moulds and other appointments made more sense, but I am within the return window and said I was happy to do that if it made things easier. She told me no, it wouldn’t be worth the cost or hassle for me.

5/6 years is far too long, technology with make them obsolete in 3.

Yes, I agree. Three years is a long time… you will want the latest tech, and your hearing will not be as good three years from now most likely… so you will need it. At least I will.

My hearing isn’t age related (at least not so far). I’m 35 and it’s broadly unchanged since my first audiogram about 30 years ago. Since I started buying my own hearing aids, this is only my third purchase in 11 years, so I’m upgrading approximately every 5.5 years… but I can comfortably afford it these days, whereas it was a real struggle in 2014 and even somewhat in 2019. I guess perhaps I will want new tech in three years – they’re good, but they’re not perfect – so we’ll see.

Yeah absolutely, I use my linx2 when on the shop floor, for most of us DIY’ers who buy eBay we buy a year or two behind, Costco is pretty good, and 3 years more than enough for most, it’s old school thinking that 3 years is “not much technology increase” AI has seen to that in a big way, we could say the same phone or tv, cars etc new models every single year, for a lot of us that have been using HAs for a long time 3 years is a long time, so it’s technical aspects and not price, unfortunately for people who spend 5 to 8k on a pair, yeah they worry about having to spend more hard earned cash on a another set that may or may not give much benefit,right now I’m waiting on Costco to get the Vivia at only $1600, so I’ll never need to worry about “prices” being part of the equation to get the latest or not.

My reason for concern over tech upgrades, has to do with Ai, and the increasing role it might play. IF the current iteration truly represents a robust implementation, then good. But if the current Ai crop of HAs turns out to be easily transcended in processing and performance - leaving those we have to be mostly Ai “flavored” - tip of the iceberg technology mostly for marketing. Then anyone who could possibly find a way, would be chafing at the bit to move up.

Other exotic ideas like heat, sun, kinetic charging.
Speech to text optics.
Sound to smartphone speech transcription
More robust health sensors
24/7 wear with safety monitoring and alerts
Mind reading and thought transciption/recording/archiving
Vibration cleaning
Just for starters - could have you salivating sooner

@IGZO said:

24/7 wear with safety monitoring and alerts
Mind reading and thought transciption/recording/archiving
Vibration cleaning

I watched some of Antman with my boy. Antman seemed to be able to give ants orders through these earbud things he was wearing. Should be easy to adapt that to hearing aids. That would be nice. “Get out of my kitchen!”. “Yes master”.

I agree that we may be at the start of a steeper upward trajectory than usual with hearing aid technology. That’s one of the reasons I went Costco. To keep resources in reserve for the Next Big Thing. It might all be illusory of course.

24/7 wear reminds me of Lyric, which I used for about three months in 2019. They were shit. They kept failing, and they ere deeply uncomfortable. BUT I never slept through an early alarm during those months.

These days, I rely on the vibrating alarm on my Apple Watch, which is pretty good.