How to trial Oticon More

@Torbill said:

Jay has also said that there is a new model coming out,

Wh have no idea if Costco will carry it. They did update their Jabra model recently from Resound One to Omnia.

@prodigyplace: Speaking only for myself, who attends a small, private practice for my audiology services,

1. This is what I consider to be the sine qua non of a useful trial;
2. I wouldn’t expect to receive this level of service from my audiologist gratis.

[Again, in my own mind, anyone expecting this to be done for free smacks of “entitlement”, which is what fueled my original comments to the OP.].

For those who think that free trials are free you should read your trial contract. It may contain a surprise for you (if by chance), the hearing aids get lost.

In the US free is usually the norm except for Costco. So it may not be an issue of entitlement.

@prodigyplace: He said he was a snowbird … I don’t see how geography has much to do with it. But - and I think @kevels55 and perhaps some others will back me up - have you ever noticed that people of modest means seldom expect anything for free?

If we can find “deals” or, better still, something for nothing , more power to us. But it irks me that some folks expect services such as hearing aid trials to be free, and are miffed when the provider imposes a (fair?) fee for it. It’s the expectation, and nothing else, that I find unreasonable and, well … selfish.

I have Oticon More HA’s and in my opinion they are great for speech recognition and I have severe hearing loss. Over the past 10 years I have worn Phonac, Widex and Oticon HA’s, For me Oticon is overall the best of the three. Initially I went to Costco but I was not impressed with the audiologist’s service nor the HA’s they offer. Others will of course disagree, but in my opinion Costco offers lower cost versions of higher end aids and of course the options are not equivalent to what I need for severe hearing loss. My More aids cost $6500 but that included a TV streamer and in the case of my audiologist unlimited service for as long as I own the HA’s.

In California there is a 30-day free trial period for all HA’s with any audiologist, My Audi doesn’t take any money until I decide to purchase. In addition he will let me trial multiple aids for as long as it takes for me to decide, usually in about 45 to 60 days. Of course I’ve been with him for more than10-years, so we have mutual trust. It’s my understanding that in the case of Widex and Oticon the trial period cost of the HA’s is covered by the manufacturer, but I’m not positive.

These HA’s are expensive but I can hardly hear without the HA’s and they make a great difference to my quality of life, so I’m willing to pay more for what I think is the best for me in product and service.

@Torbill said:

original question about how to trial Oticon hearing aids without obligation

Depending on where you live in the states, here are trial laws:

https://www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/ConsumerProtectionLaws.pdf5

To echo what some folks may have already said (I didn’t read through every post here), whether or not there is a nonrefundable deposit for the trial and how much that is may vary from audiologist to audiologist – I would imagine your best bet is to call into different offices/clinics and ask. Personally, mine was $150, but I knew I would end up purchasing one hearing aid or another from my audiologist (and trialed 3 different HAs), so it was a non-factor in my decision.

I did try the Phonak Paradise which are essentially the same as the KS10s, and found the overall sound experience, particularly with regards to speech in a loud and crowded talking environment to be drastically different from both Signia AX and Oticon More (I ended up with the Mores), and had a similar experience with you in that speech in noise was not good at all, for me. But I actually thought the Signias performed best solely when it came to speech in loud environments with a lot of overlapping voices. The Rexton BiCore has similar technologies to the Signia AX if you’re looking for a way to stick with Costco. Otherwise, you’ll have to decide whether you’re willing to part with some sort of deposit to try out some of the big 5/6 brands, if you need to part with any $$$ at all.

And I imagine someone has already point this out, but Oticon did just announce that their new HA is coming out, so if you can, maybe wait to try those instead of the More, unless you can get some significant savings from the More and it’s a big factor in what you decide!

Hmm…interesting question. If it was a $250 deposit (where that $250 was deducted from a balance owing when you decide to purchase) then yes, I would have agreed to that. However if it was a $250 charge on top of the ‘regular’ price for the aids, I’m not sure I would be happy with that. I mean the hearing test is already done (has to be for her to recommendation, and in my area everyone advertizes ‘free’ hearing tests). #2 & 3 in your list was done, but did not need to be re-done once I made the decision to keep them, so in essence I would have paid for it twice. And your #3 is not important to me - the only other program I have is MyMusic, which she added after I paid for them and I can live without it anyway.

But what if I hated them and did not want to keep them? I do see the dilemma. I do think they need to be compensated for their time, but on the other hand, I think it is a great selling tool for them. In my case, she was recommending something I did not believe that I wanted (I wanted to stay with CIC/ITC but didn’t like the large antenna on the new versions). She was able to say ‘try these for a month and if you don’t like them we will get you something else’ and for me it was a no brainer to at least try. So I agree in this case that a $250 fee is probably not unreasonable, but it is still a lot of money and to be honest I don’t know what I would have done.

@Chirp: My question was general, and not specific to your situation. It was more or less “If you had no audiogram, and were starting your purchasing process from scratch, would you be prepared to pay the audiologist $250 to try hearing aids that you didn’t end up buying?” … (and on the assumption that no free trial of your device of interest was available elsewhere.)

Thank you for taking the time to post your detailed response to my question.

Incidentally (for anyone who’s curious) my own reaction to this exercise has been surprising - even perplexing to myself.

From a philosophical perspective, I believe that small practitioners who offer trials and “do it right” ought to be paid for their effort. However … on a practical level, I’d only agree to copay the fee if my health insurance covered the majority of the trial fee, say 75 or 80%.

But - if I am honest about it - I’d probably not pay $250 out-of-pocket to try out some new hearing aids.

And why services are typically bundled in with the cost of devices, too.

It’s nice here in Ontario to get $500/ear every 5 years through ADP, but it’s too bad that this amount doesn’t stretch very far given the cost of modern HAs.

Would be nice to have audiology services covered by OHIP. At least for pediatrics.

jayman2 put me on to Costco’s Philips 9030, above. I’m getting a new hearing test next week so that I can trial the new 9040.

At the same visit I plan to get my KS10’s adjusted. I like the KS10 (although I have had a charging problem that was resolved for now with a reset) except that I don’t like the way that the KS10 closes down ambient sounds - more of the promise of an open landscape is what attracted me to Oticon, and now Philips. The KS10 shuts out most ambient sound when I’m streaming the TV and phone. I’m presuming that a simple adjustment will allow more outside sound in, when streaming, and I plan on having this done.

And there are other times when I’m bothered by the closed down way that the KS10 works. An easy way of thinking about what I’m saying is to think about how the KS10 works when we walk around, say, Costco. The KS10 responds to this sort of environment by making me feel as though I have cotton in my ears.

I got to thinking, is the adjustment software for the KS10 capable of letting more sound in, in a noisy environment like a walk around Costco? In other words, can KS10 be adjusted to somewhat mimic hearing aids that are more open? Or is such a capability simply not in the DNA of the KS10?

@Torbill said:

I got to thinking, is the adjustment software for the KS10 capable of letting more sound in, in a noisy environment like a walk around Costco? In other words, can KS10 be adjusted to somewhat mimic hearing aids that are more open? Or is such a capability simply not in the DNA of the KS10?

Although I don’t wear the KS10, I’m sure you can get a more open surround feel on the KS10 as well as with many other hearing aids. It’s just a matter of asking the HCP to put it in a program for you so you can select that program. Usually a program oriented toward music listening or the outdoors tend to open up and not do very aggressive beam forming at all.

If the KS10 autosense tends to put you in a more aggressive noise suppression setting than you like, ask your HCP to give you a more open program that you can manually select to go to and not let autosense decide on what program to put you in.