Hello - First time posting here and found this forum while searching for information on Oticon OPN pricing. My first hearing aids about 10 years ago were Oticon’s and I got 8 years on the left side and 6 years on the right side. Mostly because I didn’t need both sides until 2 years in so I got a pretty good run out of them. I upgraded 2+ years ago to newer ones from Phonak and took my audiologists recommendation on them. Then I was reading about the Oticon OPN and found the benefits to be useful and I did try them at my audiologist but I felt their pricing was way too high.
I was quoted $6500 for the pair, and they wanted me to trade in my current Phonak’s for a $400 credit then I get $1000 from insurance so my out of pocket was $5100. Then I read in this thread of users paying between $2000-3000 less than my Audiologist priced me at. I have no issue with providers making a profit and covering overhead, but I have a problem with 100% markup over what I can pay elsewhere.
So for those who have purchased online or through other providers has anyone in the Upstate NY market (CNY) found a good provider. I am seriously looking at a new audiologist anyways, my original one moved away and I am on my 4th one at this practice.
Thanks. I decided to call BuyHear.com10 and spoke with them, sorry I forgot his name, but to be honest given their pricing and the fact its the same warranty as my Audiologist I can’t pass up buying from BuyHear.com and saving thousands of dollars. My last hearing test was a year ago, since my current Audiologist didn’t do a test when I was just in (annual visit) he suggested I see an and I do have one I see so I am going to schedule a hearing test with them so I can send the results to BuyHear.com and get them ordered.
I had another question for those who have the Oticon OPN, you can opt to have a micromold instead of the standard end, has anyone opted for that, if so good or bad opinions.
I just paid $3,340 after all discounts ($4,000 total) but Thursday the discounts will only be $2,000 so new price would be $5,340.
This is in Ontario Canada
I just ordered and received OPN’s from Buyhear. Before placing this order I got many quotes and it’s interesting to see how huge the price range for these can be. First a little background if you don’t mind:
I’ve been wearing ’s for ~25 years. I was fitted by three different audiologists over this time in three different cities. The process was always the same - first see an and get evaluated. Conclusion - always - yes you have a hearing loss with no specific medical condition. Result - you need hearing aids. So I would see an audiologist and typically get steered toward the latest tech whatever it is or was. Up until these OPN’s I have always been wearing custom fit ’s. Advantage - less exposure to wind, rain, and getting accidentally knocked off, plus completely invisible and I could wear any kind of headphone I pleased. My last fitting was the same as the others - I was steered toward these very new fangled deep in the canal Starkey CIC’s which required a tricky custom fitting (something we never got 100% correct but with some great time & effort it worked adequately). I was told the price was $7K and seven years ago there was no negotiation or shopping around that I was aware of. I’m pretty sure my prior aids five years even earlier were ~$6k so this didn’t seem so outrageous. Fast forward to this summer… my old Starkeys are long out of warranty and in need of repair. I had recently moved yet again to a faraway island, but happened to be back in my old town on a visit, and stumbled onto news of the Oticon OPN, and my audio had a pair of demos handy. I immediately realized these were vastly superior to my old aids and solved many if not most of the issues I had with (for one the OPN’s seem oblivious to wind noise and I happen to live in very windy places). So after a few days I was very enthused and asked my audio friend what’s the price? I was told that normally they are $7.5K, however if I wished to purchase that very moment, they would give me a deal and make it $7k. It was a measure of my desperation that I seriously considered this. But I returned to my island and did some research, stumbling onto this sight and this thread in the process. Thank you very much. For the first time ever I feel like we the HA consumers now have some price transparency (I feel a bit like the guys in “The Big Short”, discovering what their CDO’s are really worth).
There are three audio options where I live. One is Costco but they don’t sell Oticons. I called the only independent audio and was quoted $6.8K for the OPN’s (and they were very enthusiastic about them). Next I called a medical group with an ENT/Audio dept and yes they also sell Oticons and their price? $5.4K. They were also very enthusiastic. Then I emails HCS (hearing care solutions) and unfortunately they have no contracted audio on the island or anywhere close. But their price was $4.4k. And finally there is the buyhear price, which everyone should know already. So I could have payed as much as $7.5K for these, or as little as $3.8K. How can such price disparity be possible? Because audiologists rely on the fact that most of us most of the time have no clue what these should cost, and these are medical devices that we desperately need to live our lives in a meaningful manner, so they have most of us over a proverbial barrel. IMO Costco and Buyhear are simply bringing some price sanity to this insanity.
And for me personally, I have no concerns buying online, as I do so many things already (on an island it’s often your only choice). My prior HA’s were serviced by an audio 3000 miles away anyway, so I figure dealing with buyhear can be no worse and is likely to be better - after all working with remote customers is they’re entire and only business model.
As for what HA’s should cost - I read in an earlier post that in Sweden OPN’s cost around $2K and there was some surprise a profit could be made at a such a price. So I’m an engineer, both electrical and a software developer and I formerly worked for a giant semiconductor manufacturer. And if you know how chips are made you know that the first one costs $10 million to make and the next 10 million chips cost 10cts each to make. I believe HA’s somewhat follow this model, so say the first OPN cost $10 mil to make, the next million (or how many they plan to manufacture) cost ~$50 to make. Do the math and you can see what the profit margin is. Besides the main chip in these, all the other parts are off the shelf standard commodity componentry. Further, consider some of the “hearables” and bluetooth earpods recently announced. For instance the HearOne https://hereplus.me/2 will retail for $299 a pair. Each of these has three directional microphones, are rechargeable, communicate between each device, support streaming to any bluetooth device, have 4G of memory so music (or custom apps) and can stored and run entirely inside the earpod, and can be programmed to cancel or isolate noises including voices and music. While these are not marketed as hearing aids, I can already see the potential that these will work for many as aids or, especially when combined with apps and that’s a key part of this - like an iPhone these can run custom apps as they have a pretty sophisticated processor + memory in each. All that for $299. I suspect we are going to continue to see some price erosion in the HA market as devices like this start to compete with “real” HA’s. You’ll soon be able to buy devices like these online and at box stores like Walmart. Plus I wouldn’t be surprised to see Walmart or other big box stores add an in house audiologist to compete with Costco. IOW there is going to be downward pressure on prices and we the HA consumer should be happy. And it’s about time.
PS - one more thought. I suspect people like me are going to consider selling or trading in our aids which are not custom fitted, such as a RIC OPN, and getting the latest bells every 2 years, instead of waiting 6 or 7 years as I have been doing. More like how we treat smartphones today. If a used/refurbished OPN that was still in warranty was available for say $1.5K right now, that would seem like a decent price for some, yes? Up until now I never considered buying or selling used, but the more I think about it, the more it makes a lot of sense. Especially when we can program our aids ourselves.
Especially when we can program our aids ourselves.
I guess you could IF you could find a fitting link 3.0 for sale somewhere. No luck at all getting one. I have the Genie 2 software which is useless without the fitting link for adjustments. When I was sent an Adjustment Kit it was so easy to adjust it was amazing.
The hearing aid model so far has been dispensing it as a medical device via folks trained in the field. While certainly not quite the same thing consumers are now asking for more hands on abilities to make modifications themselves. Personally I would think that a great idea. I think that most of society is going to look at it like we are asking to have access to the software to modify a pacemaker. There are a few outliers willing to start embracing remote/in-home adjustments of hearing aids but I’m guessing it is still a ways off for making it a normal practice. It will be common in a few years I predict. With a lot of baby boomers mixed with a whole generation of people that have had earbuds stuck in their ears since a young age I think hearing aids are soon to be a more common lower priced item.
I found a German site selling the Fitting Link 3 (FL3)
I wonder if the Fitting Link 3 is more than just an early Bluetooth v5 dongle. It seems to have a Sennheiser logo on it, and I assume headset manufacturers are also eager to use BTv5. Oticon and Sennheiser could be sharing the same dongle. I cannot confirm it, but I guess the new Apple AirPods launched with iPhone 7 use the same radio interface as our Oticon Opns, which is some kind of early version of BTv5.
Once BTv5 is commonplace in devices such as laptops I don’t see any reason why such a dongle would be needed. As a matter of fact, because Apple devices already support the radio interface, it should be technically possible to develop a fitting app for iPads which does the same things as the Genie 2 software. Of course some pieces of the full BTv5 protocol stack could still be missing in the Apple implementation, as well as in the Opn. But because the hardware seems to be there, it should be just matter of time to get the software compliant with the new BTv5 specification.
Of course Oticon can control the access to hearing aids’ settings and software by passwords and license keys and discourage any open (sic!) access to Opn.
It seems to have a Sennheiser logo on it, and I assume headset manufacturers are also eager to use BTv5. Oticon and Sennheiser could be sharing the same dongle.
First I noticed my prior reply disappeared, though I think I know why. I was using my tablet (Android) and viewing this site via the mobile version, and wanted to edit my reply (correct a typo). After hitting edit I got some sort of error from the site (bad link or URL or something). I refreshed the page, and my reply was gone. Seems like a site bug.
Anyway, the above mention of the Sennheiser logo caused me to investigate. I found this Sennheiser USB headset dongle on Amazon, https://amzn.com/B00PV00NHE6 and it looks exactly the same. Is it exactly the same? My guess is hardware wise it is - when you get right down to it, it’s just a 2.4 GHz radio that’s capable of transmitting whatever the bluetooth spec requires. It’s the protocol or software stack that really determines what is transmitted and the devices that it can communicate with. (I know something about this stuff, I used to work in Intel Labs right next to the USB devices group). I know the Genie 2 software/installation requires that Genie 2 be fully installed before connecting the Fitting Link dongle, and that implies that Genie is installing the drivers for this USB device (any USB device can have multiple drivers installed, and it’s the drivers plus the apps that use these drivers that really determine what the device does). Anyway I find it unlikely that the basic dongle hardware is going to vary - they didn’t even bother to change the logo
So I took a small chance and ordered the Sennheiser BTD USB Adapter - it’s only $65 vs the $300 I saw for what looks like the same thing on the German site. If it works, awesome! - a big problem solved. If not, no problem returning. I’ll know in about a week.
I tried exactly that, jamin, and I couldn’t get it to work (even using the Oticon drivers). If you are able to get something working, I’d love to know.
I tried exactly that, jamin, and I couldn’t get it to work (even using the Oticon drivers). If you are able to get something working, I’d love to know.
Does anyone on this board have the Fitting link 3.0? It would be interesting to check the differences in the dongles, such as the firmware.
BTW, I think this discussion belongs to the forum, so instead of this thread, maybe you all will reply to this thread9.
I know this thread is not too recent but I thought I’d add my data point to it anyway.
I go through a local audi who quoted me $6200 for the pair. It’s on the higher end, but luckily I’ve already exhausted my medical deductible for this year, and my insurance covers 95% for in-network or 70% for out-of-network after the deductible. This audi is out of network, but she’s willing to earn my business by matching the 95% in-network coverage. That means I only pay her $310 (the 5% co-pay of the $6200 price), and she bills my insurance for the 70% (or $4340). There are in-network audis available locally, but they’re not as close to my house as this one, and I pay 5% either way, so I stayed with this one. I’ve already had 3 fittings within the last week with her and another one scheduled for tomorrow, so I think it was a good decision to go with her since she’s willing to fit me in quickly.
NJ
Munich
Wales, UK