What are the biggest pain points when "shopping" for hearing aids?

Only standard frequencies. Which wasn’t enough. I’ve used Tone/Signal generators (apps/websites) with my HAs in, to check for dips, and then corrected my gains. Due to stepness of my loss I had quite a of few of them (dips or gain holes).

In my country, salespeople are some kind of audiologists. They are not actually audiologists but licensed salespeople who know basic hearing aid programming. By the way, as a child I regularly went to the polyclinic for speech listening exercises, so I was lucky then because the doctor was also an audiologist who understood. He would try very hard to adjust the hearing aids to the maximum. . The problem with hearing aid sellers is that they don’t try their best, they just want to do a quick adjust in order to sell hearing aids to others. And they ask me what I want them to do, the problem is that I often don’t know the possibilities of hearing aids to achieve the maximum. I said what I wanted because I had previous experience, but what about people who are just starting to wear hearing aids? That’s why I started DIY water, because by experimenting and studying the possibilities, I can start the maximum.

Yes, definitely the audiologist is the biggest issue that stands between hearing aids and the user.

The barriers that are most important to me are

1. Private audi business model - high markups, selling to a small percentage of people who need HAs. The only audi I consulted before going to Costco several years later told me nothing more than I needed his $6,000 gizmos.

2. Lack of information about HAs from manufacturers. Marketing terminology aimed at making it difficult to compare features instead of clear language that describes differences between models and levels.

3. I’d like a rundown of the tradeoffs involved in using each programmable feature without having to buy the equipment and learn the software necessary to DIY. I mean something like, ‘If the basic volume is increased, there’s increased likelihood of hearing feedback when you’re close to something that reflects sound, like a wall or car window.’ That’s a simple example. I’d like to find out the tradeoffs of, say, increasing the noise suppression, the differences between wind noise suppression and regular noise suppression, etc., etc., etc.

I find this offensive for any business.
5 Key Financial Metrics to Boost Hearing Aid Sales - Auditdata7.

to quote:
1. Gross hearing aid revenue as a percentage of gross revenue.

Hearing aid sales generate more revenue per clinical hour than follow-up services or other product sales. Between 70% and 90% of your business’s gross revenue should be generated by hearing aid sales.

2. Gross margin percentage of net hearing aid revenue.

The percentage of profit your business makes on the sale of a hearing aid should be around 65%. That margin allows your business to operate at a profit even after expenses like payroll, rent, and supplies.

3. Net profit percentage of net hearing aid revenue

Your net profit is the defining metric for any business. This is essentially the measure of whether your business is making money. Generally speaking, audiology businesses should aim for a 20% net profit, substantially higher than the industry average of 12%.

So, because we don’t have single payer healthcare, hearing aid distributers – not even the companies who make it, are being advised to aim for 65%. 65 freaking percent. That is ‘healthy’.

I’m too tired to reverse math this but come on. 65% profit on $6,500 ‘top of the line’ hearing aids. And the company that sold it to the audiologist is selling it at a considerable mark up as well. And let’s consider those inexpensive hearing aids closer to $1,500 or $2,000. Clearly the base cost is trivial compared to what we are gouging customers for.

In Australia, my original experience with the first provider I approached 16years ago, I now know, involved dodgy testing & assessment, high pressure sales, little & obscure detail, lock-in deposit & way over the top pricing in comparison to at least one provider with honesty, integrity & fair pricing. The hearing “test” was done sitting at a desk by an open window & nearby traffic; the offering was bunched together as bronze silver gold style of rubbish; the assessment involved selling me way higher tier features than I truly needed; a supposedly non refundable very significant deposit was taken; I later found the same devices would be several $1000s cheaper from the honest provider I ended up going to “thank the heavens”. This type of thing should not be able to happen.

I abandoned some of my deposit & guilted/argued the rest back on threat of ACCC complaint after researching, finding & consulting with my 2nd & “sound” choice. I saved around $2500-3000 in the process so the loss of $180 to the con was little loss thankfully.

@1Bluejay

I believe that the way they work meets their needs. That’s to generate sales. the provider is their client. We are the users, but we buy from the provider.
The audiologist that provided my hearing aids didn’t know how to set them up. He tried for 2 years. I regularly told him that there had been a system upgrade for my Paradise P90’s, or the myPhonak App. Clearly he wasn’t informed. Perhaps every market is different. I’ve tried calling Phonak. Their office is about 3 miles from where I am right now. They were not helpful. Mississauga, Canada.

I’ve had care from 3 audiologists, and one hearing aid practitioner.

First audiologist was perfect; she sold her business. Every visit to her office I heard better.
Second audiologist I was with for about 8 years. They had one good owner. The other was not. The first one retired. I left them due to service issues about a year later. I couldn’t hear with the hearing aids they provided.
Third audiologist did me one favour. He got me hearing aids even though mine were about 2 years old. But he couldn’t set them up. He has glowing google reports. Absolutely wonderful. Go figure.

The hearing aid practitioner has taken the same hearing aids and set them up properly. I can hear.

There are excellent audiologists. I’ve had real trouble finding them in 20 years of hearing aid use.

Hardly a “pain point” but I would like to see Audiologists wearing hearing aids themselves so that I feel they understand the issues better.

I also had initial difficulties with my Widex hearing aids until they were re-programmed to the NAL/NAL2 standard instead of Widex’s own standard. The difference between yes - but, and “that’s quite good”

And knowing about the different programming standards was due to this forum - many thanks

I’m 61 and got my first HAs this year so this process is fresh in my mind. I’ll mirror what many posts mentioned.

The biggest issue was finding the right audiologist/fitter. I didn’t even know there was a difference. I went through 3 of them over 6 months and a lot of frustration before I found one that fitted them right. Even using the exact same brand and model!

It was obvious quickly that the fitters and I weren’t using the same language to describe what I was hearing. I have a sound system background so I have some audio vocabulary but it wasn’t the right vocabulary I guess.

“Can you hear that?” in a quiet carpeted room was often repeated. I’d say “I dunno, there is nothing to hear!”

Yes cost is a big barrier. Eventually I was prepared to spend the money but luckily my health insurance helped quite a bit.

Manufacturers and their crazy marketing and dramatic boasts was very confusing and frustrating. I spent innumerable hours trying to sift through to actual useful information. Unfortunately I found this site late in the process.

So a lot of the same things others have mentioned. Eventually I got through it and now I can barely function without my HAs!

1. Price. It’s absurd.
2. The fact that even the best hearing aids don’t help enough with speech in noise.

I also wonder if/how they are incentivized or commissioned to sell a brand. Seems everywhere I go they are pushing something at me.

Nowadays, many of them are part of a branch owned by HAs manufacturer, like Sivantos, WS Audiology, etc.

This is an excellent comment!