Hearing Aid complaints

TheWriteAlex said:
This is all a matter of supply and demand. Basic economics. The problem is, HAs are a niche market, and thus not capable of generating much profit without artificial market manipulation. HAs dispensation and HA tuning technology/proprietary software are highly regulated when they do not need to be. Fact is, pal, that most of us, if we had access to that goddamn hi-pro and the software you use, could do your job TEN TIMES better than you.
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To say this means that you are implying that there is price fixing and collusion between companies to inflate prices. If there was a shred of evidence then the anti-trust g-men would be all over that.

The "highly regulated" part is not corporate manipulation. Here is a link.

Audiologists

The excerpt:

Licensure and certification. Audiologists are regulated by licensure in all 50 States. Eighteen of those States require a doctoral degree for licensure. Some States regulate the practice of audiology and the dispensing of hearing aids separately, meaning some States will require an additional license called a Hearing Aid Dispenser license. Many States require that audiologists complete continuing education for license renewal. Eligibility requirements, hearing aid dispensing requirements, and continuing education requirements vary from State to State. For specific requirements, contact your State’s medical or health board.

Please realize that I am not trying to pick a fight with you. When you say you could do an audi's fitting 10 times better (I realize there is sarcasm in that) do you know what expansion and compression do? Those are very basic things. If you make get the first few letters of a word or sentence cut off, what would you do?

That said, I think many people on this forum, you are correct, could learn to do it. I have played an audiologist outside of the USA where it is not illegal to practice audiology without a license. I was able to make good fittings for patients with a complex system. It can be learned.

Also, the newest trends is to have software (opps, that R&D thing) that does 90-95% of the fitting for the audiologist and can give a near perfect fit right out the door. Audiologist skill will become less of a factor.

C1
 
TheWriteAlex said:
And, if R&D is so expensive, why are HAs still technologically low end compared to other electronic devices? Music played through my 600$ iCom and 4k$ Naidas sound like shit compared to my 12$ JVC headphones plugged into my 400$ computer (which does many other amazing things besides play music) and equalized in my FREE itunes.
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I forgot to answer this one.

Your $400 computer with $12 headphones are playing pre-recorded sounds. Your HAs are not. With those pre-recorded sounds, you have a sound studio, mixers, recording equipment, digital music recording, re-takes, editing, etc, etc. You need to add that into the cost of of what it takes to make a nice sound. Try going to a concert and recording the band with an iPhone and see what type of sound quality you get.

You are asking a HA to be the recording studio, the mixer, the editor, and the playback instrument in real time (within a 6ms delay) all in environments that are not good for sound reproduction. Playback is much cheaper and easier than the signal processing. In addition, most HAs are designed for highest levels of speech recognition and try to pick good speech out from background noise.

Does your computer and JVC headphones do that? I also think you want HAs to be as small as possible.

C1
 
Crazyone, audiologists are nice people who want to "fix" us. The problem is that I don't think that I'm broken. I wish that my audiologist understood that. Then she could support me in a more helpful way.
 
sallylou said:
Crazyone, audiologists are nice people who want to "fix" us. The problem is that I don't think that I'm broken. I wish that my audiologist understood that. Then she could support me in a more helpful way.
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They are supposed to "help" people hear, not "fix" them. At least that's the general idea. Although you will come across a lot of people who will try to "fix" you. :-/
 
sallylou said:
Crazyone, audiologists are nice people who want to "fix" us. The problem is that I don't think that I'm broken. I wish that my audiologist understood that. Then she could support me in a more helpful way.
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You must understand that most people involved with developing all medical therapies are not afflicted with the issue that they are working on. Yes, there are a few but it an exception rather than the rule.

I believe that it is not only you audiologist that can help you (I am talking in a more general plural form of "you") but the HA, CI, etc manufacturers that can help more if they understood you more.

I am asking this question in a way as to try and be as respectful as possible. What would change in what the audi did if she understood the difference between trying to her desire to "fix" you and your position? I ask this because what I see is a disconnect between what the manufacturers and audiologists seem to think their target audience and what people here post. I realize this is small forum and can be biased, but it is always important to learn about what the differences are and then trying to bridge the gaps.

C1
 
Banjo said:
They are supposed to "help" people hear, not "fix" them. At least that's the general idea. Although you will come across a lot of people who will try to "fix" you. :-/
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From my point of view (and please remember this is only my point of view) the role of the audiologist and HA/CI manufacturers should be that they are trying to help people have a better quality of life by improving communication between people with the products/services they are providing. Yes, they will will make a profit in doing so, but that should not be the only consideration.

C1
 
Hask12 said:
I think I'm very fortunate that I have the audiologist that I have. And I know I could probably go elsewhere and get the same aids for less, but I don't because of the relationship and trust I have developed with this particular audiologist. But when I buy new aids and it's time to pay and he can immediately knock $800 off the price without even blinking it;s makes me wonder what the real price of the aids really are. Keep in mind the cost of the aids prior to the steep discount were in the ballpark for what people on line said they were paying for the aids.
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I'm lucky in that I have a musically-oriented audiologist who understands sound engineering from a musician's perspective.

My complaint is the fact that the US government and the manufacturers took away from him the option to sell me analog power aids that I use for music. I have tried to use digital hearing aids, and they do not work for music and make speech of people I've worked with for five years very difficult to understand over the intercom.

I'm faced with a difficult situation. My audiologist is selling me his last pair of analog hearing aids. I will be looking for similar HA up for sale across the country, and I'll store them somewhere safe, as it looks like I will either have to wait 5-15 years before suitable music-oriented power aids are available again or until I'm able to get stem-cell therapy. I realize that once my last pair of analogs die on me, that's it. It would be like my hearing went from 8% to 3%, and I would not be able to understand people, never mind enjoy music.

Stephanie
 
Deafdrummer.

If you have a good audi that knows the background programming, make sure that expansion is off or very minimal for better music listening. Expansion, basically means that you have to cross a certain threshold before the sound is processed.

Think of it like this. You can really suppress background noise with expansion but, lets say you have the work "Not today". The expansion start that it detects speech over the threshold, and then it processes it. you hear "t today". You have to try and fill in if they meant "Not today" or "Hot today".

With music, you will drop many notes with this.

Hope this may help you get a more helpful fitting.

C1
 
CrazyOne said:
Deafdrummer.

If you have a good audi that knows the background programming, make sure that expansion is off or very minimal for better music listening. Expansion, basically means that you have to cross a certain threshold before the sound is processed.
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There is a very basic problem that disqualifies digital hearing aids from musical environments - the fact that there is a bass cutoff point well above what you would encounter with bass instruments, and what you hear at the bottom range is motorboating noise that sounds electronic and gives you no pitch differentiation. It's all one pitch down there and sounds like somebody farting out the bass line.

Another one is modification of the vowel sounds coming through. For instance, the word "word" sounds like wud as in mud, "weird" sounds like wiud (wi as in witch, ud as in mud). Vowel sounds become very difficult to tell apart. It's impossible to tell if someone is saying, "park the car" or with a Boston accent, "pak the cah." It always sounds like the latter, and even then, sometimes I can't even tell what vowel sounds are being said.

Fail. Pwned with a P.

Stephanie
 
Hi Stephanie,
You are right. Hearing aids suitable for performing musos are no longer being made. Modern aids don’t have dynamic range and frequency response to handle loud music input. Input is limited to prevent overloading the A/D converters, and there is too much automation happening. Some modern aids actually change the frequency for better speech recognition but which pushes music out of key. Older aids more suited to music are being discontinued. You seem to be more optimistic than me about future developments. I think the market will always be too small and fringe dwellers like us will be excluded even more. But I hope I’m wrong. So meanwhile, I think you are right to scavenge and horde stocks of your current aid. There will be millions of used versions out there and many unused. Try the Lions Club, Hear Now, Hard of Hearing associations, eBay and other online outlets, audiologists and aid repair labs. Hang onto your caring Audi and ask her to retain relevant programming leads, equipment and computer programs. Good Luck, John.
 
I understand that audis and HA manufacturers are not "afflicted" with my "condition," but how can anyone help without understanding what it's like to be HOH and what the inadequacies of current technology are? How can an audi expect to be a good professional without learning about our lives?

I was disappointed with my HAs because no one was honest about the limitations of the technology. It's like a doctor not telling a patient about the risks and success rate of a surgical procedure. It would have been better to been informed and have more realistic expectations. Promising more than you can deliver always leads to dissatisfied clients.
 
Flabbergasted

I discovered I will be requiring a middle ear surgery to install a prosthesis and will be needing hearing aids in the future. I have just now found out my health care provider will not cover the cost. I am flabbergasted at the research I have done on this subject and the masses of people dealing with the issue. I have a difficult time believing that I can buy this apple computer I am typing on for less cost than a hearing aid. I even have insurance on this computer and it is far less than the plans offered on hearing aids. The list goes on and on. My Yamaha 450 four stroke motorcycle cost $6,000 comparable to your hearing aids. A ticket for a round the world airline ticket is less than the cost of some hearing aids! Unbelievable! I have no sympathy for your plight as a provider, sorry! It appears that I simply will not be purchasing hearing aids. Oh yeah, and child birth is covered by my health insurance, but hearing aids aren't !
 
Amazing

So, you make so much money on the hearing aid sale that you can supply free services! Truly impressive.
 
Flabergasted said:
I discovered I will be requiring a middle ear surgery to install a prosthesis and will be needing hearing aids in the future. I have just now found out my health care provider will not cover the cost. I am flabbergasted at the research I have done on this subject and the masses of people dealing with the issue. I have a difficult time believing that I can buy this apple computer I am typing on for less cost than a hearing aid. I even have insurance on this computer and it is far less than the plans offered on hearing aids. The list goes on and on. My Yamaha 450 four stroke motorcycle cost $6,000 comparable to your hearing aids. A ticket for a round the world airline ticket is less than the cost of some hearing aids! Unbelievable! I have no sympathy for your plight as a provider, sorry! It appears that I simply will not be purchasing hearing aids. Oh yeah, and child birth is covered by my health insurance, but hearing aids aren't !
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Ahhhhh I am getting flashbacks to my phone call to my insurance company when I started losing my hearing in my right ear. I started losing it my left first but since I could with my right I didn't do anything about it. I remember being told that being able to hear isn't medically necessary and the feeling of something about to explode in my brain I was so pissed. You what isn't medically necessary? Vasectomies, but they cover those just fine because it will save the company in the future by not having to cover possible children. Asshats!!!


They treat hearing aids like eyeglasses, they'll cover the testing, maybe once every year or two, but not the frames or lenses. Although some insurance companies will cover "select" frames, but not hearing aids, no oh no. It's rickockulous how much you pay in premiums every year and they won't cover them.

what you need to do is look up you Vocation Rehablitation Center, and tell them you need them for work, they should cover at least part of the cost if not all of it. But they only do it once.
 
My biggest complaint is that my audiologist has no clue what I am talking about when I tall her my Naida Q50s make everything sound robotic. She thinks it is me or my molds.

I invited her to listen to them herself but she won't do it.
 
WHAT!?!?!? said:
My biggest complaint is that my audiologist has no clue what I am talking about when I tall her my Naida Q50s make everything sound robotic. She thinks it is me or my molds.

I invited her to listen to them herself but she won't do it.
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I know what you mean about some HA making everything sound robotic . I hated that too. How can it be you , you're not a robot .
 
When my Widex were just turned on, everyone sounded like a cross between Jimmy Stuart and Daffy Duck. I noticed this with my coworkers (many of whom I couldn't identify by speech alone until I looked at them) and when watching Law & Order, Special Victims Unit (that was actually funny hearing them talk so weird). I mentioned this to my audi and she changed the frequencies. I'm surprised she didn't laugh me out of the office but she was really good about adjusting the settings. The other problem I had was listening to music...everything was great until Adele started to really let it rip then everything started breaking up. Another trip to the audi resolved it, but I completely get the frustration for people....especially for those of whom taking time off work gets to be a real hassle.

Laura
 
WHAT!?!?!? said:
My biggest complaint is that my audiologist has no clue what I am talking about when I tall her my Naida Q50s make everything sound robotic. She thinks it is me or my molds.

I invited her to listen to them herself but she won't do it.
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She might not hear the mechanical sound to the Phonak HA that you are wearing because we all hear differently and what sounds mechanical or robotic to one person will sound good to another. I too found Phonak to sound mechanical, but when I tried Oticon they sounded completely natural. I would recommend trying a different brand of HA or a different audiologist or both.
 
I don't have the cash on hand to switch brands of hearing aids.

I am pretty sure that she would hear it the exact same as what I am hearing. This is noise that is getting added by the microphones. I am pretty sure of tht since it is not present when using the Com Pilot.
 
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