- Hey guys, welcome back to the Dr. Cliff AUD vlog.
This is vlog number 69,
and I was actually getting ready
to do a Q&A section
of my presentation on providing massive value
to patients with hearing loss.
And we had technical difficulties, so that didn't work out.
So I'm like, well, I'm dressed up already.
I might as well go ahead and do my vlog.
Now some of you may have noticed
that normally my vlogs are actually up against the wall
that's behind the camera right now
but I didn't feel like moving things around today.
I didn't feel like moving things around last week.
So you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit.
But nonetheless, what I wanna really talk about now
is because my mind's already on this idea
of providing a massive amount of value to our patients
who have hearing loss is that
the thing that probably bothered me the most
about my profession is this idea that people go in
and they spend a lot enough money,
like really, a substantial amount of money
to treat their hearing loss.
And I feel like, as a hearing care professional,
it is our duty to make sure
that the individual who's spending that amount of money
is getting a significant amount of value out of that money.
And if they're not, then we're doing something wrong.
So my whole presentation really is about this aspect
of what things should you be doing
to provide massive value to the patients
who come in to see you in your clinic.
Because to be quite honest with you,
if you're not providing a significant amount of value,
if you're not providing more value
than what someone could get by purchasing a device online,
or going to a Costco or going wherever,
then you serve no purpose.
Like you have no role in this, right?
And so I talk a lot about best practices.
Best practices are these fundamental procedures
that need to be done
in order to maximize performance with hearing aids.
There's a lot of research that backs this.
That research has been around for quite some time.
There are fundamental things that should be done
by every hearing care professional
in order to get the most out of a set of hearing aids.
And yet the vast majority of hearing care professionals
do not follow best practices.
And that was really kind of like the whole emphasis
behind me starting the Best Practice Pro network,
because the Best Practice Pro network,
in order to get in, you have to verify
that you're actually performing these best practices
to the best of your capability.
And to a large level of,
I don't really know what I'm trying to say here,
but basically the network was an extremely big success
and it was a big success
because individuals with hearing loss
had no way to quantify, like if I spend, I don't know,
$6,000 at this clinic, am I gonna get the same care
or worse care or better care than if I spend $6,000
at this other clinic over here?
And you have literally no idea
if you're gonna be getting good care or not.
And online reviews, I don't trust online reviews,
hardly any online reviews anymore
just because they can be doctored, they can be fabricated.
You can purchase online reviews.
But that being said, it's really hard for individuals
with hearing loss to know where they should be going.
But the presentation didn't stop there.
The presentation was talking about all
of these different aspects of hearing care.
Something that I talk about fairly regularly
is this idea of person-centered care.
Person-centered care is when you go in
and you see a hearing care professional
and they actually spend the time to identify
like what your wants and needs are.
They start to understand who you are as a person
and what your values are.
And they end up going with hearing treatment
that basically benefits what your wants and needs are.
They're not just fitting you with some device
because that's the device that they always fit on somebody.
The problem with person-centered care
is that you have to spend a lot of time
to identify these little aspects of their life
that can have a big impact on their overall ability
to hear better with hearing treatment.
And again, person-centered care is something
that I think that a decent amount
of hearing care professionals do,
but even that doesn't matter
if you're not following best practices at the same time.
And so until you realize that
in order to provide a significant amount
of value to patients,
you have to actually be performing person-centered care
and by following best practices.
In fact, I would make the argument
that in order to follow best practices,
you actually have to use person-centered care,
use a person-centered care approach in order to do so.
The other aspect that I talk about in my presentation
is basically this presentation
that providers give to their patients.
And that's the reason why I wanted
to have a really nice clinic,
because the experience that you get
from going into a medical office
or a clinic, or whatever, is part of the treatment, too.
To go in and have a facility that is kind of like run down,
not up to date, doesn't have the latest technology there
to identify whatever the problem is that you have,
it's not just with hearing care,
this is with literally every single profession
that's out there.
And if you're not actually presenting
an individual with a fantastic experience
inside of the clinic, that's a problem, too.
Really, when you think about it,
you could have a hearing care provider
who follows best practices,
uses a person-centered care approach.
But if the first experience
that a patient has walking into a clinic
is that this place is really run down
and they just don't have the nicest equipment in the world.
Like they're making their decision based on that.
So you basically have to have a nice clinic
just to kind of overcome the biases
that they would form that would blind them
from understanding the value of the other things
that you're providing them.
And it all comes back down to,
are you providing someone with a benefit
that is significantly larger
than what they could get going elsewhere?
Because again, if the answer to that is no,
then you either have to reduce
how much you charge that patient,
or you have to start doing the things
that actually provide this extra amount of value.
Now, to be fair, I spend very little time
trying to convince other professionals in my profession
what they should do.
And the reason that is
is because there have been audiologists around for decades,
at this point, that have been preaching
kind of the same stuff
that I talk about on my YouTube channel,
but they preach it to other hearing care professionals,
with the hope that those hearing care professionals
would start to realize like, okay,
I need to actually follow best practices.
I need to use a person-centered care approach.
I need to provide a massive amount of value to my patients,
but you know what, it's pretty easy for me
to just get a six, $7,000 payday
by cutting corners and not really following any of those.
So what incentive is there?
And really that's kind of the biggest reason
why I don't spend a whole lot of time talking
to hearing care professionals about this stuff.
I mean, I spend most of my time teaching consumers
and educating consumers and educating you
about what you should know
in order to get the most out of hearing treatment.
And that way, if you demand it,
then the hearing care professionals have to follow suit
or they lose business.
And we've seen this actually,
we've had a huge shift in the past couple of years.
And the reason I know that
is because the equipment manufacturers
who make this real-ear measurement equipment
who make test box equipment,
who make all of these different pieces of equipment
that are required to follow best practices,
but a lot of clinics don't own them
because they're like, well,
I can sell hearing aids without using it.
Why would I need to buy it?
I've heard that there's been a significant increase
in the amount of these units being purchased and being sold.
And what that tells me is that there's providers
who are starting to realize that unless you start doing
these fundamental best practices,
you're gonna lose patients.
And that is something
that I take a huge amount of pride in.
You can see with this huge grin
that I have on my face is that nothing makes me feel better
than knowing that I'm having an influence on my profession
to make us better, to make us demand more out of ourselves
than to hear that it's the consumers
who are actually driving the change.
I'm making them aware of these things.
And if they're smart, they're actually going to seek out
a hearing care professional who follows these best practices
and does it in a person-centered care approach,
or a patient-centered care approach.
So it's really exciting to see that side of it.
And then the other thing that I've noticed
is that there has been a real strong increase
in the use of the terms real-ear measurement,
and the terms best practices,
whether it's on websites,
whether it's on marketing pieces, whatever.
And it's because we're driving this conversation
in terms of best practices.
This is stuff that people had no clue about
four or five years ago.
The term real-ear measurement was something
that only hearing care professionals knew about,
and maybe if you were the family member of an audiologist
would you know what real-ear measurement was.
And then the only time you would ask for it
is if your family member said, hey,
when you go and get your hearing aids,
make sure that they do real-ear measurement on you
because that's the only way to know
that you're getting the right amount of benefit
out of your hearing aids.
And now we're starting to see it proliferate to this
where now it's being used as a marketing term
for these different clinics
that actually have this equipment.
At least I presume they have the equipment,
because they could technically be using the term
best practices and not actually be following best practices
or they could say we do real-ear measurement,
and then when you come in
they pretend like they're doing real-ear measurement
when really it's just like a feedback calibration
on the hearing aids.
but I've heard, literally I've heard it all.
But at the end of the day, it's really the individuals
with hearing loss who have to drive
what they want from the hearing care professional.
If you want a really, really high level of care,
if you want really good hearing aids,
and not just good hearing aids,
but the ones that are like best for you,
not best for everyone else but you,
but the best for you,
then you have to make sure
that you're going to a professional
who's actually going to be taking the time
to identify what those things are,
and taking the time to follow best practices.
People say all the time, well shoot,
I can go here and get hearing aids online
for 1,000 bucks, 2,000 bucks,
or I can go to this retailer
and get them for a couple thousand bucks and that's fine.
Like I'm totally cool with that.
And they might even follow some best practices,
but best practices is so detailed and in depth.
If you wanna maximize everything,
you have to be comprehensive about it.
You can't just cherry pick the few convenient things
when it comes to best practices.
You have to do all of them.
And if I, and if other hearing care professionals
are actually gonna provide massive amounts of value
to justify our existence,
then we have to be doing these things.
So I know I'm up on a soap box here.
And to be honest, all my vlogs are soap boxes,
and I'm starting to get a little cotton mouth here
because I just keep (ice rattling) I just keep rambling.
It doesn't help that I'm drinking iced espresso here.
But you know, at the end of the day,
it really is something that needs to be talked about
in the hearing loss community.
We have to be talking about value
and value can come in two forms.
Value can come in the form of you pay very little money
and you get just okay amount of benefit out of something,
but that's okay because you spent low amounts of money.
Or you can go the other aspect of value,
which is you pay good money, but you get excellent care.
That's another side of value.
But what you don't wanna be doing
is you don't wanna be spending a ton of money
and getting average level care.
You also don't wanna be spending really a low amount
of money, but get no benefit out of hearing treatment.
Both of those are wrong.
But you just have to decide
which one is the most appropriate for you.
And sometimes financial ramifications
of purchasing hearing treatment from someone like me
is not affordable.
And I totally get that.
There are other affordable options out there,
but it doesn't mean that you should completely eliminate
all of your expectations on benefit.
And then if you happen to go that route
and you're not getting the amount of benefit
that you're hoping for, you have to seek someone out
who can actually get you that amount of benefit.
And the way that they're gonna do that
is gonna be by following comprehensive best practices
and a person-centered care approach.
Okay, so now I don't feel so bad about getting dressed up
for this Q&A session that didn't actually happen
from this presentation.
Hopefully you guys got some massive value out of this vlog.
If you did, go ahead and give it a thumbs up.
It helps me out a lot.
And as always guys, I'll see you next week.
(upbeat music)