- Hi guys, welcome back to the Dr. Cliff AuD vlog.
This is a vlog number 28.
And in today's vlog,
I'm gonna talk about whose team I'm on.
And let me explain what I'm talking about when I say this.
So about a year ago,
I had a new patient come into my clinic
and she had basically lost one of her hearing aids.
And she had gone somewhere else before she came to my clinic
because she wanted to see about replacing that hearing aid.
Well, she ended up going to a big box store
and this is not a knock on a big box store.
This could have happened virtually anywhere
that she went, but she went to a big box store
and they're like, well, your hearing aid
was essentially two weeks out of warranty,
so we're gonna have to sell you new hearing aids,
because you can't get that replaced
under your loss and damage insurance.
And so she actually went on a trial with devices
from that particular location,
and those are what she brought into my clinic.
Now when she explained the situation to me,
she's like, well I'm not doing really well
with these devices, but I'm not confident
in that provider to actually make adjustments
to get them to the point
where they're functioning correctly.
And she had also told me about this situation
with her lost hearing aid.
I'm like, well, you know, what brand is it?
Oh okay, well, you know, I work with that brand.
I work with almost all the brands.
All the major brands anyway.
And she's like, yeah, well, I'm two weeks
out of warranty so I decided to get new hearing aids.
I'm like, ah, hold on. Let me contact my rep
for that particular company, and let's see
what we can do.
No promises here, but why don't we kind of like hit
the pause button, because if you really liked
your other hearing aids, and you're not liking
these new hearing aids, why go with the new
hearing aids if we can potentially get you
your original hearing aid back or at least a replacement
for that hearing aid back?
So a couple days had gone by.
I got in touch with my rep.
And sure enough, they were able to do me a favor,
and get her a replacement hearing aid
even though she was outside of her loss and damage insurance
warranty period. So, she was, of course,
over the moon ecstatic.
I mean she had to pay like a $300 deductible
to get that replacement hearing aid,
and she was able to return the hearing aids
back to the big box store, and get several thousands
of dollars back.
So for her that was an absolute win,
and the point of that story is that, you know,
I am willing to go out of my way
in order to, you know, try to see
what I can do to be an advocate for my patients
in relation to anything.
It could be the manufacturer, could be something else.
But the point is is that I want to make sure
that my patients are taken care of,
and I know that there's a lot a of
hearing care professionals out there
who would've done the exact same thing that I did
in that scenario.
But if that didn't garner trust in this patient's eyes,
I don't know what would, 'cause I could have tried
to just sell her another hearing aid
to match the hearing aid that she lost.
I could've charged her a lot of reprogramming fees
to get those new hearing aids that she had
up to the point where she was performing well with them,
but instead I decided to go the other route,
which is for a loss and damage fee
that mostly goes off to the hearing aid manufacturer
to get that device replaced,
was able to get her a replacement hearing aid for that.
And you know, the reason I'm bringing it up today
is because this last week, she comes back
into the clinic, and we kind of had to do some
curbside stuff 'cause of the COVID stuff going on
out here right now.
But she's like, well my hearing aid stopped working.
I'm like, well, did anything happen?
She's like, no, it just stopped working.
I'm like, okay,
so I take it back inside and sure enough,
the hearing aid's dead.
It's not working at all.
So I start, you know, changing a couple components
on it, I identified that it was the receiver wire
that had gone dead.
And I also put it in my redux machine.
So my redux machine is, and this is not a redux video,
but my redux machine actually does a dehydration
of a hearing aid.
And it tells me the moisture reading of that hearing aid.
And like, oh, this thing had, this one hearing aid,
had 1.3 microliters of water inside of it.
And so I go out to her car, and I'm like,
hey so, you know, I got your hearing aid fixed.
And she was worried that we were gonna have to send it in,
you know, and have like a $400 repair fee on this.
And it was simple as just switching out the receiver wire.
But I'm like, hey, you know, I found a bunch of moisture
inside of your hearing aid.
Are you sure that nothing weird happened?
And she's like, oh, I got in the shower with it,
and I got it really, really wet and I didn't wanna tell you
'cause I didn't know what was gonna happen,
if we were gonna have to send it for repair and all that.
And I'm just like, I am on your team!
We are on the same team, okay?
I am not on the manufacturer's team.
I'm not on anybody else's team.
I'm on your team.
I'd see myself as a lawyer.
Like you have to tell me the truth, okay?
Because I'm gonna fight for you.
No matter what I have to do, I'm gonna fight for you
and your best interests as my patient.
I don't care if it costs me more money
to recommend you something
that would save you money.
Like it's just, I need to figure out how
to help people understand that me as the hearing care
provider, I'm not like fighting against you.
I'm trying to do things in your best interest,
trying to help you, you know,
be financially responsible with the care that you take
with your devices.
It's the same reason why I encourage people
to come back in for preventative maintenance.
Because I know that if they have preventative
maintenance done on their hearing aids,
that their hearing aids are going to last them
longer, they're gonna be happier with them
for a longer period of time.
Instead of me just trying to sell them
new hearing aids every time that their hearing aids,
you know, have some kind of malfunction in them, okay?
Or their performance starts to decline, right?
And it's the same reason why I don't, like,
do these, you know, manufacturer sponsored events
where they send in these closers
to come in and just sell a ton of hearing aids,
where you make a ton of money
and it's really, it's in the manufacturer's best interest
'cause they're selling a lot of aids,
and I can understand why they would want to do that.
But I am not there to help the manufacturer sell
more product. I am here to help you,
help my patients, you know, achieve their best
hearing outcomes, and do it in the most financially
responsible way as humanly possible, without cutting
corners or sacrificing my ethics or morals
or anything like that.
So, when the question comes down to, you're like,
whose team am I on?
I am on your team.
I'm trying to do everything that I can
the best way I possibly can, and I like
to think that all of my patients know that.
I just think some of them need a little bit more,
and I love this patient to death.
She is one of my absolute favorite patients.
The greatest personality in a human being
that you could ever possibly have,
and I absolutely look forward to her,
to seeing her every time that she comes into my office.
And I think that she now knows that I am on her team.
I'm there to do things in her best interest
and fight for her best interest,
and I just wanted to share that with you guys today,
because that is something that's really important to me.
I know that there are a ton of hearing care professionals
out there who are doing this for the right reasons,
and who would have done the exact same thing.
But at the end of the day,
I can sleep good at night knowing that I feel
like I'm doing what's in the best interest
of my teammate, and taking good care of them.
So that is all that I had to say
for today's vlog.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Of course, subscribe to the channel
if you haven't already.
And of course, I'll see you next week.
(upbeat music)