In this video, I'm talking about why I only recommend
premium level hearing aid technology, coming up.
(funky music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology,
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona.
And on this channel, I cover
a bunch of hearing related information
to help make you a better informed consumer.
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If you've spent any time at all researching hearing aids,
you've probably identified that different manufacturers
have different levels of hearing aid technology.
The higher in technology, the level that you go,
the more features that hearing aid will have.
But they'll also cost you more money.
So let's go over these different hearing aid features
and see why they justify this additional expense.
Number one is hearing better in background noise.
Hearing aid manufacturers spend millions of dollars
each year trying to reduce the signal to noise ratio
of their hearing aids by a few decibels.
But this few decibel reduction in signal to noise ratio
can mean the difference
between you hearing and understanding a friend
that you're eating with at a restaurant,
or not hearing them,
and having to watch their mouth the entire time
that you're eating.
So the better technology level that you have,
the better you'll hear in background noise.
Number two is better automatic adjustment capabilities
of the hearing aids.
Premium level hearing aid technology
does a better job of auto identifying
whatever environment that you're in,
and actually putting your hearing aids
into the best program settings
for that particular environment.
So if you're the type of person
who does not like to push a push button to change programs,
based on the environment that you're in,
premium level hearing aids will help do that for you,
and do it better than you can do it on your own.
Here's an example of a premium level hearing aid
that has different program settings,
depending on which environment that you're in.
If you're taking a car ride,
the hearing aid automatically puts you into the car program.
If you're in a restaurant, the hearing aid
automatically identifies that you're in a noisy situation,
and either puts you into a speech and noise program,
or speech and loud noise program.
If you're listening to music,
the hearing aid will put you into a program
that is designed specifically to leave music
as natural as possible.
If you want your hearing aids to just flat out work
without you having to worry about making adjustments,
depending on the environment that you're in,
then premium level hearing technology makes a lot of sense.
And a third feature is more adjustment handles.
Premium level hearing aids have more adjustment capability,
so the hearing care professional that you're working with
can customize them even better.
Think of a piano keyboard.
Now imagine a piano keyboard with only five keys.
If you restrict the amount of keys on a keyboard
down to five, your ability to play quality music
would be extremely restricted.
Most premium level hearing aids
have up to 20 adjustment handles
than can be used to program a hearing aid
at very narrow frequency ranges.
While basic hearing aid models
can have as little as three adjustment handles,
that only allow for broad adjustments
in the low, middle and high frequency ranges.
Not having enough adjustment handles
can result in over-amplifying some areas
for your hearing lost prescription,
while under-amplifying others.
While having up to 20 adjustment handles
will allow for almost an exact prescription match
throughout your entire hearing loss range.
Now these are all great reasons to recommend
premium hearing aid technology,
but the main reason that I primarily recommend
premium level technology verses all other technology levels
is because I do not wanna leave any benefit on the table.
If you end up going with the lower levels of technology,
you will be hearing better,
but you're always gonna find yourself in situations
that you're gonna be like could I hear better
in this situation?
And the answer is most definitely yes.
Now naturally, I'm expecting some of you to say
of course you're recommending
only premium hearing aid technology.
That is what costs more, and you're a greedy guy,
and you're trying to get as much money
from your patients as possible.
But the fact of the matter is is that
I actually make less money
dispensing premium level technology
than I do any other level,
and that's because it costs me more to get those devices
from a manufacturer.
And I'd rather eat some of the cost
of those premium level devices
so my patients can hear better.
Now when you start to calculate out
how much additional it will cost you to go from
a second tier device up to a premium level device,
you're looking at anywhere between $200 increase in cost
for a single hearing aid, up to $500 increase cost
of a single hearing aid.
And then when you look at for the lifespan
of a hearing aid being around 4.4 years, on average,
and I would say that that's a pretty conservative estimate,
I would say that you could probably get substantially longer
than that if you take really good care of your devices,
but let's just take four years, for instance.
If you increase the cost of your technology
by 400 to $1000, you're only gonna be spending,
really on average, about 100 extra dollars,
to 250 extra dollars per year,
for both of your hearing aids.
The way I see it is that people primarily come to me
in my clinic because they want to maximize
their hearing potential with their hearing devices.
And so I can either try to accomplish that task
with a lower level piece of hearing aid technology,
which is like trying to program that hearing aid
with my hands tied behind my back.
Or they can go with premium level technology
that lets me do whatever I need to do
to maximize their hearing potential.
So the natural question is, do I ever fit someone
with hearing aid technology
that is not at the premium level,
and the answer is of course, yes.
If there is patients who come into me
with existing technology,
and they want me to fix the programming
in those hearing aids,
I'm absolutely happy to do that.
And then there's other individuals who have
residual hearing that is so bad
that fitting them with a premium level device
doesn't make any sense,
'cause they're not even gonna perceive
all the benefit from those devices.
I typically think of these individuals
as cochlear implant candidates,
but for whatever reason, they either can't
or don't want to go through surgery.
Those are the individuals
that I fit lower levels of technology on.
Now all this being said,
paying for premium level hearing aid technology
would be a waste of money
if you don't have best practices performed on them
during your hearing aid fitting,
like real ear measurement.
And let me show you what I'm talking about.
Here is a graph that shows performance
in background noise with a variety of high tech,
premium level hearing aids,
and an old analog hearing aid.
The shorter the bars, the better the user's performance
in a noisy situation.
The long, black bars indicate the performance
of a modern, premium level hearing aid,
when that hearing aid is programmed
without using real ear measurement.
The shorter gray bars indicate the performance
of the same hearing aids, when they are programmed
using real ear measurement.
You can see that even an old analog hearing aid
performs better than a modern
premium technology level hearing aid,
when those hearing aids are not programmed
using real ear measurement.
I don't care how advanced the hearing aid is,
it will not perform up to its full capacity
without real ear measurement performed on them.
Now this is just one example
of why you need real ear measurement performed
on your hearing aids, during your hearing aid fitting.
Nearly every additional feature
that you find in a premium level hearing aid
will be negatively impacted
if you do not have real ear measurement done on them.
This basically means that you're gonna take
whatever additional money that you spent
on those premium level devices,
and flush it right down the toilet.
So if you wanna achieve
whatever your max performance ability is,
then premium level hearing aid technology is the way to go.
But this is only if best practices are followed
when fitting your hearing aids,
and this includes real ear measurement.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
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I'll see ya next time.
(happy music)