As a HA end user and a practitioner of a soft science, this entire discussion is quite informative. It seems the bottom line is that the best audi’s have a good grasp of both the art and science of what they do. Accordingly, they should have at hand certain technology to achieve the goal of properly fitting each patient, whose hearing deficits are both objective and subjective.
The objective part, matching the HA to the audiogram is difficult enough, given all the different HA’s out there. The subjective, well, I don’t know how to address that other than some folks like the HA sound they’re hearing and others don’t. Throw in audi bedside manner, cost factors and so on.
But back to the technology, other than basics all audi’s must have, who decides whether or not speech mapping devices are really necessary? I didn’t even ask mine if she has it. Another, who sounded great on the phone, has it, but rarely if ever uses it.
Edit to add: Dr. Amy, I’m not so sure it’s true that spending more money on keeping up with the state of the art increases costs (I’m not saying speech mapping is state of the art, I have no idea). It may be the opposite. Saved time, increased customer satisfaction leading to more customers, higher volume and lower costs elsewhere. Just looking at from a purely business perspective.