A good place to start when deciding on a provider would be to find out if they follow evidence based practice and follow best practice guidelines. Dr. Cliff has a great checklist available on his website. It can be found by following this link here: https://assets.website-files.com/5d9aadca574a7d240f2c7327/5dc22dcb06c33a18fd9fe31d_Dr.%20Cliff%20AuD%20Network%20Best%20Practice%20Checklists.pdf
Paying more for hearing aids only makes sense if there is more value added to what the provider is offering. I agree that bundling does not make much sense for most patients, which is why my own practice is unbundled. I practice in Florida, where a great number of my patients are tourists or snow birds, so when creating my practice model, I really could not justify charging for potential appointments that most of my patients were never going to be able to take advantage of. My prices for the aids are based on what manufacturers charge me, and the cost for my service depends on the time and complexity it takes to perform the task.
I’m afraid that the easiest explanation I can give you is that programming hearing aids is both an art and a science. It takes years of study to understand the science, and years of experience to understand the art. Every patient is different and may require me to approach their fitting from a different angle to achieve the desired outcomes. One standard from which I will not waiver though, is in running Real-Ear itself. I have to know what the desired target is, in order to move the patient towards hearing to the best ability of which they are capable. You may find that many professionals differ in their approach to programming, but one fact will remain the same: currently, there is not a way to accurately, independently verify what is happening in the patient’s ear canal without running REM. So, if you fit hearing aids without Real-Ear measurements, then you are just guessing that the device is doing what the patient needs it to do.
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