We have a lot of audiologists in my city and I’ve been using one in particular for four or five years now (I’m using hearing aids for four or five years). I wonder sometimes if my audiologists really know what they’re doing. I really don’t want to go into a lot of detail here.
Are there obvious signs that an audiologist is outstanding or is not so good? Any questions i should ask?
Does your audiologist really listen to you and is even willing to try your suggestions? Does your audiologist take time to explain what is being done while making adjustments. Does the audiologist do REM testing on the fitting of new aids, the changing to different domes, receivers or custom ear molds? If not then move on and find another audiologist.
They don’t tell me much about what they’re doing. I don’t think I’ve ever made any suggestions. I go in, they do their thing, and i go home. When they set me up with a loaner set of hearing aids (same brand but the newest model), they copied and pasted the settings from my current aids to the new ones. They did not do the Real Ear Measurement for the loaners.
When i returned the loaners, i explained several problems i ran into with them and also told them that the highs (cymbals, etc) weren’t as sharp as my old aids and that the “new, improved” background noise reduction (for restaurants and bars) didn’t seem to be any better than my old aids. What did the audi say? Nothing. No explanation, no “let’s try this tweak”. She just listened.
I ask a lot of questions; maybe they find that annoying.
I don’t know how to find someone better. I’m looking for a better audi in a dark room without a flashlight.
If they don’t do REM, don’t listen to you, don’t do what you ask or explain why they can’t it’s time to move on and find one that will.
Good AuD’s are very hard to find. Even harder if you have severe profound loss
Good luck to you in your search.
I think the measurements here are about the result of a prudent time, which means:
REM, but it is not necessarily if the professional drives out good results for me.
I am the one who can help myself determine whether this is a good professional.
For example, a professional program setting does not have a good effect when someone calls me from a few steps to the left or right, and I can never hear the voice calling me.
I was constantly frustrated with that professional’s haid setting focused on narrowing the haid to the person I had in front of me.
I do understand a haid professional sometimes doesn’t want to share information, but it doesn’t matter as soon as good results are delivered,
I was watching the money I spent because I have a limit. Even though this is the best professional, if the price is out of my comfort zone, I will wish that professional good luck.
I don’t look for three legs in a cat; 1, if my hearing aid allows me to get human conversation; 2, if I am not missing out on human interaction; 3, in my comfort zone money spending. In this situation, nothing is broken, which means this haid professional in front of me has everything running smoothly.
Test and trial: I think setting an appointment with other professionals is a good idea. You will find the answer you are looking for.
A loaner is just a loaner, and feedback about it may or may not be useful for the clinician. Usually it’s a courtesy device that the clinician provides pro bono or inexpensively while your hearing aid is away for repair. If it’s a backup device you purchased that’s a different issue, but if a patient tells me about how their loaner is inferior to their own hearing aid I mostly think, “yeah, I squeezed you in between patients on the spot and did the quickest fit that I could to get you something usable, I’m not surprised.” If they tell me things that they LIKE about the loaner, that might be a different issue if I can then apply that to their own hearing aid.
If the audiologist isn’t willing to listen or explain themselves they are usless. But I to be bluntly honest you have to take charge of your life of being a person with hearing loss. I was raised to do my job by following orders from my parents grandparents and even great grandparents. Nit when I went in the Navy and became an electronics technician I was told no ordered to become the person to question every decision and order given when it pertained to the equipment I had to maintain. Well that equipment includes my body and health. We have be proactive about our own well-being. Stop being a passive patient.
Hmmmmmm… and you - the paying customer - are not comfy doing this!? I guess that’d be the deal killer for me, and I’d start looking around for a replacement audi. Other RED flags: if the audi wears a lab coat emblazoned with a single vendor’s logo (e.g., Oticon, Widex, Miracle Ear, etc.) and if the audi says right off, “My goal is to set these up and never see you here again.” (I kid you not, I had such an audi say that to me, and I paid $100 bucks PER VISIT to see her.)
I’ve always thought of my audi as a “partner for life”. Granted, we move, they retire or move away, but my goal is to lock in an audi who really knows my issues and goals. Ideally, they’ll be patient, persistent and go the extra mile for me when needed. I’ve also had loaners set up with my program to use, and found them IDENTICAL to the aids I sent in for repair in terms of programs and settings, so perhaps your loaners weren’t tweaked exactly to match the pair you own. That said, it IS a courtesy for you to get a loaner, and that’s why I always keep my old aids - they just go down the food chain.
REM for me has always been A JOKE. Aids are by no means ready to wear. They need a good 3-4 follow-on adjustments. Perhaps that’s cuz I’ve just grown accustomed to a sound quality that the REM does not recommend? No idea. So patience is needed AND you need to be able to clearly articulate what you like/don’t like/want changed when you meet with your audi. Their time is precious, and the goal is to get to your optimum hearing reality in terms of quality of sound and speech comprehension.
It can’t hurt to go 'round town to check out a few other audis, but beware that your records may follow you, and if you live in a small area, word may get around that you “shop” the audis. If cost is a big concern, Costco may work, but I’ve always invested in a LIFE-LONG relationship with my audis. Good luck to you! Keep us posted.
@devicktimothy01 I wad raised by a Navy veteran, my dad, i was told to follow orders but be willing to question anything that didn’t make sense. I went in the Navy and became an electronics technician, and was told to question everything that could possibly damage the equipment I was charged with keeping working. I was also taught how to research and troubleshoot. I don’t have a college degree, but have more college credits than most PHDs. I am 77 and i still research, take classes, or monitor classes. Now days, well since i found out about my hearing loss and blood pressure issues i have researched my hearing loss and health. I question every decision that my doctors make. I am proactive with my hearing loss and aids, I make suggestions to my audiologist and even to my medical doctors. I haven’t ever been hospitalized and my worst illness has been a mild flu. I control my blood pressure by having properly adjusted hearing aids, controlling my weight and not eating processed food, fast food, and not drinking soft drinks. I don’t take prescription drugs. They may mask over one issue and cause a lot of other issues. I go to my doctors with my research material in hand, so I can prove my side of the issue.
Yes i have had the doctors that say it’s my way or the highway and I walked out and never looked back. We as individuals are responsible for our on lives.
They were not his aids they were loaners… how much effort do you expect on a loaner pair that this guy will never see again. Sounds like the AuD should reconsider his loaner program.
I did the loaners because i wanted to test drive the oticon intents. I wanted to see if the new features would help me in noisy environments and to see if the sound made music sound better.
So they weren’t a temporary replacement for my aids while being repaired. I wanted to test drive them before spending $7k on new aids and i explained that to my audi.
Oh, apologies, that’s a difference in language that tripped me up. I would have called that a demo.
Typically we’d do a lot to try to make new hearing aids work well for a patient, including REM and various adjustments. Did she just shrug and take them back? Did she indicated that she didn’t feel it was a worthwhile upgrade? Or is she the one who recommended it in the first place?
Just another thought I had- If the clinic you go to has another AuD attached to this clinic try using them for your next visit. If you still don’t get any satisfaction, don’t buy new hearing aids through that clinic. Find another clinic to do so.
You can always go and try Costco for your hearing aids. They have good brands and renamed them.
That’s a demo, I’ve had staff do similar in the past, ie, not take on the (upgrade) intent of the trial and just quickly fit following an annual check.
It’s frustrating as hell for both the business owner and the client if the person doing the fitting isn’t on the ball. I might as well just throw a wad of notes out of the door on top of their wages and running costs of the premises. This is a reason why some audiologists have careers at several locations.
If they are the only audiologist at that location: go elsewhere. If there’s other choices, ask to see their colleague/boss. You’re a perfect customer, it’s down to them to find you the right aid and fit it properly. They should really have been building a relationship with you as a client that would make you confident enough to push for this level of service.
I asked to try the oticon intent to see if it helped with speech in noisy environments. There were several other advantages in the intents that oticon advertised so i thought i’d give them a try. One of their audis pointed out that my current oticon opn s are five years old and will probably need to be replaced soon (and they have been acting up lately).
when i returned the intents i told her that the highs were less then my opn s and that i didn’t see any difference in conversation in noisy environments. She didn’t say a thing or suggest that maybe they needed some tweaking.
Ask polite questions, study reactions! My first (National Health) audiologist, now a department senior, glazed over when I ventured a music-related question… and never in several years informed me that the aids fitted had a Music option. I had pointed out that fidelity is important to me as a trained narrative recordist and music lover. Lifestyle is something a good Audio will ask you about.
Several much better refits later with, as it happens, all female clinicians, brought far warmer encounters, more enquiring on both sides - and they didn’t object to ‘innocent’ questions such as how much can you really discover by assessing hearing on single tones!
The most recent (I adore her!) even told me she regretted her lack of training in fitting to make the best of music, but invited me to bring in a keyboard and to sing, whisper and shout a bit so that she could adjust the HA’s tone and dynamics to real life, with feedback from me. It took just 30 minutes, and the outcome was wonderful both on music and speech.