Forgive the deliberately provocative title! I have a story to give some context and then some questions.
I’m in the UK. My father has lost some of his hearing so he arranged to get some hearing aids via the NHS, which (as I understand it) involved going to an audiologist and getting some entry level hearing aids. He lives alone but we see him every week and he only uses the hearing aids when he’s in company. They seemed to be forever running out of batteries and he didn’t seem very satisfied with them, so I looked into getting some better hearing aids.
Something you should know about my father is he’s very frugal and will never allow anyone to spend any money on him. When I bought him a TV last year I pretended that I was given it by a friend! So when it came to hearing aids I decided to buy some Resound Quattro Linx on eBay for £300 rather than spending £4,000 via an audiologist. He seemed happier with these ones, but then one of them stopped charging so I sent it off for repair via Keep Hearing for £120.
The good news is that the hearing aid was replaced with a new one. The bad news is that it was configured as a Right hearing aid instead of Left, which means I had two Right hearing aids which couldn’t be paired as a pair. Resound wouldn’t configure them, saying that I had to go through my audiologist, which we don’t have.
I’ll admit that I got the sense that this felt like a bit of a scam. £4,000 for the hearing aids; £2,000 for a replacement via an audiologist; my father would have to travel to someone to get them set up; no customer configuration. In my mind (and I know this will offend a few people here) they weren’t so different to my airpods which have great amplification and are ready to go out of the box.
So I’m left with two right hearing aids which can’t be paired nor configured without some software. I ended up here and was thrilled to find that I could configure them myself.
But I also recognise that there might be more to audiology than I first thought. I see the REM process with fancy equipment which tailors the hearing aid specifically for a person’s hearing. And I hear that incorrect setup could damage someone’s hearing.
My current feeling is that DIY setup will get me to about 80% of where an an audiologist would get to, but for about 10% of the cost. Does that seem about right?