I had an incredibly positive testing today at Costco. This is my fourth time since May this year seeking to obtain HAs. I had a guy named Collin, an HIS with 30+ years experience, over 20 of that running his own dispensing clinic in Oregon and then Montana, now in California at Costco. He has hearing loss from birth defects and has worn HAs for years. I’d guess him to be mid-40s to early 50s.
He asked what HAs I had tested or researched, I mentioned ReSound due to recommendations here. I mentioned an online hearing aid forum with users sharing information and he said that was probably very helpful. I mentioned that I was technical and computer literate, he immediately stated that he really liked working with HA users like that and felt it allows hime to do a better job at meeting their wants and needs.
He then asked it I had looked at colors and types of HAs, I said I was thinking I want RIC with 13 batteries for streaming, and light color to find if dropped. He said we could experiment with domes at fitting to find a balance between occlusion / own voice sound and music. He said he would give me different domes to try as well. I asked if different domes needed different HA settings, he grinned, said “you are informed” and then stated yes, that is why we could experiment during fitting.
He did more tests in this session than I have had before:
1-standard pure tone thresholds in each ear.
2-bone conduction on both sides (I only had 1 at the 3 others, only on one side).
3-word recognition "say the word (two syllable) in each ear.
4-word test with one syllable getting quieter until I could not understand in each ear.
5-most comfortable loudness of tones in each ear.
6-loudness comfort with voice (someone reading until it was too loud) in each ear.
7-someone reading & I could ask for louder / softer until I found the preferred volume level in each ear and then both at once.
He asked about my lifestyle, activities, where I had issues now with hearing now. When I mentioned listening to music now with earbuds 3-6 hours a day he talked about MFI and when I mentioned Android, he pulled a Phone Clip + demo from the cabinet to show me. I asked about sport locks and he said he had noted those due to my active outdoor activities.
He asked why I had come to Costco after the three Audiologist. I said I did not feel that they really listened but were used to people who had no understanding of hearing aids and needed to be told what was best, and did not listen to someone like me who had lots of questions and ideas of what they wanted, rather than being told, “This is what you need.”
He admitted that in his own dispensers years ago he had not said good things about Costco HAs, that the choices were often one or two generations older. He said that now the Costco version were the same generation, and that the aids were locked for Costco brands on non-Costco versioned fitting software. I said that some ENT docs had told me not to go to Costco. He understood, but some now worked closely, referring patients to Costco with the state of the Audiology clinics in the local area.
I have the initial fitting in two weeks and an adjustment appointment two weeks after that. I was going to asked about receiver power, but when he handed me the invoice to check over, I saw he had MP receivers on it already. I had researched and ReSound has LP, MP, HP, and UP. I’m guessing LP is equivalent to 60 and MP is equivalent to 85, so he impressed me there as well.
I have not had a call back from the clinic fitter who ordered the 60 receivers for the OPN 1 from Hearing Revolution. I’ll pursue that tomorrow.
I was just wowed by the Costco HIS today, what a great start. I’ll see how this goes with the OPN vs the Forte 8, but Costco jumped out to a lead today, I must say.
