I had the exact same experience with Amplifon when I decided that the new Phonak Slims were going to be my next HAs. I got the same response and had to wait for a year for Amplifon to get enough feedback requests to even consider offering them.
Bottom line, I wound up avoiding Amplifon altogether (my previous post below). Maybe you could try this approach with your own audi!
Time to open this one up again…real brief though! As those who are into this concept may already know, Phonak has now released their slim line as Lumity Slim. The earlier concept was based on the Paradise OS but this brings the new offering up to Phonak’s current highline model.
As always, the insurance companies take a long time to add new offerings to their line-ups. So I have proposed that I pay my audi what my insurance co-pay would cost, giving him far more than he would get from the insurance company, and maybe reducing some of the variable costs he incurs to bridge the gap. We’ll see how that plays out!
Got a call from my audi just now. The deal is on. I’ll be buying these Lumity Slims for just the cost I’d pay anyway to insurance. The difference on his book is not having to cover free office visits (something that is key to many patients, but which I won’t need for many reasons). I’m going to negotiate that the deal includes one followup visit, in case the programming is just plain inaccurate, but I also don’t anticipate that to be a problem since he programmed my current Marvels to my satisfaction.
My hearing profile is not like some folks who have more severe loss and require the extra support. I’ve been able to tweek my HAs pretty well using the Phonak app, and have the DIY route to fall back on if all else fails. So I am psyched to be able to get these HAs at what I’d be paying, regardless of their source. My audi is smart enough to know that this is a better deal for him than the insurance stipend he would get if I waited for the insurance company to finally even offer the new HAs (no timeframe, at present) and paid them the same I will pay him anyway. Win-win.