I currently work for Lucid Hearing which fits hearing aids in Sam’s Clubs. I am a salaried fitter as are all our audis/specialists.
Before this, I worked for a Miracle-Ear franchise wherein the pay was commission based, so I have experience in both settings.
Personally, I prefer the salaried position, because I don’t have the pressure of fitting the highest priced hearing aids in order to provide for my family. I also now have benefits, and I’m getting to be the age where it’s time to find a full-time doctor, preferably one with tiny hands.
I openly tell my patients that I don’t work on commission (which many have said they are happy to hear), and this allows me to focus on my job of helping them hear better. Period. I will tell them what they need, not what I hope to sell them. If they don’t need the top-of-the-line, whiz bang model, I’ll tell them so. Additionally, patients know when they’re being sold. They give in, because we have counseled them on the necessity of improving their hearing health, but they don’t like it. They don’t like going in for adjustments after their hearing aids are a couple of years old, because they know that they’re going to start getting sales pressure to upgrade. I hear this all the time. I bet at least 3-4 times per month, I get a new patient who complains about going to their provider, because “he’s just gonna try to sell me again…and I’ve only had these $8,000 hearing aids for 3 years.”
Even in a salaried hearing center we still have metrics to try to meet: Comp with last year, income to budget, number of tests given, number of hearing aids fitted. There is still accountability. BUT, I don’t have to worry about things such as trying to fill my schedule with sales opportunities at the possible expense of current patients who need aftercare.
I cannot subscribe to this notion that “commissioned providers are better providers.” We don’t ask if our physicians, dentists, veterinarians, EMTs are commission-based workers.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand why the industry is predominantly commission-based, I’m just saying I don’t believe that necessarily makes for better providers.