Is this information accessible to all of us? I have three Costco’s within a reasonable driving distance, and I’d happily drive past the closest one to get to the best HA center if I knew which that was.
I’m sort of surprised Costco would rate their own stores. I mean, why hurt business by listing one of your locations as being at the bottom of the pile?
You will have to ask the hearing aid audiologist at the store of your choice where they rank. It is an internal ranking, and not published per se.
It is an internal ranking to evaluate performance by Costco, and not published for customer review, as I understand it.
One of the things I discovered with my Rexton hearing aids purchased via Costco is that the “programs” available for my HAs are kind of locked down. If I had purchased them from a healthcare system (or private audiologist maybe), all of the programming would be available. With my Rextons, there’s a program for tinnitus but when I asked about this for my hearing aids, I was told that Costco didn’t have access to that. BUT… considering that I paid considerably less than what these would have cost me elsewhere, I’m okay with that. (I was frustrated at first because I was hoping my tinnitus would have been diminished some and nothing has changed. My dad had told me that his tinnitus is non-existant when he wears his hearing aids.)
Anyhow, I guess I consider the Costco Hearing Center as a hidden secret that you almost have to “know someone” to find out about. 
If my father-in-law hadn’t gotten his second set at Costco, I’d never have even known how great the prices are. (My dad gets his at no-cost from the VA.)
I do not regard Costco as second rate. I prefer a hearing aid specialist over an audiologist, in my experience they are much more knowledgeable about hearing aids and how they work. In New Jersey where I live, they have usually attended school for at least two years and have to pass an exam to be licensed.
Second, a criticism you often hear about Costco is that you have to wait for appointments. Often this is true, but does not justify paying thousands more.
Third, Costco does follow best practices, and as Dr. Cliff continually points out, this very important.
3 Likes
I believe they offer a great product and terrific service too. Maybe audiologists who cannot compete with their price and service say that. I am giving up my Kirkland 6’s next week and getting the Kirkland 10’s. Have been very pleased over the past 5 years
Hi @Volusiano! I know that you’re an Oticon fan like me. Does Costco sell any HAs like the Oticon More (presumably the best)?
As far as I can tell, despite hearing that some Costco HIS like to tout to their clients that the Bernafon line and the Philips HearLink line are similar to the Oticon OPN or More, I have NOT found that to be true. The fundamental premise of the Oticon OPN and More has been the open paradigm. None of the Costco hearing aids that come from the sister companies of Oticon from the Demant William family (like Bernafon and Philips) operate based on the open paradigm.
1 Like
Amd thé “Open” paradigm means that the hearing aid(s) more or less adjust to the situation without requiring a change of program?
Not really. The open paradigm means that the hearing aids will not attempt to block out surrounding noise aggressively like other traditional hearing aids and do narrow beam forming of the mics to pick up the speech in front only to help with the focus in a static way. By static, I mean even if speech stops, the surrounding noise is still blocked aggressively and you still hear from the front only, because you have chosen a “speech in noise” program.
With the open paradigm, when speech is detected in front, the hearing aids will dynamically do noise suppression very momentarily WHILE speech is going on. But as soon as speech stops, the surrounding noise resumes. So it’s as if the noise is always there and never left, although you can understand speech better despite the perception that the noise never left.
And yes, the hearing aids do adjust to the environment and transitions between environments automatically, so that the same single default program can be used probably 95% of the times in most environment without you as a user having change programs, or without the hearing aids employing some kind of autosense to change programs.
2 Likes
I am new to hearing aids and had a great experience at Costco. The HA industry is extremely secretive with information from the manufactures to the audiologist, information is hidden and hard to find. This includes Costco. Go to the main website and try to find information on hearing aids. Go to a brand website and try to find a comparison of the different levels within the same model, the chart is buried and hard to find. Pricing is non existent and I can rationalize the reasons for not disclosing the pricing.
I made the mistake of registering with the third party insurance carrier associated with my Medicare Advantage plan after my first visit to the audiologist. When I returned for the second visit with the audiologist I was basically told to leave the office even though the audiologist was a vendor for the insurance carrier.
I will have a better evaluation of Costco next Friday after I return for my first tune up. I am keeping track of what is working and areas I am having difficulty hearing. I have some App programming questions too.
I purchased the Kirkland Signature 10 and they work really well with my Samsung S10+.
This depends on the private store setup. Some carry and work on ALL brands, some have a contract with a particular brand. ASK LOTS of questions!!
1 Like
Costco hearing service is perceived as absolutely first rate by me (in Canberra Australia). Hayley gave me a more thorough hearing test than I’ve had from any private clinic (the equal of the test given at the Cochlear clinic). She fitted my ks9’s right first go and made very comfortable ear molds. I’ve used the 180 day refund to return the ks9’s to upgrade to ks10’s (and get $100 back in the process). I couldn’t be happier. For my first hearing aids I had a bad experience with an audiologist who wasn’t good and drove a very fancy car I helped pay for. After that I twice bought Siemens/Signia Pure mid-range (the 5 model out of 3, 5, 7) hearing aids on ebay (bidbybid, Philip Rochester in California, who claimed to sell more HA than anyone else in the world) and programmed them myself. Now I can get the top-model with great service for even less. What is not to like? Private practice audiologists should be scared, very scared.
1 Like
Hi Neil,
well well - Hayley (in Canberra) Is setting up my KS10s 
Small world!
And I agree - she performed an extremely thorough assessment (better than the one I paid the private audi $150 for!) and so-far seems to be excellent!
Had my KS 10’s fitted yesterday, the most thorough hearing assessment I have experienced so far, having had around six in the past 5 years. Glen, the audiologist at the Glasgow branch (hearing impaired himself) was excellent. He also included a full explanation of the aids and a Q&A session.
Too early to make much of a comment on the KS 10’s themselves yet, but so far so good. The trial period here in the UK is 90 not 180 days.
My experiences in California Costco have been good to bad since I found out the pitch is “90 days returns no questions asked” is not at all true.
Let’s face it, as soon as the legislation in 2022 in the states will allow consumers to buy over the counter, all the so called “Haring help front stores” and “ ENT SUGGESTED” specialty stores inside the doctors offices, are going to have a hard time pitching $9,000 devices that are $500 cost.
My take in a capitalist market is that I rule as a consumer, but not in those Costco hearing centers.
On my last pair of hearing aids I was told by a technician that is “not the way it works” when I stated that I am going to try at least 3 brands before I set my eyes on one that works for me in the $2000 price range.
So I asked her, do I chose what’s good for me or you tell me what’s good for me and I just shut up?….(we are not friends in fb anyway)
If the devices have to be destroyed when I return them, that’s the cost of doing business ( I had a business and I understand that part)
Now I was told that, I may not be able to buy hearing aids again at Costco because of me returning two pairs after I decided those were not good.
I prefer not to mention brands and names so that you may form your own opinion rather than been pushed to an overpriced brand for the sake of commissions or a cheap one so you stop bugging the tech with so many questions
Welcome to the forum :). Just so you know this specific policy is not the costco policy and is something that will vary store to store.
Yes, that was my experience with Costco as well. The issue is not so much the technology or the products that are sold at Costco, but the ‘fitters’ as Costco calls them. Here in the USA, most states do not require that they be trained audiologists and that means that you will get some fitters who don’t know very much about fitting the aid to the patient, but are doing what they were trained to do by Costco and as they gain experience, they will learn better how to fit them properly. I had one who had experience in audio, but no real training. In Australia, this may be different. I hope so.
In my experience, they also are not trained particularly well in how to relate to patients; I found them nice as long as I was compliant and the fitting was going well, but once there were issues, they were not nice at all, but tried to brow beat me into accepting the fitting I received. This did not end well and I will never use them again, nor will I recommend them to anyone. Your experience may be different and the requirements and training they receive in Australia may be more stringent and I hope so, since their prices are great in comparison to what audiologists will charge for name brand aids. Just know that buying aids is NOT like buying a car, since there is a long process of fitting the aids to the patient and for the patient to get used to the aids especially when you are a new user. You need a caring experienced credentialed audiologist to work with you.
My challenge is that I smell “sell” from a mile away, because from a $50. to a $1,200 comisión. Trust me, I understand sales, I was a commission sales rep for over 30 years and I understand the pressure to sell.
I have done what you suggest already 4 times in the last 5 years. I have damage in my left ear and specialists plus doctors have diagnosed hearing aids….but a $2,000 pair it’s as good as the $9,000 pair.
Chances are, now I am going to get another reply with the best hearing aid in the world advertisement?