Don t end up being an Unhappy Statistic!

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Spencer Park
5 years ago
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1 Don t end up being an Unhappy Statistic! It was recently reported that on average 1 out of 3 people who are ﬁtted with hearing aids in Australia, end up not using them over the long term. That could mean that thousands of dollars of your hard earned money could be ending up in the drawer. Fortunately the news is not all bad. After a recent survey of 3,721 of our clients, we discovered that you can and should expect much better numbers. Only 1 in 23 (4.36%) of our clients end up not using their hearing aids. This is 750% better than the industry average of 33%. We have also identiﬁed ways of improving that number further. This is great news as hearing aids have been shown to improve quality of life, increase earning ability by around $10,000 per year, and reduce negative emotional eﬀects like stress, depression and anxiety. They can also improve relationships and recently evidence has come to light suggesting that hearing devices might help to reduce cognitive decline and dementia. So, being ﬁtted with hearing aids that help you for as long as possible is critical for your health and wellbeing. We are unable to help everyone, but that does not mean we want to leave you to fend for yourself. Below you ll ﬁnd a step by step guide designed to give you the best chance of achieving a great long term outcome with Hearing Aids in Australia. How can you avoid being one of the unlucky ones? None of us want to spend thousands of dollars on a solution that will just end up in the drawer over time. Our unique processes are designed to deliver much higher usage rates than the reported industry average. Using these, and the results of our study, we have come up with the nine (9) top considerations to ensure you end up with a hearing solution which you will use over the long term. 1 The Choice of company you work with appears to be the most critical factor for long term success The clearest conclusion from the study is that your choice of clinic is more important than any other decision.

2 I say this because if 1 in 3 (33%) is the industry average measured across many clinics and our non-use rate is only 4.36% and falling, then it must mean that some companies are also doing much worse than the reported industry average! So it is critical you ask if the clinic you choose has this data available or you risk being just another statistic. Our survey did not show any signiﬁcant clinician variables between clinic locations. So, this means that the processes may be more important that the clinician you work with. It might also be helpful if the clinic you choose has a clear client Journey in place like this one. It is also important to note that making use of a service that refers you to one of their partners is risky in this respect as you have NO idea how the partner clinic performs regarding this statistic. There are many examples of these, lead generation sites, that say they have many clinics, yet they refer to other external clinics. Click here to read an article on these practices. 2 The hearing aid you choose needs to be capable of delivering optimal results over the long term No matter how good the service is that the clinic provides, if the hearing aid is the wrong one, then nothing will dramatically improve your outcome. Previous research showed that the main reasons for non-use over the long term was due to hearing aid performance issues, especially in noise, as well as comfort of ﬁt and sound quality problems. As such, selecting the right hearing aid that will work well for you speciﬁcally in quiet and in noise, while delivering great sound quality and comfort is critical. Unfortunately, the Industry as a whole relies on average performance in noise when selecting hearing aids. The typical assumption is that the more noise you ﬁnd yourself in the more you need to pay in order to do well with hearing aids. This is simply not true as no one is perfectly average. What is worse is that this puts many people oﬀ getting hearing aids in the ﬁrst place, as they cannot aﬀord what they really need (based on the recommendations made by the clinician). On the ﬂip side, those who have really poor capabilites in noise, could become really upset when even the most expensive hearing aids don t work for them, despite being told only the best will do. There people often give up on hearing aids due to unrealistic expectations.

3 Furthermore, some clinics only deal with limited ranges of hearing aids. This may mean that the clinician is powerless to even offer you the best hearing aid suited to your needs in some cases as they simply cannot provide it. Add to this the fact that most modern hearing aids are designed to give instantly impressive results, yet true performance only comes to light after a couple of months of use. This means that even a successful short term trial won t be any guarantee of long term success. Over the last 8 years, Value Hearing has developed a very Unique Assessment process where we help you find the one hearing aid out of the hundreds available to best suit your needs over the long term. We test your hearing ability in quiet AND in noise. We then use your unique performance scores to find the match, out of a large range of hearing aid choices, most likely to deliver what you need over the long term. You then have 60 days to use this selected device in your real life environments and have the option to exchange if we find the initial selection lacks in any way (we typically find the correct one on the first try in 94% of cases). We back this up with a 60 day money back guarantee for those not quite ready to proceed over the long term. You can book our hearing aid assessment here at no charge if you are over 26 and still working or a self-funded retiree (we do not work with the pension/ohs system). Even if you don t plan to work with us in the long term, at least you ll receive an unbiased recommendation aimed at immediate and long term success. If you can t make use of this offer, at minimum choose a company that: 1. Is independent (not manufacturer owned) and Australian Owned; 2. Offers a range of products from big name manufacturers e.g. Phonak, Oticon, Signia (Siemens), Widex, Unitron etc.; 3. Assesses your hearing in noise and in quiet; 4. Offers sufficiently long money back periods and guarantees. We have an article that helps you find your best hearing solution here. 3 The company you work with needs to have regular active recalls in place and you need to actually make use of them Of the 4.36% of the survey respondents who do not wear their hearing aids, 52% of this group noted that they did not make use of our automated 6 monthly recalls.

4 The results also revealed that those who did in fact make use of their recalls wore their hearing aids for more hours per day on average, thus receiving more benefit. What this tells us is that regular visits to the clinician (six monthly is recommended) are critical. Unfortunately many companies leave it to the self-funded client to contact them if they require help. In many cases this does not happen as the hearing aids performance gradually deteriorates until it ends up in the drawer. So make sure you either pick a company that has an active recall system in place or make a recurring note on your calendar to see a hearing professional at least twice a year. We take it one step further, recalling our clients for a complimentary visit to have their hearing aids serviced just before the warranty expires. This ensures you get the best out of your hearing aids even after the warranty has expired (warranty should be at least three years). We take care of remembering when this is due for you and remind you around three months before this date. 4 Only ever buy the latest hearing aids Our survey data showed that on average, our client non-use rates have declined between 2010 and This may be due to two factors: Firstly, we have proactively improved our systems and processes aimed at delivering better outcomes over time. Secondly, hearing aid technology improves in sound quality and performance over time as more modern versions are released. You can read all about the must have hearing aid features here. As such we only ever supply the latest hearing aids. We even go as far as offering you the opportunity to upgrade to the latest models if new ones are released within 60 days of them first being fitted. Unfortunately some companies, especially those with their own branded models, often use hearing aids that are one or two generations out of date. This makes their pricing quite attractive as they can purchase them for next to nothing from suppliers. This places your long term outcome at risk due to poorer performance in noise and less than optimal sound quality compared to more modern technology. These self-branded models are sometimes even defeatured, compared to the manufacturer branded models that they are based on, which could negatively affect performance even more. There is no point saving money if the solution still does not deliver optimally over the long term. So, only ever buy the latest hearing aids if you can afford them.

5 5 Certain hearing aid brands perform worse than others Our study showed that with certain brands you were up to 190% MORE likely to end up not using them compared to the average, while with other brands you were 9 to 12% LESS likely than average to give up using them over the long term. We use this kind of data to help make decisions on which models will most likely deliver the best performance over time for our clients. See if the clinic you are considering has such data available to them to help select the best models for your needs. Ironically some companies only deal with the brands we found to be worse in regards to long term customer success. So this is another reason to beware of companies working with a limited number brands. 6 Certain hearing aid styles perform worse than others We also found that certain styles of hearing aids performed much worse over the long term than other styles. For instance choosing one particular style of hearing aid means you are 36% more likely to stop using it over the long term compared to the average. With another you are 63% less likely to stop wearing your hearing aid over the long term. This information is used in clinic to help improve long term usage rates for our clients. As a guide, don t sacriﬁce performance for size, especially when it comes to the very smallest of hearing aids. We have an article on this exact issue here. 7 Being only ﬁtted in one ear might aﬀect your usage rates If you choose to be ﬁtted only in one ear you are 29% more likely compared to the average to stop using the hearing aid over the long term. On the other side, if you are ﬁtted in both ears, even if one is a CROS device, then you are 2% less likely, compared to the average, to stop using your hearing aids over the long term. So whenever possible, for your optimal long term beneﬁt, use a hearing device (Aid or CROS) matched to the other side. 8 The clinician needs to help you, help yourself It is important that you work with a company that empowers you to ﬁrstly understand your hearing loss, but also helps you understand how to get the very best out of your chosen

6 hearing solution. That is why we spend 90 minutes during our initial assessment to ensure our clients are empowered to completely understand their hearing loss and all the options available to them. We also have guides like these available to help you get the most out of your chosen solution. 12 Company client satisfaction ratings may potentially gauge how well a company performs in regards to usage rates. Looking at the number of online testimonials for a clinic or company as well as considering their Google ratings or Facebook ratings and even NPS scores may give you some indication of how well the company does in regards to long term client beneﬁt and hearing aid usage. In particular, be on the lookout for those testimonials from long time wearers as research suggest most clients who stop using their aids usually do so around 12 months to two 2 years after being ﬁrst ﬁtted with their aids. Obviously results diﬀer from client to client. Examining reviews and testimonials might be a shortcut to ﬁnding a clinic that is focussed on long term beneﬁt if the usage data is not available. A company that does not any have testimonials or only has testimonials from recently ﬁtted clients, may suggest a focus on the initial sale, rather than your long term results. Clinics that survey their clients regularly may be a good indication of an outcome focus, rather than product focus. Bonus Tip: Do not purchase hearing aids online. Despite the expected cost savings that may be had from purchasing online, you are far from guaranteed long term success. I would go as far as saying that even the worst performing clinic setting would likely provide better outcomes compared to the complete lack of support provided online. Obviously many online retailers are just focussed on the sale of the product, which is also reﬂected in their lack of follow-up services. We have heard some horror stories about these grey imports. There were reports of refurbished hearing aids that had been written oﬀ during repairs, collected from bins and being sold cheaply online. Others have been in the warehouse for so long that they end up being provided to the user with no remaining warranty at all. Most have only a one year international warranty.

7 You are also likely to find no local clinician to support you as there are liability issues attached to making changes to an aid bought online. So unless you are absolutely certain of what you are doing and don t mind risking long term success for short term savings, then do not purchase hearing aids online. You can find a whole page dedicated to the risks of buying online here

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