ReSound Donates Hearing Aids To Help America Hear Program

If you can’t afford hearing aids but need them, you may still be able to get them if you qualify. The Foundation for Sight & Sound is partnering with leading hearing-aid manufacturer ReSound to beef up its Help America Hear Program to provide more free hearing aids and proper hearing-aid fittings to people who can’t afford them. ReSound, the exclusive supplier of hearing aids to the program, has donated hundreds of pairs of hearing aids for people who meet financial eligibility requirements after applying on the Help America Hear web site.

The hearing aid industry manufacturers often define their work as a social mission to improve people’s lives by improving their ability to socialize and communicate. But it’s often hard to reconcile the claim that they are on a social mission when so many of their products are priced so high that only the very wealthiest of world’s consumers can afford them. Their social credibility would be higher if more manufacturers put their money where their mouth is by making a real effort to give something back, like ReSound and another notable example, Starkey Laboratories. Starkey Labs founder William Austen, whose Starkey Hearing Foundation has led the way for many years by raising millions of dollars to fund the donation of of hearing aids to tens of thousand of people around the world, says his foundation gives away 100,000 hearing aids a year, compared to the 1 million hearing aids sold annually by Starkey Labs: “It’s 10 percent, so it’s like tithing,” he told the Clark, County, WA, Columbian in an interview last Fall.

And the opportunity to give back doesn’t end with the manufacturers. There are millions of hearing aids sitting unused in bureau drawers around the world. Many of them could be reconditioned and provide a needy person with the gift of hearing. If you have a pair gathering dust in your drawer, you can donate them to Starkey’s Hear Now program. Another hearing aid manufacturer, America Hears, in the past has offered discounts to consumers who trade in their hearing aids and donates the used aids to a Rotary International Foundation program, Help the Children Hear.

America Hears, Inc. Upgrades Entire Hearing-Aid Line to 32-Channel Digital Signal Processors

With its new Independence Family of hearing aids, America Hears, Inc., has upgraded its entire family of digital hearing aids to 32-channel digital signal processors. And, in line with its stated goal of remaining the price/performance leader among hearing-aid manufacturers, it has set prices ranging from $799 to $1,299 per hearing aid, less than half the price charged by other name-brand manufacturers of comparable-performance hearing aids. Disclosure: I wear a pair of America Hears custom hearing aids and am incredibly happy with them. I also intend to get a pair of the new Independence hearing-aid models to hear for myself the improvements the company has made in its sound-processing system.

The new, high-performance, low-cost hearing aids feature a Voyageur II digital signal processor from Sound Design Technologies, Ltd., that processes 32 independent streams of sound to provide tuned amplification at the broadest range of frequencies available in the industry. And the Advanced Dynamic Range Optimization (ADRO) sound processing software from Dynamic Hearing Pty Ltd. features a new, improved enhance speech in noise (ESIN) algorithm that amplifies the high-frequency sounds that comprise 60% of speech, attacking the problem of hearing speech in noisy environments such as crowded restaurants.

The America Hears direct-from-factory-to-consumer Internet sales model enables the company to keep costs to the end user low. At the same time, its user-adjustable programming software enables you to take charge of tuning your own hearing aids after they are programmed to your audiogram at the factory.

The America Hears Independence hearing aids come in a range of styles, from receiver-in-the-canal, to open fit, to behind the ear, to custom models. There are up to four user-selectable four program settings for different listening environments. And it features data logging–the ability to record and track the output of your hearing aids over time to understand how they are being used in different listening environments.

Opinion: Hearing Aid Pricing Should be More Transparent

The recent Consumer Reports survey of hearing-aid pricing and fitting practices highlighted a growing problem for the hearing-aid industry. Increasingly, consumers are starting to wonder why a few small digital components that can be purchased individually from wholesalers for tens of dollars each (digital signal processor, microphone, amplifier and software) end up in a set of hearing aids that can cost thousands of dollars. It’s time for more transparent pricing in the hearing-aid industry. Digital technologies are becoming standardized, and the cost of components continues to decline.

And there are good alternatives to the established brands now for cost-conscious, tech-savvy do-it-yourselfers: America Hears, which builds top-quality digital hearing aids and sells them online, programs them to your audiogram at the factory, sends you the software to make your own adjustments, and has licensed audiologists at the end of the phone to give you as much help as you need. All for under $1,000 a hearing aid. But most other comparable top-quality digital hearing aids still cost two to three times that much. Why? The answer is in the cost of the service required to get a custom fit. If you don’t dare do it yourself, a good audiologist truly is worth his or her weight in gold, especially if your hearing profile is complex. Getting a comfortable fit and programming assistance tuned to your audiogram usually requires multiple tries and is seemingly as much art as science. An audiologist who will stick with you through multiple adjustments is worth a significant mark-up. But it’s fair to question the value of the markup above and beyond the wholesale price of the basic hearing instrument components.

The hearing industry for the most part remains stuck in a very old distribution model which has restricted growth and shut off affordable options for a large segment of potential buyers in need of hearing assistance. Today most hearing aids are sold by audiologists who charge a single price for the hearing instrument and the service they provide. They give you a hearing test and fit you with hearing aids that meet your specific needs. Their invoice most often does not include line items for the cost of the hearing test, for the ear molds, for the hearing instrument, or for follow-up service. If it did, you would see there’s a lot of cost built into the time they put into helping you out. If you don’t need much help, they make a lot of money. If you are a difficult case requiring a lot of adjustments, they make less. This model worked well until recently. But now, digital technologies are making many more options available for people with different kinds of hearing loss. Open-fit designs mean many consumers don’t need an earmold fitting, and good digital amplification is making it possible for many people to get the hearing assistance they need from low-cost manufacturers selling direct, over the counter. One manufacturer, Songbird Hearing, is even offering disposable hearing aids that you can buy direct from their web site to address mild hearing loss, without a hearing test if you sign a medical waiver. Read more

Back in Business, After a Long Break

I’ve been letting people know I’m re-booting my Hearing Mojo hearing-loss blog after having taken a long break from posting new entries. In the past year I’ve let this blog lie dormant as I’ve gone completely “mainstream” with my communications consulting business, Aquarius Advisers. We have been successful, with a number of happy high-technology clients, but it’s been an education in coping with hearing loss in the business world. During my blogging hiatus, I’ve stayed current with the new developments in the world of hearing loss and hearing aids, including time spent consulting with America Hears, Inc., the leading online manufacturer and marketer of premium digital hearing aids. However, I’ve sorely missed writing about this industry and all the issues involved with it, so I intend to start doing so again. I’m still managing a transition to a new blogging platform (the new look and feel are enabled by the WordPress open-source content management system, as opposed to the Moveable Type platform I used in the past). So it might take me a while to get the new platform exposed to the search engines. But I’m starting to write again as of now. A lot has happened in my absence, and I intend to catch people up with all I’ve seen and heard, starting with my visit earlier this month to the American Academy of Audiology (AAA) AudiologyNow 2009 conference.

You Can Trade In Old Hearing Aids For $200 Back From America Hears

If you don’t want to grind up your old unused hearing aids in a blender as seen in the funny Blendtec video, and if you have already made your charitable donations for the year and don’t feel you need to donate them for recycling, there is another way to get them out of your drawer: you can trade in two of your old aids for $200 off the price of a pair of new digital hearing aids from America Hears. Read more

Yes, You Can Buy Premium-Quality Digital Hearing Aids Over The Internet

I recently got a new pair of hearing aids, and I’m as excited as if I’d just bought a new sports car. One of the reasons I’m so happy is that I was able to take ownership of the process for the first time by getting them from America Hears, Inc., which sells and supports hearing-aid consumers directly over the internet. Read more