But doesn’t every patient need a hearing aid tailored to their own hearing loss (and ear shape)? Mrs. H has hearing difficulties and purchased these off-the-shelf hearing amplifiers, which sucked ass (didn’t help her hear any better in the low register, and everything else was so loud she could hear the electricity moving through the wires in our house). So in future she’ll be able to buy exactly what she needs based on her audiologist’s recommendation? Isn’t that the textbook definition of a prescription device?
As I read the article, modern tech is about to deliver user-adjustable amplifiers. So your wife could now buy a new version of the suck-ass amplifiers she did buy, then tune the frequency response herself with help of an app. So acting as her own audiologist.
Meanwhile, the cheapest of these new devices will be a LOT cheaper than reasonably full-featured hearing aids.
Does the audiologist need to be licensed by the government? If yes, then I suppose the recommendation would meet the definition of “prescription”, and would need to be written on a specific sort of form. But if audiologists do NOT need licensing, then the recommendation is nothing more than a recommendation.
You’ve (OP) have it backwards. What you say in @Keeve’s quote is current practice: See a licensed audiologist and get a customized hearing aid through their efforts.
What’s changing is what you can do without a licensed audiologist.
Apparently, one of the differences between hearing aids and amplifiers is that the amplifier amplifies all sounds without any differentiation while hearing aids I including the OTC ones) only amplify the specific frequencies a person has trouble hearing.
Only if there is a requirement to see an audiologist - and my understanding is that there will be no such requirement for OTC hearing aids. Without that requirement, a recommendation from an audiologist is no more a prescription than a doctor recommending that I take acetaminophen for a fever is a prescription - even if it is written on a prescription pad.
What many people do not understand is people with a hearing loss can still hear. It is just that we can not hear all frequencies. That makes it harder to understand. We hear a word then have to process just what that word was. As an example. take a written sentence remove all the e’s, i’s, or both. Nows try and read that sentence. I want my hearing aids to only amplify the frequencies that I have a hard time hearing. that is put most of the es and i’s back in the sentences.
I’ll give an example: My hearing loss is still moderate, but it is clearly getting worse. I got my hearing aids in January, but I woke up early a few days ago and had not put them in yet. Then my phone’s alarm clock went off, and I was in another room. I could hear the alarm, but it was using a different tune that I had never heard before! I went over to the phone to check it out, and when I got close enough, I realized that it was playing the same tune as always, but certain notes were inaudible to my newly degraded hearing from the other room.
As I understand, the new OTC tech includes the app (or whatever) to tune the earpiece the same as an audiologist would. I assume it goes something like this:
“Now playing 4000Hz. adjust this slider on the screen until you hear beeps that match the square on the screen flashing…”
“Now playing 5000Hz…”
You adjust it yourself until the beeps are loud enough. If you have problems, re-adjust. If you can never hear, or this confuses you, well then you pay the audiologist to give you a test… where he plays tones at 4000Hz, then 5000Hz, etc. When I took hearing tests, it was basically “push the button when you hear the tone.” The tone would creep up from inaudible to audible and back down. This indicated what volume your hearing could detect (or not) at each frequency.
The computer is doing for them what it did for travel agents, real estate agents, long distance phone revenue, typing pools, telephone operators, newspapers, and others - turning a big lucrative job pool into a niche service. Yes, most should be worried.
I don’t think so. To tune a hearing aid at it’s best takes a little more than a DYI. The audiologists not only sets the hearing aids but also has the equipment to test the settings. After the hearing aids are adjusted and the customer puts the aids on they will put a microphone in the ear canal and test the hearing aid to be sure the aids are producing the right frequencies at a proper volume. And there is also comming back to fine tune them ever so slight.
The new hearing aids have two micro chips in them. They are minicomputers.
Last year, Bose and Lexie unveiled their own OTC hearing aids with the SoundControl lineup, and launched the first B1 model for $900 a couple of days ago.
Hopefully we will shortly get some reports here from early buyers?
I know what hearing aids do (specific sound frequencies) what I don’t understand is what makes them so much different from a modern pair of earbuds that they should cost $900 these days. It seems like (to me) that they should be hanging on the rack in the electronics/entertainment section of walmart. Skull Candy brand hearing aids as it might one day be.
They are more than just ear buds for specific frequencies. They now contain two chips and communicate between each other. They are directional. that is if the sound is on the right side of the person, then the hearing aid in the right ear will increase the sound more than thee left. With my new hearing aids I can now locate where a sound is coming from.
Also ear buds by blue tooth play the music in your ear. Hearing aids will also do this. But for back ground noise only specific frequencies will have their levels increased. Plus the hearing aid not only has a “speaker” it also has an microphone. Plus they have to be programed to eliminate feedback. A good hearing aid is so much more than just a earbud.
IIRC there are now ear buds that have (some) noise cancelling so include a microphone to listen for ambient noise. I presume an equalizer function to adjust levels of different frequencies is a standard high end consumer audio function, and so the OTC hearing aids would be not much different from a ear bud in this regard.
While an audiologist may be able to fine-tune good hearing aids to the nth degree, the question is whether the significant section of the population with a medical finance issue will simply want something that works “good enough”.
Again, audiologists may not disappear, but like many other tech-modified real world applications, they desperate will be able to dispense with that expense… I wonder how long before medical insurance starts to demand more complex symptoms before they will cover the higher priced services.