Quote:
Originally Posted by biker1
Please cite some references to support your claims. Do you have any clue as to the actual costs associated with the design, manufacture, and support of hearing aids? Without some real numbers, you are merely speculating. I am pretty sure you are not an engineer.
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You very well may be right. My first pair were fitted by an audiologist and they did very well. Cost for all out of pocket, about five thousand dollars. (two aids) After five or so years my husband encouraged me to be checked again and see what the new technology was, so I returned to the same practice but a different audiologist. My first pair of aids were analog. The next were digital. There was no absence of tweaking and none of technology and they had things that cut back sound in a car or in a crowded room. They did not work well at all. I went back several times and no help. (This pair cost $6000.) I started wearing my old pair of analogs because I had complete faith in the practice and thought they had fitted me to their best ability. It was owned by a daughter of a long time friend. I wore my old analogs about ten years, one ceased working and so I just wore one. I am old school and I refused to throw that much money away. (They no longer made analogs)
I finally went to The Villages Ear. My husbands company had some kind of deal with a hearing aid company, but I didn't like their pushy calls. So I went to The Villages Ear on the advice of a poster on this forum who I trusted. I said ...Look. I don't really trust you, but I have this deal and it pays $2500 for both ears. They were great. I have a pair of aids that really work and they cost much less than the other two and I was seen a total of eight times until I said it couldn't get any better.
They are amplifiers. There is leeway in pricing. There are many in the hearing aid industry that will make as much money as they can on you. I am a good capitalist girl who likes to see people make money but I don't like them to hit a home run on me.
Oh..I almost forgot. Daughter one has a degree in Audiology from Miami, Ohio. She never used it. Made a career doing something else.